Definitions of Time

• Time can be defined in different ways, depending

on what we are measuring:
– Response time
• The time between the start and completion of a task. It includes
time spent executing on the CPU, accessing disk and memory,
waiting for I/O and other processes, and operating system
overhead. This is also referred to as execution time.
– Throughput
• The total amount of work done in a given time.
– CPU execution time :
• Total time a CPU spends computing on a given task (excludes
time for I/O or running other programs). This is also referred to
as simply CPU time.
CSE2001 Computer Architecture and Organization ; Dr M Rajasekhara Babu, School of C.S.E, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT)-Vellore-14; 7-Mar-23 9:38 AM Slide. 1
 Definitions of Time
• For some program running on machine X,
Performance = 1 / Execution time(X)
• "X is n times faster than Y"
Performance(X)/ Performance(Y) = n
• Problem:
– machine A runs a program in 20 seconds
– machine B runs the same program in 25 seconds
– how many times faster is machine A?
25
= 1.25
20

CSE2001 Computer Architecture and Organization ; Dr M Rajasekhara Babu, School of C.S.E, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT)-Vellore-14; 7-Mar-23 9:38 AM Slide. 2
 Basic Measurement Metrics
• Comparing Machines
– Execution time
– Throughput
– CPU time
– MIPS –millions of instructions per second
– MFLOPS –millions of floating point operations per
second
• Comparing Machines Using Sets of Programs
– Arithmetic mean, weighted arithmetic mean
– Benchmarks

CSE2001 Computer Architecture and Organization ; Dr M Rajasekhara Babu, School of C.S.E, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT)-Vellore-14; 7-Mar-23 9:38 AM Slide. 3
 Computer Clock
• Runs at a constant rate and determines when events
take placed in hardware.

clock period
• The clock cycle time is the amount of time for one
clock period to elapse (e.g. 5 ns).
• The clock rate is the inverse of the clock cycle time.
• For example, if a computer has a clock cycle time of 5
ns, the clock rate is:
1
---------------------- = 200 MHz
5 x 10-9 sec
CSE2001 Computer Architecture and Organization ; Dr M Rajasekhara Babu, School of C.S.E, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT)-Vellore-14; 7-Mar-23 9:38 AM Slide. 4
 Basic Measurement Metrics
• Different Numbers of Cycles for Different
Instructions

time

• Division takes more time than addition

• Floating point operations take longer than integer
ones
• Accessing memory takes more time than accessing
registers
CSE2001 Computer Architecture and Organization ; Dr M Rajasekhara Babu, School of C.S.E, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT)-Vellore-14; 7-Mar-23 9:38 AM Slide. 5
 Computing CPU Time
• The time to execute a given program can be computed as
CPU time = CPU clock cycles x clock cycle time
• Since clock cycle time and clock rate are reciprocals
CPU time = CPU clock cycles / clock rate
• The number of CPU clock cycles can be determined by
CPU clock cycles = (instructions/program) x (clock cycles/instruction)
= Instruction count x CPI
which gives
CPU time = Instruction count x CPI x clock cycle time
CPU time = Instruction count x CPI / clock rate

• The units for CPU time are

instructions clock cycles seconds
CPU time = ----------------- x ----------------- x ----------------
program instruction clock cycle

CSE2001 Computer Architecture and Organization ; Dr M Rajasekhara Babu, School of C.S.E, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT)-Vellore-14; 7-Mar-23 9:38 AM Slide. 7
 CPU Time Example
• Example 1:
– CPU clock rate is 1 MHz
– Program takes 45 million cycles to execute
– What’s the CPU time?
• 45,000,000 * (1 / 1,000,000) = 45 seconds
• Example 2:
– CPU clock rate is 500 MHz
– Program takes 45 million cycles to execute
– What’s the CPU time
• 45,000,000 * (1 / 500,000,000) = 0.09 seconds

CSE2001 Computer Architecture and Organization ; Dr M Rajasekhara Babu, School of C.S.E, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT)-Vellore-14; 7-Mar-23 9:38 AM Slide. 9
 CPI Example
• Let assume that a benchmark has 100 instructions:
– 25 instructions are loads/stores (each take 2 cycles)
– 50 instructions are adds (each takes 1 cycle)
– 25 instructions are square root (each takes 50 cycles)
• What is the CPI for this benchmark?

