Do lock-free algorithms really perform better than their lock-full counterparts?

Question

Raymond Chen has been doing a huge series on lockfree algorithms. Beyond the simple cases of the InterlockedXxx functions, it seems like the prevailing pattern

Answer 1

The primary advantage of genuinely lock-free algorithms is that they are robust even if a task gets waylaid (note that lock free is a tougher condition than "not using locks"(*)). While there are performance advantages to avoiding unnecessary locking, the best-performing data structures are often those which can operate locking in many cases, but which can use locks to minimize thrashing.

(*)I've seen some attempts at "lock free" multi-producer queues where a producer that got waylaid at the wrong time would prevent consumers from seeing any new items until it completed its work); such data structures shouldn't really be called "lock free". One producer that gets blocked won't block other producers from making progress, but may arbitrarily block consumers.