Benchmarks

Matrix Multiplication: Neanderthal vs working core.matrix implementations

The focus of this article is Neanderthal’s performance on the CPU. Since Neanderthal is a Clojure library, I compare it to the implementations of core.matrix. Neanderthal is also as fast or faster than the best Java and Scala native BLAS wrappers, but I’ll leave detailed reports to others. For comparisons of Matrix APIs, or GPU performance, see the tutorials (more than 1500x speedup for matrix multiplication of very large matrices compared to core.matrix’s flagship Vectorz library).

TL;DR Results

What is Being Measured

Neanderthal uses Intel’s Math Kernel Library (MKL) and adds almost no overhead - it is expected that it will be as fast as your MKL installation (which is the fastest and most featureful thing around).

I will concentrate on the performance of matrix-matrix multiplications, since it is the typical representative of heavy operations O(n^3) (BLAS 3), and is the most telling measure of how well a library performs. Neanderthal takes great care to be as light as possible, and does not use data copying, so even linear operations, vector (BLAS 1) and quadratic matrix-vector (BLAS 2) are faster than in pure Java.

I compared Neanderthal with:

Vectorz - a pure Java/Clojure matrix library. It should be fast for very small matrices, but much slower for large matrices. This is practically the only core.matrix implementation that works and is maintained.

Clatrix(a wrapper for jBLAS) - an easy to install library that uses a native optimized ATLAS BLAS implementation, and is the most popular and the easiest to install native Java matrix library. It is fast for large matrices, but slow for small matrices. Clatrix works with basic core.matrix API, but has been abandoned by the author some years ago. Issues are fixed very scarcely, and it seems that a considerable portion is broken wrt core.matrix API.

These two libraries are a good representation of the state of matrix computations in Java/Clojure with native (jBLAS) and pure Java (Vectorz) libraries. They also back the most popular Clojure matrix library, core.matrix. The core.matrix Wiki currently lists a handful of other implementations, but those haven’t seen much work beyond initial exploration and abandonment a few months later, so I am not taking them into account here.

Results

The code of the benchmark is here. The measurements have been done with the help of the Criterium benchmarking library. On my Intel Core i7 4790k with 32GB of RAM, running Arch Linux, with Neanderthal 0.9.0 calling MKL 2017, and core.matrix calling Clatrix 0.5.0 (which calls jBlas 1.2.3) and Vectorz 0.58.0, the results are:

Single precision floating point:

Neanderthal and Clatrix run on 4 cores, Vectorz doesn’t have parallelization.

Matrix Dimensions Neanderthal Clatrix Vectorz Neanderthal vs Clatrix Neanderthal vs Vectorz 2x2 232.36 ns 762.32 ns 61.36 ns 3.28 0.26 4x4 237.72 ns 815.51 ns 129.34 ns 3.43 0.54 8x8 253.22 ns 880.31 ns 568.02 ns 3.48 2.24 16x16 372.30 ns 1.44 µs 3.45 µs 3.85 9.27 32x32 903.14 ns 5.45 µs 23.44 µs 6.04 25.96 64x64 2.80 µs 17.96 µs 218.64 µs 6.43 78.21 128x128 16.30 µs 79.04 µs 1.55 ms 4.85 94.85 256x256 126.25 µs 477.62 µs 12.28 ms 3.78 97.24 512x512 1.07 ms 4.44 ms 96.94 ms 4.13 90.21 1024x1024 7.93 ms 39.36 ms 778.46 ms 4.96 98.12 2048x2048 57.47 ms 154.38 ms 6.22 sec 2.69 108.16 4096x4096 470.12 ms 1.06 sec 50.06 sec 2.26 106.49 8192x8192 3.76 sec 9.24 sec 6.68 min 2.46 106.56

Double precision floating point:

Neanderthal and Clatrix run on 4 cores, Vectorz doesn’t have parallelization.

Matrix Dimensions Neanderthal Clatrix Vectorz Neanderthal vs Clatrix Neanderthal vs Vectorz 2x2 228.66 ns 762.32 ns 61.36 ns 3.33 0.27 4x4 229.29 ns 815.51 ns 129.34 ns 3.56 0.56 8x8 263.84 ns 880.31 ns 568.02 ns 3.34 2.15 16x16 428.80 ns 1.44 µs 3.45 µs 3.35 8.05 32x32 1.52 µs 5.45 µs 23.44 µs 3.60 15.47 64x64 6.39 µs 17.96 µs 218.64 µs 2.81 34.22 128x128 43.68 µs 79.04 µs 1.55 ms 1.81 35.39 256x256 331.98 µs 477.62 µs 12.28 ms 1.44 36.98 512x512 3.55 ms 4.44 ms 96.94 ms 1.25 27.28 1024x1024 20.05 ms 39.36 ms 778.46 ms 1.96 38.83 2048x2048 152.75 ms 154.38 ms 6.22 sec 1.01 40.70 4096x4096 999.37 ms 1.06 sec 50.06 sec 1.06 50.09 8192x8192 8.84 sec 9.24 sec 6.68 min 1.05 45.34

Single precision floating point (vs jBlas single precision):

Neanderthal and jBlas run on 4 cores, Vectorz doesn’t have parallelization.

Since Clatrix does not support single-precision floating point numbers, I did this comparison with jBlas directly for reference (Neanderthal is still considerably faster :), but keep in mind that you can’t use that from core.matrix.

Matrix Dimensions Neanderthal jBLAS Vectorz Neanderthal vs jBLAS Neanderthal vs Vectorz 2x2 232.36 ns 362.00 ns 61.36 ns 1.56 0.26 4x4 237.72 ns 369.99 ns 129.34 ns 1.56 0.54 8x8 253.22 ns 476.57 ns 568.02 ns 1.88 2.24 16x16 372.30 ns 598.43 ns 3.45 µs 1.61 9.27 32x32 903.14 ns 1.37 µs 23.44 µs 1.52 25.96 64x64 2.80 µs 7.52 µs 218.64 µs 2.69 78.21 128x128 16.30 µs 31.48 µs 1.55 ms 1.93 94.85 256x256 126.25 µs 191.15 µs 12.28 ms 1.51 97.24 512x512 1.07 ms 1.25 ms 96.94 ms 1.16 90.21 1024x1024 7.93 ms 10.63 ms 778.46 ms 1.34 98.12 2048x2048 57.47 ms 104.95 ms 6.22 sec 1.83 108.16 4096x4096 470.12 ms 568.46 ms 50.06 sec 1.21 106.49 8192x8192 3.76 sec 4.85 sec 6.68 min 1.29 106.56

Tell Us What You Think!

Please take some time to tell us about your experience with the library and this site. Let us know what we should be explaining or is not clear enough. If you are willing to contribute improvements, even better!