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Subject: Re: cmov isn't necessarily good

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 22:11:31 07/18/03

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On July 18, 2003 at 15:16:27, Tom Kerrigan wrote:

>On July 18, 2003 at 04:05:52, Walter Faxon wrote:
>
>>>; 326  :     if (bbHalf) bb0 = bb1;              // will code as cmov (ideally)
>>>
>>>	test	ecx, ecx
>>>	je	SHORT $L806
>>>	mov	eax, DWORD PTR _bb$[esp]
>>>$L806:
>>>
>>
>>
>>Stupid compiler, not only no cmov
>
>IIRC, on the P6 (Pentium Pro, Pentium II, Pentium III), the cmov instruction
>gets translated into a string of uOps that's equivalent to testing, branching,
>and copying.
>
>In other words, there is no performance benefit (I believe there may actually be
>a performance penalty) to using cmov on a P6, and it breaks compatibility with
>pre-P6 processors, so it's little wonder the P6-era MS compiler doesn't generate
>cmovs.
>
>-Tom


I think the point is that the cmov eliminates any possibility of a branch
mis-prediction.  On the long PIV pipeline, that's a significant savings for
mis-predicted branches.

Since Eugene's example shows that the new MSVC compiler is going to finally
emit cmov instructions, I'd assume there is a performance gain for doing
so.



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