Understanding CPU Branch Prediction and Its Impact on Benchmarking
By
ibobev
Crackles when you bite it. Shows the baker did the work.
Summary
The article discusses how modern processors use branch prediction to execute multiple instructions per cycle, explaining that CPUs have remarkable branch prediction capabilities. It highlights how this makes benchmarking challenging because small datasets can yield misleading results that don't reflect real-world performance. The author shares their preferred benchmarking approach using random values to test branch prediction accuracy.
Key quotes
· 5 pulledModern processors have the ability to execute many instructions per cycle, on a single core.
To be able to execute many instructions per cycle in practice, processors predict branches.
I have made the point over the years that modern CPUs have an incredible ability to predict branches.
It makes benchmarking difficult because if you test on small datasets, you can get surprising results that might not work on real data.
The processor tries to predict the branch (if clause). Because we use random values...
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