# Benchmarks

## Overview

A selection of image classification models were tested across multiple platforms
to create a point of reference for the TensorFlow community. The
[Methodology](#methodology) section details how the tests were executed and has
links to the scripts used.

## Results for image classification models

InceptionV3 ([arXiv:1512.00567](https://arxiv.org/abs/1512.00567)), ResNet-50
([arXiv:1512.03385](https://arxiv.org/abs/1512.03385)), ResNet-152
([arXiv:1512.03385](https://arxiv.org/abs/1512.03385)), VGG16
([arXiv:1409.1556](https://arxiv.org/abs/1409.1556)), and
[AlexNet](http://papers.nips.cc/paper/4824-imagenet-classification-with-deep-convolutional-neural-networks.pdf)
were tested using the [ImageNet](http://www.image-net.org/) data set. Tests were
run on Google Compute Engine, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), and an
NVIDIA® DGX-1™. Most of the tests were run with both synthetic and real data.
Testing with synthetic data was done by using a `tf.Variable` set to the same
shape as the data expected by each model for ImageNet. We believe it is
important to include real data measurements when benchmarking a platform. This
load tests both the underlying hardware and the framework at preparing data for
actual training. We start with synthetic data to remove disk I/O as a variable
and to set a baseline. Real data is then used to verify that the TensorFlow
input pipeline and the underlying disk I/O are saturating the compute units.

### Training with NVIDIA® DGX-1™ (NVIDIA® Tesla® P100)

<div style="width:95%; margin:auto; margin-bottom:10px; margin-top:20px;">
  <img style="width:80%" src="../images/perf_summary_p100_single_server.png">
</div>

Details and additional results are in the [Details for NVIDIA® DGX-1™ (NVIDIA®
Tesla® P100)](#details_for_nvidia_dgx-1tm_nvidia_tesla_p100) section.

### Training with NVIDIA® Tesla® K80

<div style="width:95%; margin:auto; margin-bottom:10px; margin-top:20px;">
  <img style="width:80%" src="../images/perf_summary_k80_single_server.png">
</div>

Details and additional results are in the [Details for Google Compute Engine
(NVIDIA® Tesla® K80)](#details_for_google_compute_engine_nvidia_tesla_k80) and
[Details for Amazon EC2 (NVIDIA® Tesla®
K80)](#details_for_amazon_ec2_nvidia_tesla_k80) sections.

### Distributed training with NVIDIA® Tesla® K80

<div style="width:95%; margin:auto; margin-bottom:10px; margin-top:20px;">
  <img style="width:80%" src="../images/perf_summary_k80_aws_distributed.png">
</div>

Details and additional results are in the [Details for Amazon EC2 Distributed
(NVIDIA® Tesla® K80)](#details_for_amazon_ec2_distributed_nvidia_tesla_k80)
section.

### Compare synthetic with real data training

**NVIDIA® Tesla® P100**

<div style="width:95%; margin:auto; margin-bottom:10px; margin-top:20px;">
  <img style="width:35%" src="../images/perf_summary_p100_data_compare_inceptionv3.png">
  <img style="width:35%" src="../images/perf_summary_p100_data_compare_resnet50.png">
</div>

**NVIDIA® Tesla® K80**

<div style="width:95%; margin:auto; margin-bottom:10px; margin-top:20px;">
  <img style="width:35%" src="../images/perf_summary_k80_data_compare_inceptionv3.png">
  <img style="width:35%" src="../images/perf_summary_k80_data_compare_resnet50.png">
</div>

## Details for NVIDIA® DGX-1™ (NVIDIA® Tesla® P100)

### Environment

*   **Instance type**: NVIDIA® DGX-1™
*   **GPU:** 8x NVIDIA® Tesla® P100
*   **OS:** Ubuntu 16.04 LTS with tests run via Docker
*   **CUDA / cuDNN:** 8.0 / 5.1
*   **TensorFlow GitHub hash:** b1e174e
*   **Benchmark GitHub hash:** 9165a70
*   **Build Command:** `bazel build -c opt --copt=-march="haswell" --config=cuda
    //tensorflow/tools/pip_package:build_pip_package`
*   **Disk:** Local SSD
*   **DataSet:** ImageNet
*   **Test Date:** May 2017

Batch size and optimizer used for each model are listed in the table below. In
addition to the batch sizes listed in the table, InceptionV3, ResNet-50,
ResNet-152, and VGG16 were tested with a batch size of 32. Those results are in
the *other results* section.

