Abstract

Dell Technologies recently submitted results to the MLPerf Inference v2.0 benchmark suite. This blog examines the results of two specialty edge servers: the Dell PowerEdge XE2420 server with the NVIDIA T4 Tensor Core GPU and the Dell PowerEdge XR12 server with the NVIDIA A2 Tensor Core GPU.

Introduction

It is 6:00 am on a Saturday morning. You drag yourself out of bed, splash water on your face, brush your hair, and head to your dimly lit kitchen for a bite to eat before your morning run. Today, you have decided to explore a new part of the neighborhood because your dog’s nose needs new bushes to sniff. As you wait for your bagel to toast, you ask your voice assistant “what’s the weather like?” Within a couple of seconds, you know that you need to grab an extra layer because there is a slight chance of rain. Edge computing has saved your morning run.

Although this use case is covered in the MLPerf Mobile benchmarks, the data discussed in this blog is from the MLPerf Inference benchmark that has been run on Dell servers.

Edge computing is computing that takes place at the “edge of networks.” Edge of networks refers to where devices such as phones, tablets, laptops, smart speakers, and even industrial robots can access the rest of the network. In this case, smart speakers can perform speech-to-text recognition to offload processing that ordinarily must be accomplished in the cloud. This offloading not only improves response time but also decreases the amount of sensitive data that is sent and stored in the cloud. The scope for edge computing expands far beyond voice assistants with use cases including autonomous vehicles, 5G mobile computing, smart cities, security, and more.

The Dell PowerEdge XE2420 and PowerEdge XR 12 servers are designed for edge computing workloads. The design criteria is based on real life scenarios such as extreme heat, dust, and vibration from factory floors, for example. However, despite these servers not being physically located in a data center, server reliability and performance are not compromised.

PowerEdge XE2420 server

The PowerEdge XE2420 server is a specialty edge server that delivers high performance in harsh environments. This server is designed for demanding edge applications such as streaming analytics, manufacturing logistics, 5G cell processing, and other AI applications. It is a short-depth, dense, dual-socket, 2U server that can handle great environmental stress on its electrical and physical components. Also, this server is ideal for low-latency and large-storage edge applications because it supports 16x DDR4 RDIMM/LR-DIMM (12 DIMMs are balanced) up to 2993 MT/s. Importantly, this server can support the following GPU/Flash PCI card configurations:

• Up to 2 x PCIe x16, up to 300 W passive FHFL cards (for example, NVIDIA V100/s or NVIDIA RTX6000)
• Up to 4 x PCIe x8; 75 W passive (for example, NVIDIA T4 GPU)
• Up to 2 x FE1 storage expansion cards (up to 20 x M.2 drives on each)

The following figures show the PowerEdge XE2420 server (source):

Figure 1: Front view of the PowerEdge XE2420 server

Figure 2: Rear view of the PowerEdge XE2420 server

PowerEdge XR12 server

The PowerEdge XR12 server is part of a line of rugged servers that deliver high performance and reliability in extreme conditions. This server is a marine-compliant, single-socket 2U server that offers boosted services for the edge. It includes one CPU that has up to 36 x86 cores, support for accelerators, DDR4, PCIe 4.0, persistent memory and up to six drives. Also, the PowerEdge XR12 server offers 3rd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable Processors.

The following figures show the PowerEdge XR12 server (source):

Figure 3: Front view of the PowerEdge XR12 server

Figure 4: Rear view of the PowerEdge XR12 server

Performance discussion

The following figure shows the comparison of the ResNet 50 Offline performance of various server and GPU configurations, including:

• PowerEdge XE8545 server with the 80 GB A100 Multi-Instance GPU (MIG) with seven instances of the one compute instance of the 10gb memory profile
•  PowerEdge XR12 server with the A2 GPU
•  PowerEdge XE2420 server with the T4 and A30 GPU

Figure 5: MLPerf Inference ResNet 50 Offline performance

ResNet 50 falls under the computer vision category of applications because it includes image classification, object detection, and object classification detection workloads.

The MIG numbers are per card and have been divided by 28 because of the four physical GPU cards in the systems multiplied by second instances of the MIG profile. The non-MIG numbers are also per card.

