CSE 317 Lecture 2

Computer
performance
The Computer Revolution
1. Progress in computer technology .
2. Makes novel applications feasible.
■ Computer in Automobile.
■ Cell phone
■ Worldwide web
■ Search engine …..etc.
Performance
■ Performance is the key to understanding underlying motivation
for the hardware and its organization
■ Measure, report, and summarize performance to enable users to
■ make intelligent choices
■ see through the marketing hype!

■ Why is some hardware better than others for different programs?

■ What factors of system performance are hardware related?
(e.g., do we need a new machine, or a new operating system?)
■ How does the machine's instruction set affect performance?
The Role of Performance
Response Time
Throughput
Relative performance
Measuring Execution time
CPU time
CPU clocking ,instruction count and CPI
 What do we measure?
Define performance….
Airplane Passengers Range (mi) Speed (mph)

Boeing 737-100 101 630 598

Boeing 747 470 4150 610
BAC/Sud Concorde 132 4000 1350
Douglas DC-8-50 146 8720 544

■ How much faster is the Concorde compared to the

747?
■ How much bigger is the Boeing 747 than the Douglas
DC-8?

■ So which of these airplanes has the best performance?!

Computer Performance:
TIME, TIME, TIME!!!
■ Response Time (elapsed time, latency):
■ how long does it take for my job to run?
■ how long does it take to execute (start to Individual user
finish) my job? concerns…
■ how long must I wait for the database query?
■ Throughput:
■ how many jobs can the machine run at once?
■ what is the average execution rate? Systems manager
concerns…
■ how much work is getting done?

■ If we upgrade a machine with a new processor what do we increase?

■ If we add a new machine to the lab what do we increase?
Execution Time
■ Elapsed Time
■ counts everything (disk and memory accesses, waiting for I/O,
running other programs, etc.) from start to finish
■ a useful number, but often not good for comparison purposes
elapsed time = CPU time + wait time (I/O, other programs, etc.)

■ CPU time
■ doesn't count waiting for I/O or time spent running other programs
■ can be divided into user CPU time and system CPU time (OS calls)
CPU time = user CPU time + system CPU time
⇒ elapsed time = user CPU time + system CPU time + wait time

■ Our focus: user CPU time (CPU execution time or, simply,
execution time)
■ time spent executing the lines of code that are in our program
Definition of Performance
■ For some program running on machine X:
PerformanceX = 1 / Execution timeX
This means that for two computers X and Y, if the performance
of X is greater than the performance of Y,
We have
PerformanceX > PerformanceY
1/ execution of time X > 1/ execution time of Y
Execution timeY > Execution timeX

X is n times faster than Y means:

PerformanceX / PerformanceY = n
Example of Relative
performance
■ If Afia’s Computer runs a program in 10
seconds and Tahmid’s computer runs
the same program in 15 seconds,
whose computer is faster and by how
much faster?
Clock Cycles
■ Instead of reporting execution time in seconds, we often use
cycles. In modern computers hardware events progress cycle by
cycle: in other words, each event, e.g., multiplication, addition,
etc., is a sequence of cycles

■ Clock ticks indicate start and end of cycles:

cycle time
tick

tick

■ cycle time = time between ticks = seconds per cycle

■ clock rate (frequency) = cycles per second (1 Hz. = 1
cycle/sec, 1 MHz. = 106 cycles/sec)
■ Example: A 200 Mhz. clock has a
cycle time
Performance Equation I

equivalently

CPU execution time CPU clock cycles × Clock cycle time

=
for a program for a program

■ So, to improve performance one can either:

■ reduce the number of cycles for a program, or
■ reduce the clock cycle time, or, equivalently,
■ increase the clock rate
How many cycles are required
for a program?
■ Could assume that # of cycles = # of instructions
2nd instruction
3rd instruction
1st instruction

4th
5th
6th
...
time

■ This assumption is incorrect! Because:

■ Different instructions take different amounts of time (cycles)
■ Why…?
 How many cycles are required
for a program?
time

