Performances

of Computer Systems
 Performance
• Measure, Report, and Summarize
• Make intelligent choices
• See through the marketing hype
• Key to understanding underlying organizational motivation
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?
Which of these airplanes has the best 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 747 than the
Douglas DC-8?
 Basic Performance Metrics
• Response time: the time between the start and the completion
of a task (in time units)

• Throughput: the total amount of tasks done in a given time

period (in number of tasks per unit of time)

• Example: Car assembly factory:

– 4 hours to produce a car (response time),
– 6 cars per an hour produced (throughput)

In general, there is no relationship between those two metrics,

– throughput of the car assembly factory may increase to 18
cars per an hour without changing time to produce one car.
– How?
4
 Computer Performance: Introduction
• The computer user is interested in response time (or execution
time) – the time between the start and completion of a given
task (program).
• The manager of a data processing center is interested in
throughput – the total amount of work done in given time.
• The computer user wants response time to decrease, while
the manager wants throughput increased.
• Main factors influencing performance of computer system are:
– processor and memory,
– input/output controllers and peripherals,
– compilers, and
– operating system.
5
 Computer Performance: TIME, TIME,
TIME
• Response Time (latency)
— How long does it take for my job to run?
— How long does it take to execute a job?
— 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?
— 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, I/O , etc.)
– a useful number, but often not good for comparison purposes
• CPU time
– doesn't count I/O or time spent running other programs
– can be broken up into system time, and user time

• Our focus: user CPU time

– time spent executing the lines of code that are "in" our program
 Analysis of CPU Time
CPU time depends on the program which is executed,
including:
– a number of instructions executed,
– types of instructions executed and their frequency of usage.
Computers are constructed is such way that events in hardware
are synchronized using a clock.
Clock rate is given in Hz (=1/sec).
A clock rate defines durations of discrete time intervals called
clock cycle times or clock cycle periods:

8
 Definition of Performance
• For some program running on machine X,
PerformanceX = 1 / Execution timeX
• "X is n times faster than Y"
Performance (X)
n = ––––––––––––––
Performance (Y)
• Problem:
– machine A runs a program in 20 seconds
– machine B runs the same program in 25 seconds
 Clock Cycles
• Instead of reporting execution time in seconds, we often use cycles
seconds cycles seconds
 
program program cycle

• Clock “ticks” indicate when to start activities (one abstraction):

time

• cycle time = time between ticks = seconds per cycle

• clock rate (frequency) = cycles per second (1 Hz. = 1 cycle/sec)
1
A 4 Ghz. clock has a 1012  250 picoseconds (ps) cycle time
4 109
 How to Improve Performance
seconds cycles seconds
 
program program cycle

So, to improve performance (everything else being equal) you can either (increase or decrease?)

________ the # of required cycles for a program, or

________ the clock cycle time or, said another way,

________ the clock rate.

 How many cycles are required for a program?
• Could assume that number of cycles equals
number of instructions
2nd instruction
3rd instruction
1st instruction

• 4th
5th
6th
...
time

This assumption is incorrect,

different instructions take different amounts of time on different machines.

Why? hint: remember that these are machine instructions, not lines of C code
 Different numbers of cycles for
different instructions
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
(more later)
 Example
• Our favorite program runs in 10 seconds on computer A,
which has a 4 GHz. 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?"
 Now that we understand cycles
• 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)
– CPI (cycles per instruction)
a floating point intensive application might have a higher CPI

– MIPS (millions of instructions per second)

this would be higher for a program using simple instructions
 Performance
• Performance is determined by execution time
• Do any of the 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.
 CPU Time Equation

• CPU time = Clock cycles for a program * Clock cycle time

= Clock cycles for a program / Clock rate
Clock cycles for a program is a total number of clock cycles
needed to execute all instructions of a given program.
• CPU time = Instruction count * CPI / Clock rate