For the ResNet 50 benchmark, the PowerEdge XE2420 server with the T4 GPU showed more than double the performance of the PowerEdge XR12 server with the A2 GPU. The PowerEdge XE8545 server with the A100 MIG showed competitive performance when compared to the PowerEdge XE2420 server with the T4 GPU. The performance delta of 12.8 percent favors the PowerEdge XE2420 system. However, the PowerEdge XE2420 server with A30 GPU card takes the top spot in this comparison as it shows almost triple the performance over the PowerEdge XE2420 server with the T4 GPU.

The following figure shows a comparison of the SSD-ResNet 34 Offline performance of the PowerEdge XE8545 server with the A100 MIG and the PowerEdge XE2420 server with the A30 GPU.

Figure 6: MLPerf Inference SSD-ResNet 34 Offline performance

The SSD-ResNet 34 model falls under the computer vision category because it performs object detection. The PowerEdge XE2420 server with the A30 GPU card performed more than three times better than the PowerEdge XE8545 server with the A100 MIG.

The following figure shows a comparison of the Recurrent Neural Network Transducers (RNNT) Offline performance of the PowerEdge XR12 server with the A2 GPU and the PowerEdge XE2420 server with the T4 GPU:

Figure 7: MLPerf Inference RNNT Offline performance

The RNNT model falls under the speech recognition category, which can be used for applications such as automatic closed captioning in YouTube videos and voice commands on smartphones. However, for speech recognition workloads, the PowerEdge XE2420 server with the T4 GPU and the PowerEdge XR12 server with the A2 GPU are closer in terms of performance. There is only a 32 percent performance delta.

The following figure shows a comparison of the BERT Offline performance of default and high accuracy runs of the PowerEdge XR12 server with the A2 GPU and the PowerEdge XE2420 server with the A30 GPU:

Figure 8: MLPerf Inference BERT Offline performance

BERT is a state-of-the-art, language-representational model for Natural Language Processing applications such as sentiment analysis. Although the PowerEdge XE2420 server with the A30 GPU shows significant performance gains, the PowerEdge XR12 server with the A2 GPU exceeds when considering achieved performance based on the money spent.

The following figure shows a comparison of the Deep Learning Recommendation Model (DLRM) Offline performance for the PowerEdge XE2420 server with the T4 GPU and the PowerEdge XR12 server with the A2 GPU:

Figure 9: MLPerf Inference DLRM Offline performance

DLRM uses collaborative filtering and predicative analysis-based approaches to make recommendations, based on the dataset provided. Recommender systems are extremely important in search, online shopping, and online social networks. The performance of the PowerEdge XE2420 T4 in the offline mode was 40 percent better than the PowerEdge XR12 server with the A2 GPU.

Despite the higher performance from the PowerEdge XE2420 server with the T4 GPU, the PowerEdge XR12 server with the A2 GPU is an excellent option for edge-related workloads. The A2 GPU is designed for high performance at the edge and consumes less power than the T4 GPU for similar workloads. Also, the A2 GPU is the more cost-effective option.

Power Discussion

It is important to budget power consumption for the critical load in a data center. The critical load includes components such as servers, routers, storage devices, and security devices. For the MLPerf Inference v2.0 submission, Dell Technologies submitted power numbers for the PowerEdge XR12 server with the A2 GPU. Figures 8 through 11 showcase the performance and power results achieved on the PowerEdge XR12 system. The blue bars are the performance results, and the green bars are the system power results. For all power submissions with the A2 GPU, Dell Technologies took the Number One claim for performance per watt for the ResNet 50, RNNT, BERT, and DLRM benchmarks.

Figure 10: MLPerf Inference v2.0 ResNet 50 power results on the Dell PowerEdge XR12 server

Figure 11: MLPerf Inference v2.0 RNNT power results on the Dell PowerEdge XR12 server

Figure 12: MLPerf Inference v2.0 BERT power results on the Dell PowerEdge XR12 server

Figure 13: MLPerf Inference v2.0 DLRM power results on the Dell PowerEdge XR12 server

Note: During our submission to MLPerf Inference v2.0 including power numbers, the PowerEdge XR12 server was not tuned for optimal performance per watt score. These results reflect the performance-optimized power consumption numbers of the server.

