How much a computer can do in one second
Summary
Julia Evans makes orders of magnitude for CPU, memory, network and disk tangible through small interactive estimation exercises. The exercises run interactively in the browser. The answers are revealed with explanations.
Ideas
- Simple estimation questions train a feel for technical orders of magnitude.
- CPU operations are considerably faster than network round trips.
- Sequential disk access differs greatly from random access.
- Measurements depend on hardware, data volume and access pattern.
Insights
- Performance intuition helps to spot bad architectures before benchmarks.
- Orders of magnitude are often more useful than seemingly exact individual values.
- Your own measurements correct outdated rules of thumb.
Facts
- The project covers several layers of hardware.
Recommendations
- Estimate a range of values before every measurement.
- Repeat benchmarks on the actual target hardware.
References
Links to the original source and the Web Archive open in a new tab.