Evaluation of Directive-Based Programming Models for Stencil Computation on Current GPGPU Architectures

Stencil calculations are a widely-used computing pattern, and tracking the performance of such computing pattern on modern GPGPUs is of interest to the computational community. In this document we focus on how directive-based programming models profit from the GPGPUs computing power and how they compare with the native programming model. One major takeaway is that OpenMP and OpenACC are still behind native code but closing the gap with newer generations of accelerators and SW stack. In particular, to address programmability we do compare the development effort of implementing optimized kernels with all the above mentioned programming models. Finally, we further extend the analysis to cover power consumption aspects, which complements the programming and performance perspectives.