CPI – the average number of clock cycles per instruction (for a

given execution of a given program) is an important parameter
given as:
CPI = Clock cycles for a program / Instructions count
Instruction count is a number of instructions executed,
sometimes referred as the instruction path length.
17
 CPI Example
• Suppose we have two implementations of the same instruction set
architecture (ISA).
For some program,
Machine A has a clock cycle time of 250 ps and a CPI of 2.0
Machine B has a clock cycle time of 500 ps 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?
 # of Instructions Example
• 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 one, two, and three 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 4 GHz. machine with
three different classes of instructions: Class A, Class B, and Class C,
which require one, two, and three cycles (respectively). Both
compilers are used to produce code for a large piece of software.
The first compiler's code uses 5 million Class A instructions, 1 million
Class B instructions, and 1 million Class C instructions.
The second compiler's code uses 10 million Class A instructions, 1
million Class B instructions, and 1 million Class C instructions.

• Which sequence will be faster according to MIPS?

• Which sequence will be faster according to execution time?
 Phases in Instruction Execution

• We can divide the execution of an instruction into the

following five stages:

– IF: Instruction fetch

– ID: Instruction decode and register fetch
– EX: Execution, effective address or branch calculation
– MEM: Memory access (for lw and sw instructions only)
– WB: Register write back (for ALU and lw instructions)

21
 Sequential Execution of 3 LW Instructions

• Assumed are the following delays: Memory access = 2 nsec,

ALU operation = 2 nsec, Register file access = 1 nsec;
P ro g ra m
e x e c u t io n 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
T im e
o rd e r
( i n in s tr u c t io n s )
I n s t ru c t i o n D a ta
lw r 1 , 1 0 0 ( r 0 ) R eg A LU R eg
fe tc h ac ce ss

In s tru c ti o n D a ta
lw r 2 , 2 0 0 ( r 0 ) 8 ns R eg A LU R eg
fe tc h a c ce ss

In s tru c ti o n
lw r 3 , 3 0 0 ( r 0 ) 8 ns
fe tc h

...
8 ns

Every lw instruction needs 8 nsec to execute.

22
 CPU Time: Example 1

Consider an implementation of MIPS ISA with 500 MHz clock and

– each ALU instruction takes 3 clock cycles,
– each branch/jump instruction takes 2 clock cycles,
– each sw instruction takes 4 clock cycles,
– each lw instruction takes 5 clock cycles.

Also, consider a program that during its execution executes:

– x=200 million ALU instructions
– y=55 million branch/jump instructions
– z=25 million sw instructions
– w=20 million lw instructions
Find CPU time.

23
 CPU Time: Example 1 (continued)
• a. Approach 1:
Clock cycles for a program = (x×3 + y×2 + z×4 + w×5)
= 910 × 106 clock cycles
CPU_time = Clock cycles for a program / Clock rate
= 910 × 106 / 500 × 106 = 1.82 sec
• b. Approach 2:
CPI = Clock cycles for a program / Instructions count
CPI = (x×3 + y×2 + z×4 + w×5)/ (x + y + z + w)
= 3.03 clock cycles/ instruction
CPU time = Instruction count × CPI / Clock rate
= (x+y+z+w) × 3.03 / 500 × 106
= 300 × 106 × 3.03 /500 × 106
= 1.82 sec
24
 CPU Time: Example 2
Consider another implementation of MIPS ISA with 1 GHz clock
and
– each ALU instruction takes 4 clock cycles,
– each branch/jump instruction takes 3 clock cycles,
– each sw instruction takes 5 clock cycles,
– each lw instruction takes 6 clock cycles.
Also, consider the same program as in Example 1.
Find CPI and CPU time.
CPI = (x×4 + y×3 + z×5 + w×6)/ (x + y + z + w)
= 4.03 clock cycles/ instruction
CPU time = Instruction count × CPI / Clock rate
= (x+y+z+w) × 4.03 / 1000 × 106
= 300 × 106 × 4.03 /1000 × 106
= 1.21 sec
25
 Analysis of CPU Performance Equation

• CPU time = Instruction count * CPI / Clock rate

• How to improve (i.e. decrease) CPU time:

– Clock rate: hardware technology & organization,
– CPI: organization, ISA and compiler technology,
– Instruction count: ISA & compiler technology.

