
100 ^ System Performance Issues
provides speedup over sequential consistency of about 1.5 for MP3D, 1.1 for LU, and 1.4 for
PTHOR. The study by Zucker and Baer [ZuB92] found very simUar gains achievable by
moving from sequential to release consistency.
3.3.2 Prefetch
Prefetching is a technique that moves data that is expected to be used by a given processor
closer to that processor before it is actuaUy needed. When prefetching is successful, a large
fraction of the memory latency can be hidden. Prefetching can be classified into binding and
nonbinding, as weU as software- versus hardware-issued.
With binding prefetch, the value returned is