Unaligned doesn't always mean cache-line splitting, but aligned means never splitting cache lines. Also, you're correct that aside from caching effects, unalig

Unaligned doesn't always mean cache-line splitting, but aligned means never splitting cache lines. Also, you're correct that aside from caching effects, unaligned loads and stores generally carry no penalty on x86. This is one of the smarter (IMO) things that Intel/AMD have done to keep x86's market share.