Options            | InceptionV3 | ResNet-50 | ResNet-152 | AlexNet | VGG16
------------------ | ----------- | --------- | ---------- | ------- | -----
Batch size per GPU | 64          | 64        | 64         | 512     | 64
Optimizer          | sgd         | sgd       | sgd        | sgd     | sgd

Configuration used for each model.

Model       | variable_update        | local_parameter_device
----------- | ---------------------- | ----------------------
InceptionV3 | parameter_server       | cpu
ResNet50    | parameter_server       | cpu
ResNet152   | parameter_server       | cpu
AlexNet     | replicated (with NCCL) | n/a
VGG16       | replicated (with NCCL) | n/a

### Results

<div style="width:95%; margin:auto; margin-bottom:10px; margin-top:20px;">
  <img style="width:80%" src="../images/perf_summary_p100_single_server.png">
</div>

<div style="width:95%; margin:auto; margin-bottom:10px; margin-top:20px;">
  <img style="width:35%" src="../images/perf_dgx1_synth_p100_single_server_scaling.png">
  <img style="width:35%" src="../images/perf_dgx1_real_p100_single_server_scaling.png">
</div>

**Training synthetic data**

GPUs | InceptionV3 | ResNet-50 | ResNet-152 | AlexNet | VGG16
---- | ----------- | --------- | ---------- | ------- | -----
1    | 142         | 219       | 91.8       | 2987    | 154
2    | 284         | 422       | 181        | 5658    | 295
4    | 569         | 852       | 356        | 10509   | 584
8    | 1131        | 1734      | 716        | 17822   | 1081

**Training real data**

GPUs | InceptionV3 | ResNet-50 | ResNet-152 | AlexNet | VGG16
---- | ----------- | --------- | ---------- | ------- | -----
1    | 142         | 218       | 91.4       | 2890    | 154
2    | 278         | 425       | 179        | 4448    | 284
4    | 551         | 853       | 359        | 7105    | 534
8    | 1079        | 1630      | 708        | N/A     | 898

Training AlexNet with real data on 8 GPUs was excluded from the graph and table
above due to it maxing out the input pipeline.

### Other Results

The results below are all with a batch size of 32.

**Training synthetic data**

GPUs | InceptionV3 | ResNet-50 | ResNet-152 | VGG16
---- | ----------- | --------- | ---------- | -----
1    | 128         | 195       | 82.7       | 144
2    | 259         | 368       | 160        | 281
4    | 520         | 768       | 317        | 549
8    | 995         | 1485      | 632        | 820

**Training real data**

GPUs | InceptionV3 | ResNet-50 | ResNet-152 | VGG16
---- | ----------- | --------- | ---------- | -----
1    | 130         | 193       | 82.4       | 144
2    | 257         | 369       | 159        | 253
4    | 507         | 760       | 317        | 457
8    | 966         | 1410      | 609        | 690

## Details for Google Compute Engine (NVIDIA® Tesla® K80)

### Environment

*   **Instance type**: n1-standard-32-k80x8
*   **GPU:** 8x NVIDIA® Tesla® K80
*   **OS:** Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
*   **CUDA / cuDNN:** 8.0 / 5.1
*   **TensorFlow GitHub hash:** b1e174e
*   **Benchmark GitHub hash:** 9165a70
*   **Build Command:** `bazel build -c opt --copt=-march="haswell" --config=cuda
    //tensorflow/tools/pip_package:build_pip_package`
*   **Disk:** 1.7 TB Shared SSD persistent disk (800 MB/s)
*   **DataSet:** ImageNet
*   **Test Date:** May 2017

Batch size and optimizer used for each model are listed in the table below. In
addition to the batch sizes listed in the table, InceptionV3 and ResNet-50 were
tested with a batch size of 32. Those results are in the *other results*
section.

Options            | InceptionV3 | ResNet-50 | ResNet-152 | AlexNet | VGG16
------------------ | ----------- | --------- | ---------- | ------- | -----
Batch size per GPU | 64          | 64        | 32         | 512     | 32
Optimizer          | sgd         | sgd       | sgd        | sgd     | sgd

The configuration used for each model was `variable_update` equal to
`parameter_server` and `local_parameter_device` equal to `cpu`.

