Now that we understand cycles
A given program will require
- some number of instructions (machine instructions)
- some number of cycles
- some number of seconds
We have a vocubulary that relates these quantities:
- cycle time (seconds per cycle)
- clock rate (cycles per second)
- CPI (cycles per instruction) a floating point intensive application might have a higher CPI
- MIPS (millions of instructions per second) this would be higher for a program using simple instructions