Many potential performance improvement techniques primarily

improve one component with small or predictable impact on the
other two.

26
 Calculating Components of CPU time
• For an existing processor it is easy to obtain the CPU time (i.e.
the execution time) by measurement, and the clock rate is
known. But, it is difficult to figure out the instruction count or
CPI.

Newer processors, MIPS64 processor is such an example,

include counters for instructions executed and for clock cycles.
Those can be helpful to programmers trying to understand and
tune the performance of an application.

• Also, different simulation techniques and queuing theory could

be used to obtain values for components of the execution
(CPU) time.

27
 Attempting to Calculate CPI
The table below indicates frequency of all instruction types execu-
ted in a “typical” program and, from the reference manual, we are
provided with a number of cycles per instruction for each type.
Instruction Type Frequency Cycles
ALU instruction 50% 4
Load instruction 30% 5
Store instruction 5% 4
Branch instruction 15% 2

CPI = 0.5*4 + 0.3*5 + 0.05*4 + 0.15*2 = 4 cycles/instruction

The calculation may not be necessary correct since the numbers
for cycles per instruction given don’t account for pipeline effects.
28
 Pipelining: Its Natural!

• Dave has four loads of clothes

A B C D
to wash, dry, and fold

• Washer takes 30 minutes

• Dryer takes 40 minutes

• “Folder” takes 20 minutes

29
 Sequential Laundry
6 PM 7 8 9 10 11 Midnight
Time

30 40 20 30 40 20 30 40 20 30 40 20
T
a A
s
k
B
O
r
d C
e
r D
Sequential laundry takes 6 hours for 4 loads;
If Dave learned pipelining, how long would laundry take?
30
 Pipelined Laundry

6 PM 7 8 9 10 11 Midnight
Time

30 40 40 40 40 20

T A
a
s
k B

O
r
C
d
e D
r

Pipelined laundry takes 3.5 hours for 4 loads;

31
 Pipeline Executing 3 LW Instructions
• Assuming delays as in the sequential case and pipelined
processor with a clock cycle time of 2 nsec.
P ro g ra m
2 4 6 8 10 12 14
e x e c u t io n
T im e
o rd e r

( in in s t r u c t io n s )
I n s t r u c t io n D a ta
lw r 1 , 1 0 0 ( r 0 ) R eg A LU R eg
fe tc h access

I n s t r u c t io n D a ta
lw r 2 , 2 0 0 ( r 0 ) 2 ns R eg A LU R eg
fe tc h a cc e s s

I n s t r u c t io n D a ta
lw r 3 , 3 0 0 ( r 0 ) 2 ns R eg A LU R eg
fe tc h a cc e s s

2 ns 2 ns 2 ns 2 ns 2 ns

Note that registers are written during the first part of a cycle and
read during the second part of the same cycle.
• Pipelining doesn’t help to execute a single instruction, it may
improve performance by increasing instruction throughput;
32
 Quantitative Performance Measures
• The original performance measure was time to perform an individual
instruction, e.g. add. Instructions took the same time,  appropriate.
• Next performance measure was the average instruction time,
obtained from the relative frequency of instructions in some typical
instruction mix and times to execute each instruction. Since
instruction sets were similar, this was a more accurate comparison.
• One alternative to execution time as the metric was MIPS – Million
Instructions Per Second. For a given program MIPS rating is simple:

Instruction count Clock rate

MIPS rating = –––––––––––––– = –––––––––
CPU time * 10 6 CPI * 106
The problems with MIPS rating as a performance measure:
– difficult to compare computers with different instruction sets,
– MIPS varies between programs on the same computer,
– MIPS can vary inversely with performance!
33
Quantitative Performance Measures (continued)

• Another popular alternative to execution time was million

floating point operations per second – MFLOPS:

Number of floating point operations in a program

MFLOPS = ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Execution time * 106

Because it is based on operations in the program rather than

on instructions, MFLOPS has a stronger claim than MIPS to
being a fair comparison between different machines. MFLOPS
are not applicable outside floating-point performance.

