What do 'instruction prefixes' mean in modern x86
问题 To get an understanding on why Bulldozer was subpar I've been looking at Agner Fog's excellent microarchitecture book, in it on page 178 under bulldozer it has this paragraph. Instructions with up to three prefixes can be decoded in one clock cycle. There is a very large penalty for instructions with more than three prefixes. Instructions with 4-7 prefixes take 14-15 clock cycles extra to decode. Instructions with 8-11 prefixes take 20-22 clock cycles extra, and instructions with 12-14