### Results

<div style="width:95%; margin:auto; margin-bottom:10px; margin-top:20px;">
  <img style="width:35%" src="../images/perf_gce_synth_k80_single_server_scaling.png">
  <img style="width:35%" src="../images/perf_gce_real_k80_single_server_scaling.png">
</div>

**Training synthetic data**

GPUs | InceptionV3 | ResNet-50 | ResNet-152 | AlexNet | VGG16
---- | ----------- | --------- | ---------- | ------- | -----
1    | 30.5        | 51.9      | 20.0       | 656     | 35.4
2    | 57.8        | 99.0      | 38.2       | 1209    | 64.8
4    | 116         | 195       | 75.8       | 2328    | 120
8    | 227         | 387       | 148        | 4640    | 234

**Training real data**

GPUs | InceptionV3 | ResNet-50 | ResNet-152 | AlexNet | VGG16
---- | ----------- | --------- | ---------- | ------- | -----
1    | 30.6        | 51.2      | 20.0       | 639     | 34.2
2    | 58.4        | 98.8      | 38.3       | 1136    | 62.9
4    | 115         | 194       | 75.4       | 2067    | 118
8    | 225         | 381       | 148        | 4056    | 230

### Other Results

**Training synthetic data**

GPUs | InceptionV3 (batch size 32) | ResNet-50 (batch size 32)
---- | --------------------------- | -------------------------
1    | 29.3                        | 49.5
2    | 55.0                        | 95.4
4    | 109                         | 183
8    | 216                         | 362

**Training real data**

GPUs | InceptionV3 (batch size 32) | ResNet-50 (batch size 32)
---- | --------------------------- | -------------------------
1    | 29.5                        | 49.3
2    | 55.4                        | 95.3
4    | 110                         | 186
8    | 216                         | 359

## Details for Amazon EC2 (NVIDIA® Tesla® K80)

### Environment

*   **Instance type**: p2.8xlarge
*   **GPU:** 8x NVIDIA® Tesla® K80
*   **OS:** Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
*   **CUDA / cuDNN:** 8.0 / 5.1
*   **TensorFlow GitHub hash:** b1e174e
*   **Benchmark GitHub hash:** 9165a70
*   **Build Command:** `bazel build -c opt --copt=-march="haswell" --config=cuda
    //tensorflow/tools/pip_package:build_pip_package`
*   **Disk:** 1TB Amazon EFS (burst 100 MiB/sec for 12 hours, continuous 50
    MiB/sec)
*   **DataSet:** ImageNet
*   **Test Date:** May 2017

Batch size and optimizer used for each model are listed in the table below. In
addition to the batch sizes listed in the table, InceptionV3 and ResNet-50 were
tested with a batch size of 32. Those results are in the *other results*
section.

Options            | InceptionV3 | ResNet-50 | ResNet-152 | AlexNet | VGG16
------------------ | ----------- | --------- | ---------- | ------- | -----
Batch size per GPU | 64          | 64        | 32         | 512     | 32
Optimizer          | sgd         | sgd       | sgd        | sgd     | sgd

Configuration used for each model.

Model       | variable_update           | local_parameter_device
----------- | ------------------------- | ----------------------
InceptionV3 | parameter_server          | cpu
ResNet-50   | replicated (without NCCL) | gpu
ResNet-152  | replicated (without NCCL) | gpu
AlexNet     | parameter_server          | gpu
VGG16       | parameter_server          | gpu

### Results

<div style="width:95%; margin:auto; margin-bottom:10px; margin-top:20px;">
  <img style="width:35%" src="../images/perf_aws_synth_k80_single_server_scaling.png">
  <img style="width:35%" src="../images/perf_aws_real_k80_single_server_scaling.png">
</div>

**Training synthetic data**

GPUs | InceptionV3 | ResNet-50 | ResNet-152 | AlexNet | VGG16
---- | ----------- | --------- | ---------- | ------- | -----
1    | 30.8        | 51.5      | 19.7       | 684     | 36.3
2    | 58.7        | 98.0      | 37.6       | 1244    | 69.4
4    | 117         | 195       | 74.9       | 2479    | 141
8    | 230         | 384       | 149        | 4853    | 260

**Training real data**

GPUs | InceptionV3 | ResNet-50 | ResNet-152 | AlexNet | VGG16
---- | ----------- | --------- | ---------- | ------- | -----
1    | 30.5        | 51.3      | 19.7       | 674     | 36.3
2    | 59.0        | 94.9      | 38.2       | 1227    | 67.5
4    | 118         | 188       | 75.2       | 2201    | 136
8    | 228         | 373       | 149        | N/A     | 242

Training AlexNet with real data on 8 GPUs was excluded from the graph and table
above due to our EFS setup not providing enough throughput.