34
 Benchmark Suites
It has become popular to put together collection of benchmarks
to try to measure the performance of processors.
Benchmarks could be:
– real programs;
– modified (or scripted) applications;
– kernels – small, key pieces from real programs;
– synthetic benchmarks – not real programs, but codes try to
match the average frequency of operations and operands of
a large set of programs.
• SPEC (Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation) was
founded in late 1980s to try to improve the state of bench-
marking and make more valid base for comparison of desk
top and server computers.

35
 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
• SPEC (System Performance Evaluation Cooperative)
– companies have agreed on a set of real program and inputs
– valuable indicator of performance (and compiler technology)
– can still be abused
 SPEC Benchmark Suites

• The SPEC benchmarks are real programs, modified for

portability and to minimize the role of I/O in overall benchmark
performance. Example: Optimizer GNU C compiler.

• First in 1989, SPEC89 was introduced with 4 integer programs

and 6 floating point programs, providing a single “SPECmarks”.

• SPEC92 had 5 integer programs and 14 floating point

programs, and provided SPECint92 and SPECfp92.
• SPEC95 provided SPECint_base95, SPECfp_base95.

• SPEC CPU2000 has 12 integer benchmarks and 14 floating

point benchmarks, and provides CINT2000 and CFP2000.

37
 Benchmark Games
• An embarrassed Intel Corp. acknowledged Friday that a bug in a software
program known as a compiler had led the company to overstate the speed of
its microprocessor chips on an industry benchmark by 10 percent. However,
industry analysts said the coding error…was a sad commentary on a common
industry practice of “cheating” on standardized performance tests…The
error was pointed out to Intel two days ago by a competitor,
Motorola …came in a test known as SPECint92…Intel acknowledged that it
had “optimized” its compiler to improve its test scores. The company had
also said that it did not like the practice but felt to compelled to make the
optimizations because its competitors were doing the same thing…At the
heart of Intel’s problem is the practice of “tuning” compiler programs to
recognize certain computing problems in the test and then substituting
special handwritten pieces of code…

Saturday, January 6, 1996 New York Times

38
 SPEC ‘89
• Compiler “enhancements” and performance
800

700

600
SPEC performance ratio

500

400

300

200

100

0
gcc espresso spice doduc nasa7 li eqntott matrix300 fpppp tomcatv

Benchmark
Compiler

Enhanced compiler
SPEC CPU2000
 Amdahl's Law
Execution Time After Improvement =
Execution Time Unaffected +( Execution Time Affected / Amount of
Improvement )

• Example:
"Suppose a program runs in 100 seconds on a machine, with
multiply responsible for 80 seconds of this time. How much do we
have to improve the speed of multiplication if we want the program to
run 4 times faster?"
How about making it 5 times faster?

• Principle: Make the common case fast

 Example
• Suppose we enhance a machine making all floating-point instructions
run five times faster. If the execution time of some benchmark before
the floating-point enhancement is 10 seconds, what will the speedup be
if half of the 10 seconds is spent executing floating-point instructions?

• We are looking for a benchmark to show off the new floating-point

unit described above, and want the overall benchmark to show a
speedup of 3. One benchmark we are considering runs for 100
seconds with the old floating-point hardware. How much of the
execution time would floating-point instructions have to account for in
this program in order to yield our desired speedup on this benchmark?
 Remember
• Performance is specific to a particular program/s
– 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
– Algorithm/Language choices that affect instruction count

• Pitfall: expecting improvement in one aspect of a machine’s

performance to affect the total performance
 Summarizing Performance
• The arithmetic mean of the execution times is given as:
n
1
–* Σ
n i=1
Timei

where Timei is the execution time for the ith program of a

total of n in the workload (benchmark).
• The weighted arithmetic mean of execution times is given as:
n
Σ Weight
i=1
i * Timei

where Weighti is the frequency of the ith program in the

workload.
• The geometric mean of execution times is given as:
n n
П xi
n
П Timei where
i=1
= x1 * x2 * x3* … * xn
i=1
44
 Summarizing SPEC CPU2000 Performance
SPEC CPU2000 summarizes performance using a geometric
mean ratios, with larger numbers indicating higher performance.