Conclusion

This blog takes a closer look at Dell Technologies’ MLPerf Inference v2.0 edge-related submissions. Readers can compare performance results between the Dell PowerEdge XE2420 server with the T4 GPU and the Dell PowerEdge XR12 server with the A2 GPU with other systems with different accelerators. This comparison helps readers make informed decisions about ML workloads on the edge. Performance, power consumption, and cost are the important factors to consider when planning any ML workload. Both the PowerEdge XR12 and XE2420 servers are excellent choices for Deep Learning workloads on the edge.

Appendix

SUT configuration

The following table describes the System Under Test (SUT) configurations from MLPerf Inference v2.0 submissions:

Table 1: MLPerf Inference v2.0 system configuration of the PowerEdge XE2420 and XR12 servers

Table 2: MLPerf Inference v1.1 system configuration of the PowerEdge XE8545 server

Dell Technologies has been an active participant in the MLCommons™ Inference benchmark submission since day one. We have completed five rounds of inference submission.

This blog provides an overview of the latest results of MLPerf Inference v2.0 closed data center, closed data center power, closed edge, and closed edge power categories on Dell servers from our HPC & AI Innovation Lab. It shows optimal inference and power (performance per watt) performance for Dell GPU-based servers (DSS 8440, PowerEdge R750xa, PowerEdge XE2420, PowerEdge XE8545, and PowerEdge XR12). The previous blog about MLPerf Inference v1.1 performance results can be found here.

What is new?

• There were 3,800 performance results for this round compared to 1,800 performance results for v1.1. Additionally, 885 systems in v2.0 compared to 424 systems in v1.1 shows that there were more than twice the systems submitted for this round. 
• For the 3D U-Net benchmark, the dataset now used is the KiTs 2019 Kidney Tumor Segmentation set.
• Early stopping was introduced in this round to replace a deterministic minimum query count with a function that dynamically determines when further runs are not required to identify additional performance gain.

Results at a glance

 Dell Technologies submitted 167 results to the various categories. The Dell team made 86 submissions to the closed data center category, 28 submissions to the closed data center power category, and 53 submissions to the closed edge category. For the closed data center category, the Dell team submitted the second most results. In fact, Dell Technologies submitted results from 17 different system configurations with the NVIDIA TensorRT and NVIDIA Triton inference engines. Among these 17 configurations, the PowerEdge XE2420 server with T4 and A30 GPUs and the PowerEdge XR12 server with the A2 GPU were two new systems that have not been submitted before. Additionally, Dell Technologies submitted to the reintroduced Multiterm scenario. Only Dell Technologies submitted results for different host operating systems.

Noteworthy results

Noteworthy results include:

• The PowerEdge XE8545 and R750xa servers yield Number One results for performance per accelerator with NVIDIA A100 GPUs. The use cases for this top classification include Image Classification, Object Detection, Speech-to-text, Medical Imaging, Natural Language Processing, and Recommendation.
• The DSS 8440 server yields Number Two results for system performance for multiple benchmarks including Speech-to-text, Object Detection, Natural Language Processing, and Medical Image Segmentati on uses cases among all submissions.
• The PowerEdge R750xa server yields Number One results for the highest system performance for multiple benchmarks including Image Classification, Object Detection, Speech-to-text, Natural Language Processing, and Recommendation use cases among all the PCIe-based GPU servers.
• The PowerEdge XE8545 server yields Number One results for the lowest multistrand latency with NVIDIA Multi-Instance GPU (MIG) in the edge category for the Image Classification and Object Detection use cases.
• The PowerEdge XE2420 server yields Number One results for the highest T4 GPU inference results for the Image Classification, Speech-to-text, and Recommendation use cases.
• The PowerEdge XR12 server yields Number One results for the highest performance per watt with NVIDIA A2 GPU results in power for the Image Classification, Object Detection, Speech-to-text, Natural Language Processing, and Recommendation use cases.

MLPerf Inference v2.0 benchmark results

The following graphs highlight the performance metrics for the Server and Offline scenarios across the various benchmarks from MLCommons. Dell Technologies presents results as an method for our customers to identify options to suit their deep learning application demands. Additionally, this performance data serves as a reference point to enable sizing of deep learning clusters. Dell Technologies strives to submit as many results as possible to offer answers to ensure that customer questions are resolved.

