Which task takes most time during the average work of a CPU?

0

What takes most time during the average work of a computer?

Is it actual calculation or maybe accessing memory, and the processor mostly is just waiting for data to come?

mrpyo

Posted 2011-10-08T22:38:46.273

Reputation: 171

Question was closed 2011-10-20T18:30:56.697

1What's "average work"? Some tasks could be I/O intensive. Other tasks could be compute intensive. – sawdust – 2011-10-09T01:31:52.683

Answers

1

It's waiting to access data in memory. Accessing system memory is terribly time consuming. It's not uncommon for performance junkies to cram all their data into something that will fit in the CPU's cache.

surfasb

Posted 2011-10-08T22:38:46.273

Reputation: 21 453

1

IO is almost always the bottleneck. Memory is several order of magnitude slower than CPU cache, and disk is another couple of orders of magnitude slower than memory. The reason an SSD makes such a massive difference is how much time your CPU spends waiting for the disk.

Dentrasi

Posted 2011-10-08T22:38:46.273

Reputation: 10 115

+1: Ahhh, yes. I misread the title as CPU and not computer. – surfasb – 2011-10-09T00:58:08.870

Ah, nm. The title originally said CPU and not computer. – surfasb – 2011-10-09T01:01:31.017

Asked: 2011-10-08T22:38:46.273

Viewed: 122 times

Active: 2011-10-09T01:01:10.270