GPUCalorie: Floorplan Estimation for GPU Thermal Evaluation

GPUs are massively parallel architecture that consume significant power, which lead to high thermal output. Thermal constraints of GPUs are one of the major limitations in high performance, mobile and embedded applications. However, accurate thermal modeling tools for GPUs are lacking for researchers. We identify that limiting factors to further research are the absence of GPU floorplans necessary for thermal modeling, validated thermal trends, and outdated component-level power models. To this end, we present GPUCalorie, a thermal modeling methodology using specialized infrared thermography setup for measuring and validating thermal behaviors of real GPUs. We validate a floorplan of Nvidia’s GTX1050 identified through our infrared thermography setup. We validate the GPUCalorie identified floorplan against a real GTX1050 GPU, showing 10% error for the thermal map.