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resolve https://github.com/rust-lang/stdsimd/pull/8#discussion_r495582339

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Lokathor 2020-09-27 10:25:30 -06:00
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beginners-guide.md
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@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ Because SIMD is a subject that many programmers haven't worked with before, we t
## Quick Background
**SIMD** stands for *Single Instruction, Multiple Data*. In other words, SIMD is when the CPU performs a single action on more that one logical pieces of data at the same time. Instead of adding two registers that each contain one `f32` value and getting an `f32` as the result, you might add two registers that each contain `f32x4` (128 bits of data) and then you get an `f32x4` as the output.
**SIMD** stands for *Single Instruction, Multiple Data*. In other words, SIMD is when the CPU performs a single action on more than one logical piece of data at the same time. Instead of adding two registers that each contain one `f32` value and getting an `f32` as the result, you might add two registers that each contain `f32x4` (128 bits of data) and then you get an `f32x4` as the output.
This might seem a tiny bit weird at first, but there's a good reason for it. Back in the day, as CPUs got faster and faster, eventually they got so fast that the CPU would just melt itself. The heat management (heat sinks, fans, etc) simply couldn't keep up with how much electricity was going through the metal. Two main strategies were developed to help get around the limits of physics.
* One of them you're probably familiar with: Multi-core processors. By giving a processor more than one core, each core can do its own work, and because they're physically distant (at least on the CPU's scale) the heat can still be managed. Unfortunately, not all tasks can just be split up across cores in an efficient way.