Re: [PATCH] Intel clock speed detection
kwrohrer@enteract.com
Sun, 28 Dec 1997 03:52:02 -0600 (CST)
And lo, Brian Roberson saith unto me:
[>I use a 6x86 but]
> if I cat cpuinfo.... it reports a PPro a step (and a bunch of flags)
> yet I have been told to compile kernel with 486 optimizations,
> I was told it compiles smaller and is faster than if I compiled pent
> or ppro,
>
> I understand why it will be smaller kernel, but not faster, why is
> that??
Because, unless you're using egcs or pgcc, the only differences (in
general) will be the alignments; no pentium or ppro-specific optimizations
are done by gcc. So, smaller binaries will take less memory bandwidth,
less cache (and VM) footprint, less disk loading time...and thus be faster.
Some of these reasons motivated CISC in the first place...
Keith