[MPFR] multiplications vs. subtractions: which one is faster?

[Vincent Lefevre]

On 2007-07-15 10:54:03 +0200, Paul Zimmermann wrote:
> Thank you Patrick. However I'd like to point out that those figures
> (I mean the ratio of the number of cycles for both variants) might
> vary from one platform to the other, maybe by more than a factor of
> two. They might also depend on the version of mpfr, on the fact that
> GMP and/or MPFR were tuned for that platform, and on the actual
> operand values

Yes, that's why it is better to implement both solutions and compare
them.

> (in particular mpfr_sub might be slower when subtracting numbers
> that are very close).

Perhaps not. AFAIK, the number of canceled bits (computed early in
the mpfr_sub1 function) is taken into account to avoid unnecessary
computations.

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Vincent Lefèvre <vincent at vinc17.org> - Web: <http://www.vinc17.org/>
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Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Arenaire project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)