Python Numpy Data Types Performance

Question

So I did some testing and got odd results.

Code:

import numpy as np
import timeit


setup = """
import numpy as np
A = np.ones((1000,1000,3), dtype=datatype)
"""

datatypes = "np.uint8", "np.uint16", "np.uint32", "np.uint64",  "np.float16", "np.float32", "np.float64"

stmt1 = """
A = A * 255
A = A / 255
A = A - 1
A = A + 1
"""
#~ np.uint8 : 1.04969205993
#~ np.uint16 : 1.19391073202
#~ np.uint32 : 1.37279821351
#~ np.uint64 : 2.99286961148
#~ np.float16 : 9.62375889588
#~ np.float32 : 0.884994368045
#~ np.float64 : 0.920502625252

stmt2 = """
A *= 255
A /= 255
A -= 1
A += 1
"""
#~ np.uint8 : 0.959514497259
#~ np.uint16 : 0.988570167659
#~ np.uint32 : 0.963571471946
#~ np.uint64 : 2.07768933333
#~ np.float16 : 9.40085450056
#~ np.float32 : 0.882363984225
#~ np.float64 : 0.910147440048

stmt3 = """
A = A * 255 / 255 - 1 + 1
"""
#~ np.uint8 : 1.05919667881
#~ np.uint16 : 1.20249978404
#~ np.uint32 : 1.58037744789
#~ np.uint64 : 3.47520357571
#~ np.float16 : 10.4792515701
#~ np.float32 : 1.29654744484
#~ np.float64 : 1.80735079168

stmt4 = """
A[:,:,:2] *= A[:,:,:2]
"""
#~ np.uint8 : 1.23270964172
#~ np.uint16 : 1.3260807837
#~ np.uint32 : 1.32571002402
#~ np.uint64 : 1.76836543305
#~ np.float16 : 2.83364821535
#~ np.float32 : 1.31282323872
#~ np.float64 : 1.44151875479

stmt5 = """
A[:,:,:2] = A[:,:,:2] * A[:,:,:2]
"""
#~ np.uint8 : 1.38166223494
#~ np.uint16 : 1.49569114821
#~ np.uint32 : 1.53105315419
#~ np.uint64 : 2.03457943366
#~ np.float16 : 3.01117795524
#~ np.float32 : 1.51807271679
#~ np.float64 : 1.7164808877

stmt6 = """
A *= 4
A /= 4
"""
#~ np.uint8 : 0.698176392658
#~ np.uint16 : 0.709560468038
#~ np.uint32 : 0.701653066443
#~ np.uint64 : 1.64199069295
#~ np.float16 : 4.86752675499
#~ np.float32 : 0.421001675475
#~ np.float64 : 0.433056710408

stmt7 = """
np.left_shift(A, 2, A)
np.right_shift(A, 2, A)
"""
#~ np.uint8 : 0.381521115341
#~ np.uint16 : 0.383545967785
#~ np.uint32 : 0.386147272415
#~ np.uint64 : 0.665969478824


for stmt in [stmt1, stmt2, stmt3, stmt4, stmt5, stmt6, stmt7]:
    print stmt
    for d in datatypes:
        s = setup.replace("datatype", d)
        T = timeit.Timer(stmt=stmt, setup=s)
        print d,":", min(T.repeat(number=30))
    print
print

Why is float16 so slow? Why is float32 so fast? It is often faster than integer ops.

If you have any related performance tips I would be glad to hear them.

This is python 2.6.6 32bit on windows 8 64bit. Numbers for Numpy 1.6, Numpy 1.7 similar. Will test MKL optimized version now: http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/#numpy

edit: turns out the MKL version is slightly faster in some floating point cases but sometimes lots slower for integer ops:

stmt2 = """
A *= 255
A /= 255
A -= 1
A += 1
"""
#np1.6
#~ np.uint8 : 0.959514497259
#~ np.uint16 : 0.988570167659
#~ np.uint32 : 0.963571471946
#~ np.uint64 : 2.07768933333
#~ np.float16 : 9.40085450056
#~ np.float32 : 0.882363984225
#~ np.float64 : 0.910147440048

# np1.7
#~ np.uint8 : 0.979
#~ np.uint16 : 1.010
#~ np.uint32 : 0.972
#~ np.uint64 : 2.081
#~ np.float16 : 9.362
#~ np.float32 : 0.882
#~ np.float64 : 0.918

# np1.7 mkl
#~ np.uint8 : 1.782
#~ np.uint16 : 1.145
#~ np.uint32 : 1.265
#~ np.uint64 : 2.088
#~ np.float16 : 9.029
#~ np.float32 : 0.800
#~ np.float64 : 0.866

Answer 1

Half precision arithmetic (float16) is something which must be "emulated" by numpy I guess, as there are no corresponding types in the underlying C language (and in the appropriate processor instructions) for it. On the other hand, single precision (float32) and double precision (float64) operations can be done very efficiently using native data types.

As of the good performance for single precision operations: Modern processors have efficient units for vectorized floating point arithmetics (e.g. AVX) as it is also needed for good multimedia performance.