■ Multiplication takes more time than addition

■ Floating point operations take longer than integer ones
■ Accessing memory takes more time than accessing registers
■ Important point: changing the cycle time often changes the
number of cycles required for various instructions because it
means changing the hardware design. More later…
Example
■ Our favorite program runs in 10 seconds on computer A, which
has a 400Mhz. clock.
■ We are trying to help a computer designer build a new machine
B, that will run this program in 6 seconds. The designer can use
new (or perhaps more expensive) technology to substantially
increase the clock rate, but has informed us that this increase
will affect the rest of the CPU design, causing machine B to
require 1.2 times as many clock cycles as machine A for the
same program.

■ What clock rate should we tell the designer to target?

Terminology
■ A given program will require:
■ some number of instructions (machine instructions)
■ some number of cycles
■ some number of seconds
■ We have a vocabulary that relates these quantities:
■ cycle time (seconds per cycle)
■ clock rate (cycles per second)
■ (average) CPI (cycles per instruction)
■ a floating point intensive application might have a higher average CPI
■ MIPS (millions of instructions per second)
■ this would be higher for a program using simple instructions
Performance Measure
■ Performance is determined by execution time

■ Do any of these other variables equal performance?

■ # of cycles to execute program?
■ # of instructions in program?
■ # of cycles per second?
■ average # of cycles per instruction?
■ average # of instructions per second?

■ Common pitfall : thinking one of the variables is indicative of

performance when it really isn’t
Performance Equation II
CPU execution time Instruction count × average CPI × Clock cycle time
=
for a program for a program

■ Derive the above equation from Performance Equation I

CPI Example I
■ Suppose we have two implementations of the same instruction
set architecture (ISA). For some program:
■ machine A has a clock cycle time of 10 ns. and a CPI of 2.0
■ machine B has a clock cycle time of 20 ns. and a CPI of 1.2

■ Which machine is faster for this program, and by how much?

■ If two machines have the same ISA, which of our quantities (e.g., clock
rate, CPI, execution time, # of instructions, MIPS) will always be
identical?
CPI Example II
■ A compiler designer is trying to decide between two code
sequences for a particular machine.
■ Based on the hardware implementation, there are three
different classes of instructions: Class A, Class B, and Class C,
and they require 1, 2 and 3 cycles (respectively).
■ The first code sequence has 5 instructions:
2 of A, 1 of B, and 2 of C
The second sequence has 6 instructions:
4 of A, 1 of B, and 1 of C.

■ Which sequence will be faster? How much? What is the CPI for each
sequence?
MIPS Example

■ Two different compilers are being tested for a 100 MHz.

machine with three different classes of instructions: Class A,
Class B, and Class C, which require 1, 2 and 3 cycles
(respectively). Both compilers are used to produce code for a
large piece of software.
■ Compiler 1 generates code with 5 million Class A instructions, 1
million Class B instructions, and 1 million Class C instructions.
■ Compiler 2 generates code with 10 million Class A instructions, 1
million Class B instructions, and 1 million Class C instructions.

■ Which sequence has the higher MIPS rating?

■ Which sequence will be faster according to execution time?
Benchmarks
■ Performance best determined by running a real application
■ use programs typical of expected workload
■ or, typical of expected class of applications
e.g., compilers/editors, scientific applications, graphics, etc.

■ Small benchmarks
■ nice for architects and designers
■ easy to standardize
■ can be abused!

■ Benchmark suites
■ Perfect Club: set of application codes
■ Livermore Loops: 24 loop kernels
■ Linpack: linear algebra package
■ SPEC: mix of code from industry organization
Summary
■ Performance is specific to a particular program
■ total execution time is a consistent summary of performance
■ For a given architecture performance increases come from:
■ increases in clock rate (without adverse CPI affects)
■ improvements in processor organization that lower CPI
■ compiler enhancements that lower CPI and/or instruction count
■ Pitfall: expecting improvement in one aspect of a machine’s
performance to affect the total performance