For the Server scenario, the performance metric is queries per second (QPS). For the Offline scenario, the performance metric is Offline samples per second. In general, the metrics represent throughput, and a higher throughput indicates a better result. In the following graphs, the Y axis is an exponentially scaled axis representing throughput and the X axis represents the systems under test (SUTs) and their corresponding models. The SUTs are described in the appendix.

Figure 1 through Figure 6 show the per card performance of the various SUTs on the ResNet 50, BERT, SSD, 3dUnet, RNNT, and DLRM modes respectively in the Server and Offline scenarios:

Figure 1: MLPerf Inference v2.0 ResNet 50 per card results

Figure 2: MLPerf Inference v2.0 BERT default and high accuracy per card results

Figure 3: MLPerf Inference v2.0 SSD-ResNet 34 per card results

Figure 4: MLPerf Inference v2.0 3D U-Net per card results

Figure 5: MLPerf Inference v2.0 RNNT per card results

Figure 6: MLPerf Inference v2.0 DLRM default and high accuracy per card results

Observations

The results in this blog have been officially submitted to and accepted by the MLCommons organization. These results have passed compliance tests, been peer reviewed, and adhered to the constraints enforced by MLCommons. Customers and partners can reproduce our results by following steps to run MLPerf Inference v2.0 in its GitHub repository.

Submissions from Dell Technologies included approximately 140 performance results and 28 performance and power results. Across the various workload tasks including Image Classification, Object Detection, Medical Image Segmentation, Speech-to-text, Language Processing, and Recommendation, server performance from Dell Technologies was promising.

Dell servers performed with optimal performance and power results. They were configured with different GPUs such as:

• NVIDIA A30 Tensor Core GPU
• NVIDIA A100 (PCIe and SXM)
• NVIDIA T4 Tensor Core GPU
• NVIDIA A2 Tensor Core GPU, which is newly released

More information about performance for specific configurations that are not discussed in this blog can be found in the v1.1 or v1.0 results.

The submission included results from different inference backends such as NVIDIA TensorRT and NVIDIA Triton. The appendix provides a summary of the full hardware and software stacks.

Conclusion

This blog quantifies the performance of Dell servers in the MLPerf Inference v2.0 round of submission. Readers can use these results to make informed planning and purchasing decisions for their AI workload needs.

Appendix

Software stack

The NVIDIA Triton Inference Server is an open-source inferencing software tool that aids in the deployment and execution of AI models at scale in production. Triton not only works with all major frameworks but also with customizable backends, further enabling developers to focus on their AI development. It is a versatile tool because it supports any inference type and can be deployed on any platform including CPU, GPU, data center, cloud, or edge. Additionally, Triton supports the rapid and reliable deployment of AI models at scale by integrating well with Kubernetes, Kubeflow, Prometheus, and Grafana. Triton supports the HTTP/REST and GRPC protocols that allow remote clients to request inferencing for any model that the server manages.

The NVIDIA TensorRT SDK delivers high-performance deep learning inference that includes an inference optimizer and runtime. It is powered by CUDA and offers a unified solution to deploy on various platforms including edge or data center. TensorRT supports the major frameworks including PyTorch, TensorFlow, ONNX, and MATLAB. It can import models trained in these frameworks by using integrated parsers. For inference, TensorRT performs orders of magnitude faster than its CPU-only counterparts.

NVIDIA MIG can partition GPUs into several instances that extend compute resources among users. MIG enables predictable performance and maximum GPU use by running jobs simultaneously on the different instances with dedicated resources for compute, memory, and memory bandwidth.

SUT configuration

The following table describes the SUT from this round of data center inference submission:

Table 1: MLPerf Inference v2.0 system configurations for DSS 8440 and PowerEdge R750xa servers

Table 2: MLPerf Inference v2.0 system configurations for PowerEdge XE2420 servers

Table 3: MLPerf Inference v2.0 system configurations for PowerEdge XE8545 servers

Table 4: MLPerf Inference v2.0 system configurations for PowerEdge XR12 servers