http://developer.amd.com/documentation/articles/Pages/OpenCL-Optimization-Case-Study.aspx
This article discusses performance optimizations for AMD GPUs and CPUs using as a case study a simple, yet widely used computationally intensive kernel: Diagonal Sparse Matrix Vector Multiplication. We look at several topics which come up during OpenCL™ performance optimization and apply them to our case study:
- Translating C code to OpenCL™
- Choosing data structures for dense, aligned memory accesses
- Using local, on-chip memory
- Vectorizing the computation for higher efficiency
- Using OpenCL™ images to improve effective memory bandwidth
- Parallelism for multicore processors
At the end of our journey, we'll have a high-performance kernel for both the AMD Radeon™ HD 5870 GPU, as well as the AMD Phenom™ II X4 965 CPU.
OpenCL™ allows developers to write portable, high-performance code that can target both GPUs and CPUs. OpenCL™ unlocks the performance capabilities of today's parallel processors, although, as with any other programming environment, achieving high performance requires careful attention to how the code is mapped to the hardware platform and executed. Since performance is a prime motivation for using OpenCL™, performance optimization is a natural part of learning how to program in OpenCL™.