CINT2000 is indicator of integer performance and it is given as:

12
12
CINT2000 = k1× П 1/CPU timei
i=1

where k1 is a coefficient and CPU timei is the CPU time for the
ith integer program of a total of 12 programs in the workload.
Similarly for floating point performance, CFP2000 is given as:
14
14
CFP2000 = k2 × П 1/FPExecution timei
i=1

45
 Performance Example (part 1/5)

• We are interested in two implementations of two similar

but still different ISA, one with and one without special real
number instructions.
• Both machine have 1000MHz clock.
• Machine With Floating Point Hardware - MFP implements
real number operations directly with the following
characteristics:
– real number multiply instruction requires 6 clock cycles
– real number add instruction requires 4 clock cycles
– real number divide instruction requires 20 clock cycles
Any other instruction (including integer instructions)
requires 2 clock cycles

46
 Performance Example (part 2/5)
• Machine with No Floating Point Hardware - MNFP does
not support real number instructions, but all its
instructions are identical to non-real number instructions
of MFP. Each MNFP instruction (including integer
instructions) takes 2 clock cycles. Thus, MNFP is
identical to MFP without real number instructions.
• Any real number operation (in a program) has to be
emulated by an appropriate software subroutine (i.e.
compiler has to insert an appropriate sequence of
integer instructions for each real number operation). The
number of integer instructions needed to implement each
real number operations is as follows:
– real number multiply needs 30 integer instructions
– real number add needs 20 integer instructions
– real number divide needs 50 integer instructions
47
 Performance Example (part 3/5)
Consider Program P with the following mix of operations:
– real number multiply 10%
– real number add 15%
– real number divide 5%
– other instructions 70%
a. Find MIPS rating for both machine.
CPIMFP = 0.1×6 + 0.15×4 + 0.05×20 + 0.7×2
= 3.6 clocks/instr
CPIMNFP = 2
clock rate 1000*106
MIPSMFP rating = -------------- = ----------- = 270.3
CPI * 106 3.6*106
MIPSMNFP rating = 500
According to MIPS rating, MNFP is better than MFP!?
48
 Performance Example (part 4/5)
b. If Program P on MFP needs 300,000,000 instructions, find
time to execute this program on each machine.

MFP Number of MNFP Number of

instructions instructions
real mul 30×106 900×106
real add 45×106 900×106
real div 15×106 750×106
others 210×106 210×106
Totals 300×106 2760×106

CPU_timeMFP = 300×106 × 3.6 / 1000 × 106 = 1.08 sec

CPU_timeMNFP = 2760×106 × 2 / 1000 × 106 = 5.52 sec

49
 Performance Example (part 5/5)
c. Calculate MFLOPS for both computers.
Number of floating point operations in a program
MFLOPS = ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Execution time * 106

MFLOPSMFP = 90×106 / 1.08×106 = 83.3

MFLOPSMNFP = 90×106 / 5.52 × 106 = 16.3

50
• Machine With Floating Point Hardware - MFP
– real number multiply instruction requires 6 clock cycles
– real number add instruction requires 4 clock cycles
– real number divide instruction requires 20 clock cycles
Any other instruction (including integer instructions)
requires 2 clock cycles

• Machine with No Floating Point Hardware - MNFP

The number of integer instructions needed
– real number multiply needs 30 integer instructions
– real number add needs 20 integer instructions
– real number divide needs 50 integer instructions

• Consider Program P with the following mix of operations:

– real number multiply 10%
– real number add 15%
– real number divide 5%
– other instructions 70%