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Qualify and benchmark a Triton kernel

Test an FP32 residual-plus-ReLU kernel against adversarial cases, eager PyTorch and a compiled baseline. Retain GPU timings, source hashes, PTX and native artifacts.

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How should you validate a custom Triton kernel before trusting a speedup?

Define supported inputs and output semantics, compare against an independent reference, and make the evaluator reject known broken implementations. Include uneven tails, invalid layouts, mutation checks and numerical tolerances. Then compare complete operations against both eager and compiled framework baselines under matched conditions. Preserve source identity, compiled artifacts and every timing round; a win over eager execution alone may disappear against a compiled implementation.

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What you build
A correctness-qualified experiment with raw matched timings, compiled artifacts and a scoped implementation decision.
Environment
Linux · Python 3.12 · NVIDIA GPU
Plan your session
2–3 hours plus environment setup. A planning estimate, not measured runtime.
Before you begin
Understand CUDA blocks, tail masking and basic tensor operations. Use a compatible NVIDIA GPU and a separate PyTorch/Triton environment.
GPU qualification and timing executed. RTX 5070: 27 custom-kernel cases passed, two broken candidates and five unsupported inputs were rejected, and 36 timing observations compared eager, compiled and custom paths. No Compute Sanitizer run or fresh environment reinstall; no production-throughput claim.
  1. 01Freeze the operation

    Declare finite FP32 semantics, output ownership and supported layouts.

  2. 02Qualify and measure

    Reject broken work, warm each arm and retain paired timing rounds.

  3. 03Inspect and decide

    Connect source to artifacts and choose against the compiled baseline.

Follow the changing state through the project. Each boundary has a check in the walkthrough.

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Start with Train a tiny language model from scratch with PyTorch (Free to read).

Primary sources

Checked . Source review and execution checks are described separately above.