### Other Results

**Training synthetic data**

GPUs | InceptionV3 (batch size 32) | ResNet-50 (batch size 32)
---- | --------------------------- | -------------------------
1    | 29.9                        | 49.0
2    | 57.5                        | 94.1
4    | 114                         | 184
8    | 216                         | 355

**Training real data**

GPUs | InceptionV3 (batch size 32) | ResNet-50 (batch size 32)
---- | --------------------------- | -------------------------
1    | 30.0                        | 49.1
2    | 57.5                        | 95.1
4    | 113                         | 185
8    | 212                         | 353

## Details for Amazon EC2 Distributed (NVIDIA® Tesla® K80)

### Environment

*   **Instance type**: p2.8xlarge
*   **GPU:** 8x NVIDIA® Tesla® K80
*   **OS:** Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
*   **CUDA / cuDNN:** 8.0 / 5.1
*   **TensorFlow GitHub hash:** b1e174e
*   **Benchmark GitHub hash:** 9165a70
*   **Build Command:** `bazel build -c opt --copt=-march="haswell" --config=cuda
    //tensorflow/tools/pip_package:build_pip_package`
*   **Disk:** 1.0 TB EFS (burst 100 MB/sec for 12 hours, continuous 50 MB/sec)
*   **DataSet:** ImageNet
*   **Test Date:** May 2017

The batch size and optimizer used for the tests are listed in the table. In
addition to the batch sizes listed in the table, InceptionV3 and ResNet-50 were
tested with a batch size of 32. Those results are in the *other results*
section.

Options            | InceptionV3 | ResNet-50 | ResNet-152
------------------ | ----------- | --------- | ----------
Batch size per GPU | 64          | 64        | 32
Optimizer          | sgd         | sgd       | sgd

Configuration used for each model.

Model       | variable_update        | local_parameter_device | cross_replica_sync
----------- | ---------------------- | ---------------------- | ------------------
InceptionV3 | distributed_replicated | n/a                    | True
ResNet-50   | distributed_replicated | n/a                    | True
ResNet-152  | distributed_replicated | n/a                    | True

To simplify server setup, EC2 instances (p2.8xlarge) running worker servers also
ran parameter servers. Equal numbers of parameter servers and worker servers were
used with the following exceptions:

*   InceptionV3: 8 instances / 6 parameter servers
*   ResNet-50: (batch size 32) 8 instances / 4 parameter servers
*   ResNet-152: 8 instances / 4 parameter servers

### Results

<div style="width:95%; margin:auto; margin-bottom:10px; margin-top:20px;">
  <img style="width:80%" src="../images/perf_summary_k80_aws_distributed.png">
</div>

<div style="width:95%; margin:auto; margin-bottom:10px; margin-top:20px;">
  <img style="width:70%" src="../images/perf_aws_synth_k80_distributed_scaling.png">
</div>

**Training synthetic data**

GPUs | InceptionV3 | ResNet-50 | ResNet-152
---- | ----------- | --------- | ----------
1    | 29.7        | 52.4      | 19.4
8    | 229         | 378       | 146
16   | 459         | 751       | 291
32   | 902         | 1388      | 565
64   | 1783        | 2744      | 981

### Other Results

<div style="width:95%; margin:auto; margin-bottom:10px; margin-top:20px;">
  <img style="width:50%" src="../images/perf_aws_synth_k80_multi_server_batch32.png">
</div>

**Training synthetic data**

GPUs | InceptionV3 (batch size 32) | ResNet-50 (batch size 32)
---- | --------------------------- | -------------------------
1    | 29.2                        | 48.4
8    | 219                         | 333
16   | 427                         | 667
32   | 820                         | 1180
64   | 1608                        | 2315

## Methodology

This
[script](https://github.com/tensorflow/benchmarks/tree/master/scripts/tf_cnn_benchmarks)
was run on the various platforms to generate the above results.

In order to create results that are as repeatable as possible, each test was run
5 times and then the times were averaged together. GPUs are run in their default
state on the given platform. For NVIDIA® Tesla® K80 this means leaving on [GPU
Boost](https://devblogs.nvidia.com/parallelforall/increase-performance-gpu-boost-k80-autoboost/).
For each test, 10 warmup steps are done and then the next 100 steps are
averaged.
