Cauldron 2013 - Impact of Different Compiler Options on Energy Consumption
Channel: Diego Novillo
Date: 2013-07-23

Presenter: James Pallister

Abstract:
This talk describes an extensive study into how compiler optimization affects the
energy usage of benchmarks on different platforms. We use an fractional factorial
design to explore the energy consumption of 87 optimizations GCC performs
when compiling 10 benchmarks for five different embedded platforms. Hardware
power measurements on each platform are taken to ensure all architectural
effects on the energy are captured and that no information is lost due to
inaccurate or incomplete models.
We find that in the majority of cases execution time and energy consumption are
highly correlated, but the effect a particular optimization may have is non-trivial
due to its interactions with other optimizations. There is no one optimization that
is universally positive for run-time or energy consumption, as the structure of the
benchmark heavily influences the optimization's effectiveness.
This talk presents the results and conclusions gain from the project we introduced
last year at the previous GNU Tools Cauldron.