@inproceedings{76, author = {Augusto Oliveira and Jean-Christophe Petkovich and Sebastian Fischmeister}, title = {How Much Does Memory Layout Impact Performance? A Wide Study}, abstract = {

Memory layout variations are often cited as a threat to the reproducibility of computer performance experiments. Previous research has shown worst-case effects as large as 300% of execution time, among other surprising cases. While these are worrying results, how frequent and widespread are these large effects? To answer this question, this paper presents a wide-scale evaluation of memory layout effects on the performance of a large subset of the SPECCPU2006 benchmark suite on a wide array of diverse machines. We find that on average, these benchmarks are not as susceptible to memory layout effects as the worst-case analysis found in the literature suggests. Finally, we re-execute our own experiment and demonstrate why the reproducibility of an experiment s result should not depend on its data being perfectly reproducible.

}, year = {2014}, journal = {Proceedings of the International Workshop on Reproducible Research Methodologies (REPRODUCE)}, pages = {23-28}, month = {February}, address = {Orlando, USA}, }