[Numpy-discussion] performance matrix multiplication vs. matlab

[David Paul Reichert]

Thanks for the replies so far.

I had already tested using an already transposed matrix in the loop,
it didn't make any difference. Oh and btw, I'm on (Scientific) Linux.

I used the Enthought distribution, but I guess I'll have to get
my hands dirty and try to get that Atlas thing working (I'm not
a Linux expert though). My simulations pretty much consist of
matrix multiplications, so if I don't get rid of that factor 5,
I pretty much have to get back to Matlab.

When you said Atlas is going to be optimized for my system, does
that mean I should compile everything on each machine separately?
I.e. I have a not-so-great desktop machine and one of those bigger
multicore things available...

Cheers

David



Quoting David Cournapeau <david at ar.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp>:

> David Warde-Farley wrote:
>> On 4-Jun-09, at 5:03 PM, Anne Archibald wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Apart from the implementation issues people have chimed in about
>>> already, it's worth noting that the speed of matrix multiplication
>>> depends on the memory layout of the matrices. So generating B instead
>>> directly as a 100 by 500 matrix might affect the speed substantially
>>> (I'm not sure in which direction). If MATLAB's matrices have a
>>> different memory order, that might be a factor as well.
>>>
>>
>> AFAIK Matlab matrices are always Fortran ordered.
>>
>> Does anyone know if the defaults on Mac OS X (vecLib/Accelerate)
>> support multicore? Is there any sense in compiling ATLAS on OS X (I
>> know it can be done)?
>>
>
> It may be worthwhile if you use a recent gcc and recent ATLAS.
> Multithread support is supposed to be much better in 3.9.* compared to
> 3.6.* (which is likely the version used on vecLib/Accelerate). The main
> issue I could foresee is clashes between vecLib/Accelerate and Atlas if
> you mix softwares which use one or the other together.
>
> For the OP question: recent matlab versions use the MKL, which is likely
> to give higher performances than ATLAS, specially on windows (compilers
> on that platform are ancient, as building atlas with native compilers on
> windows requires super-human patience).
>
> David
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>



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