An evaluation of analytical queries on CPUs and coupled GPUs

Recently, the mainstream hardware vendors such as Intel and AMD have made significant efforts to integrate the central processing unit (CPU) and the graphics processing unit (GPU) into a single chip, which forms a coupled CPU-GPU architecture. Data transfer between the CPU and the GPU through a Peripheral Component Interconnect Express bus is eliminated on this architecture, which provides new opportunities for database community to optimize query processing. Because of the lack of comprehensive evaluation of database systems on coupled CPU-GPU platforms, it is difficult for academic and industry researchers to make appropriate decisions on improvement and optimization directions. In this paper, we conduct an extensive experimental study to evaluate an online analytical processing system on Intel and AMD machines. The performance difference is measured and analyzed when executing queries on integrated GPUs and multicore CPUs. The impacts of various parameters, data sizes, and optimization techniques on performance are also investigated. The results provide preliminary insights into database query and operator behaviors on state-of-the-art coupled CPU-GPU architectures.