It isn't faster than the L1 memory system which is the most relevant thing to measure to compare hash algos, as already explained. (duplicated here for clarity/

It isn't faster than the L1 memory system which is the most relevant thing to measure to compare hash algos, as already explained. (duplicated here for clarity/flow) Also, I perhaps could more fully motivate my time equation parenthetical. With such an equation in hand, one can easily compare hash functions with differing trade offs, such as Wang Yi's hash and Farm Hash: mem-wy : tCC = (0.1573 +- 0.0039)*bytes + (7.10 +- 0.13) mem-farm: tCC = (0.3017 +- 0.0014)*bytes + (2.347 +- 0.044) t1 = t2 => m1*n + b1 = m2*n + b2 => n = (b1-b2)/(m2-m1) n = (7.1 - 2.347) / (.3017 - .1573) = (4.753 +- .137) / (0.1444 +- 0.0041) = 32.9 +- 1.3 bytes where this final number is how long strings need to be before Wang Yi's is faster than Farm. So, it is a nicely convenient summary. (And this is true even without my fancy statistical error estimates...) Of course full charts/graphs/yadda-yadda can be even better, but just two summary numbers can also be nice.