[Python-Dev] Sorting

[Skip Montanaro]

    Tim> Skip's Pentium III acts most like my Pentium III, which shouldn't
    Tim> be surprising.

    ...

    Tim>     sf userid    ~sort speedup under timsort (negative means slower)
    Tim>     ---------    ---------------------------------------------------
    Tim>     montanaro    -23%
    Tim>     tim_one      - 6%
    Tim>     jacobs99     +18%
    Tim>     lemburg      +25%
    Tim>     nascheme     +30%

I should point out that my PIII is in a laptop.  I don't know if it's a
so-called mobile Pentium or not.  /proc/cpuinfo reports:

    processor       : 0
    vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
    cpu family      : 6
    model           : 8
    model name      : Pentium III (Coppermine)
    stepping        : 1
    cpu MHz         : 451.030
    cache size      : 256 KB
    fdiv_bug        : no
    hlt_bug         : no
    f00f_bug        : no
    coma_bug        : no
    fpu             : yes
    fpu_exception   : yes
    cpuid level     : 2
    wp              : yes
    flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr sse
    bogomips        : 897.84

It also has separate 16KB L1 I and D caches.  From what I was able to glean
from a quick glance at a Katmai vs. Coppermine article, the Coppermine's L2
cache is full-speed, on-chip, with a 256-bit wide connection and 8-way set
associative cache.

Does any of that help explain why my results are similar to Tim's?

Skip