On modern Intel processors hardware SQRT in many cases is faster than RSQRT
followed by Newton-Raphson refinement. The patch introduces a simple heuristic
to choose between hardware SQRT instruction and Newton-Raphson software
estimation.
The patch treats scalars and vectors differently. The heuristic is that for
scalars the compiler should optimize for latency while for vectors it should
optimize for throughput. It is based on the assumption that throughput bound
code is likely to be vectorized.
Basically, the patch disables scalar NR for big cores and disables NR completely
for Skylake. Firstly, scalar SQRT has shorter latency than NR code in big cores.
Secondly, vector SQRT has been greatly improved in Skylake and has better
throughput compared to NR.
Differential Revision: https://reviews.llvm.org/D21379
llvm-svn: 277725
Nikolai Bozhenov