@TechReport{	  it:2002-013,
  author	= {Jakob Engblom},
  title		= {Effects of Branch Predictors on Execution Time},
  institution	= {Department of Information Technology, Uppsala University},
  department	= {Division of Computer Systems},
  year		= {2002},
  number	= {2002-013},
  month		= apr,
  abstract	= {This technical report describes the result of a short
		  experimental investigation into the effect of branch
		  predictors on the execution times of tight loops on modern
		  aggressive microprocessors. The same code was tried on
		  Pentium III, Athlon, UltraSparc II, and UltraSparc III
		  processors. For reference, the same experiment was carried
		  out on a simple V850E processor to determine the behaviour
		  without branch prediction.
		  
		  The results indicate that advanced branch predictors give a
		  very high and hard-to-understand variation in the execution
		  time of loops, and that this effect can be very big
		  relative to the execution time of other instructions. }
}