Latency Numbers Every Programmer Should Know

The article presents a table of approximate latency times for common computer operations, ranging from L1 cache references (0.5 ns) to transcontinental network round trips (150 ms). Compiled by Jeff Dean and originally by Peter Norvig, the data provides programmers with a reference for understanding the relative speed differences between CPU caches, main memory, SSDs, disks, and network communication.

latency.txt This file contains hidden or bidirectional Unicode text that may be interpreted or compiled differently than what appears below. To review, open the file in an editor that reveals hidden Unicode characters. Learn more about bidirectional Unicode characters Show hidden characters Latency Comparison Numbers ~2012 ---------------------------------- L1 cache reference 0.5 ns Branch mispredict 5 ns L2 cache reference 7 ns 14x L1 cache Mutex lock/unlock 25 ns Main memory reference 100 ns 20x L2 cache, 200x L1 cache Compress 1K bytes with Zippy 3,000 ns 3 us Send 1K bytes over 1 Gbps network 10,000 ns 10 us Read 4K randomly from SSD 150,000 ns 150 us ~1GB/sec SSD Read 1 MB sequentially from memory 250,000 ns 250 us Round trip within same datacenter 500,000 ns 500 us Read 1 MB sequentially from SSD 1,000,000 ns 1,000 us 1 ms ~1GB/sec SSD, 4X memory Disk seek 10,000,000 ns 10,000 us 10 ms 20x datacenter roundtrip Read 1 MB sequentially from disk 20,000,000 ns 20,000 us 20 ms 80x memory, 20X SSD Send packet CA- Netherlands- CA 150,000,000 ns 150,000 us 150 ms Notes ----- 1 ns = 10^-9 seconds 1 us = 10^-6 seconds = 1,000 ns 1 ms = 10^-3 seconds = 1,000 us = 1,000,000 ns Credit ------ By Jeff Dean: http://research.google.com/people/jeff/ Originally by Peter Norvig: http://norvig.com/21-days.html answers Contributions ------------- 'Humanized' comparison: https://gist.github.com/hellerbarde/2843375 Visual comparison chart: http://i.imgur.com/k0t1e.png Interactive Prezi version: https://prezi.com/pdkvgys-r0y6/latency-numbers-for-programmers-web-development/latency.txt