CPI = ((0.25 * 2) + (0.50 * 1) + (0.25 * 50))

= 13.5

CSE2001 Computer Architecture and Organization ; Dr M Rajasekhara Babu, School of C.S.E, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT)-Vellore-14; 7-Mar-23 9:38 AM Slide. 10
 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 10 ns. and a CPI of 2.0
• Machine B has a clock cycle time of 20 ns. and a CPI of 1.2
• Which machine is faster for this program, and by how
much?
• Assume that # of instructions in the program is
1,000,000,000.
CPU TimeA = 109 * 2.0 * 10 * 10-9 = 20 seconds
CPU TimeB = 109 * 1.2 * 20 * 10-9 = 24 seconds

24
= 1.2 times Machine A is faster
20
CSE2001 Computer Architecture and Organization ; Dr M Rajasekhara Babu, School of C.S.E, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT)-Vellore-14; 7-Mar-23 9:38 AM Slide. 13
 Number of Instruction 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?
• # of cycles for first code = (2 * 1) + (1 * 2) + (2 * 3) = 10 cycles
• # of cycles for second code = (4 * 1) + (1 * 2) + (1 * 3) = 9 cycles

CPI for first code = 10 / 5 = 2

10 / 9 = 1.11 times
CPI for second code = 9 / 6 = 1.5

CSE2001 Computer Architecture and Organization ; Dr M Rajasekhara Babu, School of C.S.E, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT)-Vellore-14; 7-Mar-23 9:38 AM Slide. 14
 Problems with Arithmetic Mean
• Applications do not have the same probability of
being run
• For example, two machines timed on two
benchmarks:
Machine A Machine B
Program 1 2 seconds (%20) 6 seconds (20%)
Program 2 12 seconds (%80) 10 seconds (%80)

Average execution timeA = (2 + 12) / 2 = 7 seconds

Average execution timeB = (6 + 10) / 2 = 8 seconds

Weighted average execution timeA = 2*0.2 + 12*0.8 = 10 seconds

Weighted average execution timeB = 6*0.2 + 10*0.8 = 9.2 seconds

CSE2001 Computer Architecture and Organization ; Dr M Rajasekhara Babu, School of C.S.E, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT)-Vellore-14; 7-Mar-23 9:38 AM Slide. 15
 Poor Performance Metrics
• Marketing metrics for computer performance
included MIPS and MFLOPS
– MIPS : millions of instructions per second
– MIPS = instruction count / (execution time x 106)
• For example, a program that executes 3 million
instructions in 2 seconds has a MIPS rating of
– 1.5
• Advantage : Easy to understand and measure
• Disadvantages : May not reflect actual performance,
since simple instructions do better.

CSE2001 Computer Architecture and Organization ; Dr M Rajasekhara Babu, School of C.S.E, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT)-Vellore-14; 7-Mar-23 9:38 AM Slide. 16
 Poor Performance Metrics
• MFLOPS : millions of floating point operations per
second
• MFLOPS = floating point operations / (execution
time x 106)
• For example, a program that executes 4 million fp.
instructions in 5 seconds has a MFLOPS rating of
– 0.8
• Advantage : Easy to understand and measure
• Disadvantages : Same as MIPS, only measures
floating point

CSE2001 Computer Architecture and Organization ; Dr M Rajasekhara Babu, School of C.S.E, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT)-Vellore-14; 7-Mar-23 9:38 AM Slide. 17
 Reference
T1: W. Stallings, “Computer Organization and
Architecture”, 8th edition, PHI, 2006.

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CSE2001 Computer Architecture and Organization ; Dr M Rajasekhara Babu, School of C.S.E, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT)-Vellore-14; 7-Mar-23 9:38 AM Slide. 22
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