4 votes

Why do benchmark results vary at all?

Your assumption that the clock rate is constant is wrong. My computer at home can at any time switch each core to one of 15 different clock speeds. Your assumption that the same operation always takes ...
gnasher729's user avatar
  • 29.8k
2 votes

Are float pseudo-random number generators always implemented using integer generators underneath

I am not aware of any direct-to-float PRNGs. The primary issue is that it is very difficult to get high quality random numbers using floating point operations. PRNGs typically leverage well ...
Cort Ammon's user avatar
  • 3,351
1 vote

Why do benchmark results vary at all?

Simply put, benchmark would return the same, exact number if the cpu is in the same state every time the code is benchmarked. What does cpu state mean? It means the context of the cpu at that ...
Rinkesh P's user avatar
  • 1,028
1 vote

Are float pseudo-random number generators always implemented using integer generators underneath

My very very first computer that came with BASIC built-in, had a random number generator that replaced the previous value x with the fractional part of (x + pi)^5. It wasn’t very random. It had the ...
gnasher729's user avatar
  • 29.8k
1 vote

Are float pseudo-random number generators always implemented using integer generators underneath

As other answers have pointed out, most PRNGs using floating-point computation and floating-point storage for the PRNG state simply use the floating-point unit to perform integer arithmetic, using the ...
njuffa's user avatar
  • 520
1 vote

Are float pseudo-random number generators always implemented using integer generators underneath

Yes. When IBM created its POWER processors which may have been the first ones with a fused multiply-add operation, they managed to implement the linear-congruential method using floating point, ...
gnasher729's user avatar
  • 29.8k

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