---
title: "CPU Performance Engineering"
url: https://cpuperf.com/
source: https://github.com/usamahz/cpu-performance-engineering/blob/deb5a0bac46760503b6f4a2608bdfed470c8532e/README.md
commit: deb5a0bac46760503b6f4a2608bdfed470c8532e
---
# CPU Performance Engineering

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Making a program fast on a modern CPU means knowing what the core does with
each instruction, where the time actually goes, and how to prove a change
helped. This is the reading that gets you there, in the order that makes the
next piece legible.

**Scope.** x86 and Arm server parts, from one instruction through to serving
a model on CPU. Not language runtimes, database internals, or anything above
the socket.

**Evidence.** Primary sources only: the paper, the specification, the vendor
manual, the repository, or a report by the person who did the work. Any
number, anywhere in this repository, carries all seven fields set out in
[What earns a place](https://cpuperf.com/evidence/#what-earns-a-place), or it is not quoted.

**Proof.** Fourteen of the sections end in a benchmark under
[misc/benchmarks/](https://cpuperf.com/benchmarks/): C source, the build line, the
machine, the raw numbers and the analysis, all committed. Run them yourself.

**Plug it in.** The MCP server in [misc/mcp/](https://cpuperf.com/mcp/) turns
this list into a CPU performance brain inside any AI client: the reading
order, every rejected candidate with the rule it failed, every benchmark,
and an index of the linked sources built on the reader's own machine. Point
it at real work and the answers quote those sources and cite them. With
[uv](https://docs.astral.sh/uv/) installed, one command adds it.

**Claude Code**

```sh
claude mcp add --scope user cpu-perf -- uvx cpu-perf
```

**Codex**

```sh
codex mcp add cpu-perf -- uvx cpu-perf
```

Claude Desktop, Cursor and VS Code take a few lines of config, given in
[Connect it](https://cpuperf.com/mcp/quickstart/#connect-it).

Section 1 is a path through the rest; read it top to bottom before using the
numbered sections as a reference.