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Subject: Re: Architecture question (Athlon - MMX)

Author: Sven Reichard

Date: 15:13:52 12/06/03

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On December 06, 2003 at 18:11:02, Anthony Cozzie wrote:

>On December 06, 2003 at 18:08:01, Sven Reichard wrote:
>
>>Hi guys,
>>
>>once more, I got surprised by the computer (although in a positive way). Maybe
>>somebody can point out a flaw in my thinking?
>>
>>In order to practice assembler programming, I wrote a lengthy bitboard
>>procedure. (For those interested, it's an Othello move generator, taking own and
>>other pieces as inputs, and producing legal moves as output.)
>>
>>It was all MMX code, and I use an Athlon. From literature I got the following
>>information:
>>- Most MMX instructions have a latency of 2 cycles; none has less.
>>- There are 2 MMX pipelines.
>>From this I deduce that with optimal scheduling avoiding hazards and cache
>>misses, this code should execute at 1 instruction/cycle.
>>In fact, it issues about 1.5 instructions per cycle, completing the 200 odd
>>instructions in 133 cycles.
>>
>>Does anybody have an idea what's going on here? Maybe the documentation (taken
>>from AMD's web site) is outdated? Have they added a third pipeline? Or did I
>>misunderstand something?
>>
>>Thanks for your hints,
>>Sven.
>
>The athlon's MMX ALUs are fully pipelined, meaning that they can retire 1
>instruction/clock each.
>
>anthony

So the 2 cycle latency stated in the Optimization Guide is incorrect?

Sven.



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