4 ms·
As an interviewee, I would roll my eyes at the ignorance of the interviewer. This is the sort of question that reveals the ignorance of the person asking it.
by pogaxvr 9y ago
As an interviewee, I would roll my eyes at the ignorance of the interviewer.
This is the sort of question that reveals the ignorance of the person asking it. The correct answer is "yes". What is 'modern'? There are very modern embedded CPUs that operate in the low MHz range. How much power is being provided? A 'modern' CPU can be underclocked to ridiculous levels for power savings. What's an operation? Are we talking MOV AX, 1 or are we talking hashing a string?
It's the kind of question a dumb person asks thinking they're being quite clever.
- detaro 9y agoAnd low Mhz range is in the millions, which they said they would accept as an answer with that explanation.
- pogaxvr 9y agoClock rate != operations. It's like you didn't bother to read what I wrote.
- detaro 9y agoClosely enough related to number of basic operations though I'd say. I'll agree with you if it really just is a multiple choice question without context, but the initial poster did not present it that way, but said that explanation/discussion matters. And then your objections are a good starting point for that.
- 0xbear 9y agoThe worst thing you realistically can do to stall your CPU is miss cache every time you read data from RAM. If you do this for every instruction (which would be quite a feat in itself), you divide your instruction throughput by about 200. But even then, and even on the shittiest modern CPU you'll be retiring millions of instructions per second.
- gilbetron 9y agoAnd you are one of the types of person the question is meant to weed out - people so threatened by a simple question they get defensive and hostile. And thanks for calling me dumb!
- pogaxvr 9y agoThanks for projecting 'threatened' onto me! You're the type of interviewer I would weed out, so by all means keep asking the question.