Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 5-2.
Profile Compile Tests
Profile
Real
User
System
None
56.641
23.730
3.520
Modest
37.475
22.330
3.510
Medium
40.127
20.830
3.360
High
49.318
20.980
3.240
Turbo
32.756
15.380
2.650
Everyone has a different appetite for speed. I usually favor reliability over speed,
since failure and intermittent problems can cause “wild goose chases” and otherwise
waste valuable time. Yet in some situations performance can be important enough to
accept the risks. An application performing real-time Fourier transforms on audio might
justify Turbo mode, for example.
Execution
Connected with the idea of the CPU is program execution itself. Before you look at
program execution, you need to take high-level view of the execution context. Figure
5-1
shows the operating environment that an executing program operates within.
Figure 5-1.
Program execution context
