> a single read() into a 16 KB buffer already blows my entire L1 cache If you do I/O, memory latency is probably not your worst problem. In this case you shoul

> a single read() into a 16 KB buffer already blows my entire L1 cache If you do I/O, memory latency is probably not your worst problem. In this case you should focus on I/O throughput, e.g. non-blocking read operations and/or multithreading. Multithreading can also help you to better utilize your memory bandwidth, but in this case it's unlikely that you are bound by memory bandwidth or latency.