AppliedNumeric answer
A loop executes data-dependent branches, half of them mispredicted, each misprediction costing cycles on a GHz core. How many seconds do the mispredictions cost?
Answer with a number. Fractions, powers and expressions like 23/6 or C(52,5) are read correctly in practice.
The worked solution is in Premium
The answer, the full working and the one idea to take away – for this and all 1,322 questions in the bank. Answer it in practice and your working is marked, with a known mistake named when you make one.
Learn the method
Reported in interviews at
More systems and low latency questions
- AVX-512 registers are 512 bits wide. How many float64 values does one hold?Foundation
- A cache line is 64 bytes. How many 32-bit integers fit in one?Foundation
- A single scan reads 1 GB from main memory at a sustained 20 GB/s.Foundation
- Walking a matrix through the cache, part 1 of 3Foundation
- Traversing a linked list and traversing an array are both O(n).Applied
- An L1 data cache holds 32 KB. How many float64 values fit in it?Applied