MT is "on average" maybe "as fast" but the key is "on average:" depending on the usage pattern it can cost much more. This specific RNG follows a traditional a

MT is "on average" maybe "as fast" but the key is "on average:" depending on the usage pattern it can cost much more. This specific RNG follows a traditional approach (that is, like in C or Java standard libraries) to have one algorithm in the standard library that is "as fast as possible, as bad as possible." Which meant even "just multiply with constant, add another constant, return. Bad? Yes we know." So it's still on the level "it's two multiplies and two-three adds." Traditionally, those who expect some specific properties, like the author of the article, should have actually used the implementation they added to their code (for example MT if it fits) if they ultimately cared about the speed and wanted exactly the properties they know they needed, or if they just didn't care about the speed used some much "slower" but "much better" library. Maybe the tradition can be broken in this specific case, I really don't know which benchmarks define what's acceptable here. Note also that the implementation must be verified, just the fact that there is somewhere some implementation available doesn't even mean that it does what is expected to do. The devil is in the details here.