Re: [PATCH 6/24] make atomic_read() behave consistently on frv

[Chris Snook]

David Howells wrote:
> Chris Snook <csnook@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > cpu_relax() contains a barrier, so it should do the right thing.  For non-smp
> > architectures, I'm concerned about interacting with interrupt handlers.  Some
> > drivers do use atomic_* operations.
>
> I'm not sure that actually answers my question.  Why not smp_rmb()?
>
> David

I would assume because we want to waste time efficiently even on non-smp 
architectures, rather than frying the CPU or draining the battery.  Certain 
looping execution patterns can cause the CPU to operate above thermal design 
power.  I have fans on my workstation that only ever come on when running 
LINPACK, and that's generally memory bandwidth-bound.  Just imagine what happens 
when you're executing the same few non-serializing instructions in a tight loop 
without ever stalling on memory fetches, or being scheduled out.

If there's another reason, I'd like to hear it too, because I'm just guessing here.

	-- Chris
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