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IPC

Instructions per cycle: how many instructions a processor finishes, on average, in each clock cycle. It is 1 ÷ CPI; a higher IPC is better.

IPC = instructions executed / cycles = 1 / CPI for a given program and processor; a scalar pipeline has IPC ≤ 1, a superscalar core of width w has IPC ≤ w.

Examples

  • 1,000 instructions in 400 cycles is an IPC of 2.5.

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