Addresses are normally loaded with MOV on x86 too. LEA is intended to compute an address from base/index registers, using the same addressing modes that can be

Addresses are normally loaded with MOV on x86 too. LEA is intended to compute an address from base/index registers, using the same addressing modes that can be used to access that memory location. For example, if you had an array of 32 bit integers on the stack, an instruction like "MOV EAX,[ESP+offset+ESI*4]" would load the value of the element indexed by ESI. Change that MOV to LEA, and it would instead give you a pointer to that element that can be passed around to another function. Without LEA, this operation would require two extra additions and one shift instruction. Microsoft Assembler syntax confused this issue by being designed to make some operations more convenient, "type safe", and familiar to high-level programmers, while clumsier at getting to the raw memory addresses. That led to people using "LEA reg,MyVar" when it wasn't necessary, simply because it was shorter to type than "MOV reg,OFFSET MyVar" :)