Backends 101: Choosing the Right Measurement Surface
Why this lesson exists When a program runs on a GPU, the only way to know where the real cost lies is to measure that GPU. Defaulting to the CPU surface is a common mistake that can waste days of debugging. This episode shows how to use csperf to discover the right backend and switch when necessary. Recap — where we are in the series Ep 1 : Why a single ./a.out time misleads – we learned that…
The article "Backends 101: Choosing the Right Measurement Surface" emphasizes the importance of measuring GPU performance when working with GPU-accelerated programs. The misconception that CPU performance dominates is debunked, and csperf is introduced as a tool to determine the correct backend and switch between CPU and GPU when necessary.
The article provides a step-by-step guide on using csperf commands to list available backends, list devices, run workloads on chosen backends, and inspect the resulting artifacts for meaningful performance metrics.
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