TSX

Johan did a great job explaining Haswell's Transactional Synchronization eXtensions (TSX), so I won't go into as much depth here. The basic premise is simple, although the implementation is quite complex.

It's easy to demand well threaded applications from software vendors, but actually implementing code that scales well across unlimited threads isn't easy. Parallelizing truly independent tasks is the low hanging fruit, but it's the tasks that all access the same data structure that can create problems. With multiple cores accessing the same data structure, running independent of one another, there's the risk of two different cores writing to the same part of the same structure. Only one set of data can be right, but dealing with this concurrent access problem can get hairy.

The simplest way to deal with it is simply to lock the entire data structure as soon as one core starts accessing it and only allow that one core write access until it's done. Other cores are given access to the data structure, but serially, not in parallel to avoid any data integrity issues.

This is by far the easiest way to deal with the problem of multiple threads accessing the same data structure, however it also prevents any performance scaling across multiple threads/cores. As focused as Intel is on increasing single threaded performance, a lot of die area goes wasted if applications don't scale well with more cores.

Software developers can instead choose to implement more fine grained locking of data structures, however doing so obviously increases the complexity of their code.

Haswell's TSX instructions allow the developer to shift much of the complexity of managing locks to the CPU. Using the new Hardware Lock Elision and its XAQUIRE/XRELEASE instructions, Haswell developers can mark a section of code for transactional execution. Haswell will then execute the code as if no hardware locks were in place and if it completes without issues the CPU will commit all writes to memory and enjoy the performance benefits. If two or more threads attempt to write to the same area in memory, the process is aborted and code re-executed traditionally with locks. The XAQUIRE/XRELEASE instructions decode to no-ops on earlier architectures so backwards compatibility isn't a problem.

Like most new instructions, it's going to take a while for Haswell's TSX to take off as we'll need to see significant adoption of Haswell platforms as well as developers embracing the new instructions. TSX does stand to show improvements in performance anywhere from client to server performance if implemented however, this is definitely one to watch for and be excited about.

Haswell also continues improvements in virtualization performance, including big decreases to guest/host transition times.

Decoupled L3 Cache Haswell's GPU
Comments Locked

245 Comments

View All Comments

  • Kepe - Friday, October 5, 2012 - link

    Let's see. I think we can agree that the Samsung Galaxy S III was the most important Android phone launch of the summer, so it should get comparable treatment if Anandtech was completely neutral. Let's compare the articles about the SGS III vs. iPhone 5

    Doing a search on anandtech.com gives us 8 articles/news posts about the SGS III vs. 13 articles/news posts about the iPhone 5.

    SGS 3:

    Five news stories about product announcements
    Performance Preview article
    Preview article
    Review article

    iPhone 5:

    Why iPhone 5 isn't launched in 2011 article
    Analyzing rumours about iPhone 5 article
    New SoC in iPhone 5 article
    iPhone 5 Live Blog from the product launch seremony
    Three news stories about new features and product announcements
    iPhone 5 Hands On article
    Lack of simultaneous voice and LTE/EVDO article
    Analyzing Geekbench results article
    Sunspider Performance Analysis article
    Performance Preview article
    iPhone 5 Display Thoroughly Analyzed article

    + The upcoming iPhone 5 Review article
    + articles such as "iOS6 Maps Thoroughly Investigated"

    Look at the difference. It's quite clear which device gets more coverage. And it's the same thing for older iPhones. Articles such as "Camping out for the new iPhone 3GS".

    This is NOT equal treatment of all products. This is why my trust for Anandtech has started to slip. Yes, Anandtech still is the best place for reviews, but one really has to wonder if those reviews still are as neutral and objective as they used to be.
  • vFunct - Saturday, October 6, 2012 - link

    It's an android device. Android devices do not matter. Everyone uses iPhones anyways, They are better. Apple makes better products, including laptops.

    No need to waste space on Android.
  • Haugenshero - Saturday, October 6, 2012 - link

    Please take your pointless apple fanboy drivel to another site that doesn't care about actual hardware and software and just like shiny things.
  • cjl - Saturday, October 6, 2012 - link

    Apple's (iOS) current sales are only 20% of the overall smartphone market share, while Android is over 60%, so if either one of the two is largely irrelevant, it's apple.
  • HisDivineOrder - Sunday, October 7, 2012 - link

    Shhhh, icks-nay on the facts-nay.

    You might cause a fanboy's head to explode near one of those inconveniently placed explosive barrels we walk by in real life.

    Just imagine a chain reaction. Caused by an Apple fan's mind being blown. You might take out an entire city block.

    Do you want that kind of devastation on your karma? Think different. ;)
  • vFunct - Sunday, October 7, 2012 - link

    The Android market is the cheap giveaways.

    No one willingly pays money for an Android phone.

    Not everyone can afford the premium quality of an Apple product. They will have to settle for an inferior Android devices instead until they can afford higher quality products.
  • Kepe - Monday, October 8, 2012 - link

    Nice trolling there. Now go back under the bridge and stay there =)
  • Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    "Not everyone can afford the premium quality of an Apple product. They will have to settle for an inferior Android devices instead until they can afford higher quality products."

    Ha ha ha! Well done, if you're screwing around.

    But seriously, if you actually believe that, seek psychiatric help. :-P
  • Spunjji - Thursday, October 18, 2012 - link

    Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
  • solipsism - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link

    And how many of the 20% is on one phone? Let me know when you figure out how to cover every single Androd-based device that hits the market in a given year.

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now