Will the comparison of two float numbers consume more CPU time than two ints?
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Will the comparison of two float numbers consume more CPU time than two ints?
With today’s CPUs (excluding maybe embedded machines and the Atom) you can’t really make predictions on how fast a single inctruction in code may be.
First of all, it may be removed by the compiler if it’s known to be irrelevant, it may be rewritten by the compiler into something different which is known to be faster, etc. That’s one pitfall.
Secondly, CPUs can execute more than one instruction per cycle, or make them asynchronously and do other things while waiting for the FPU, etc.
In your specific case, comparing two numbers should be instant, i. e. in one cycle. But you probably can’t use that result in that very same cycle already. But this should hold true for both integers and floating-point numbers.
Remember that it’s just a series of bits and while floating-point numbers may be a little different due to their structure, it’s still a pretty easy problem (compare sign, compare exponent, compare mantissa).