Re: Reduce timing overhead of EXPLAIN ANALYZE using rdtsc?

From: Andreas Karlsson <andreas(at)proxel(dot)se>
To: Hannu Krosing <hannuk(at)google(dot)com>, Lukas Fittl <lukas(at)fittl(dot)com>
Cc: Andres Freund <andres(at)anarazel(dot)de>, David Geier <geidav(dot)pg(at)gmail(dot)com>, Jakub Wartak <jakub(dot)wartak(at)enterprisedb(dot)com>, Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com>, Pavel Stehule <pavel(dot)stehule(at)gmail(dot)com>, vignesh C <vignesh21(at)gmail(dot)com>, Michael Paquier <michael(at)paquier(dot)xyz>, Ibrar Ahmed <ibrar(dot)ahmad(at)gmail(dot)com>, Maciek Sakrejda <m(dot)sakrejda(at)gmail(dot)com>, pgsql-hackers <pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Re: Reduce timing overhead of EXPLAIN ANALYZE using rdtsc?
Date: 2026-02-13 16:47:16
Message-ID: 67931b8a-27a6-4d68-ae42-2bea87b56569@proxel.se
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On 2/13/26 3:42 PM, Hannu Krosing wrote:
> I haven't looked at the code here yet, but when using plain rdtsc on
> modern CPUs one sees much more overhead from just the fact that the
> code is there than from calling the rdtsc instruction, and the
> overhead can vary by orders of magnitude based on how complex the work
> is that is timed.
>
> I discovered this when I timed the (then-)new dead tid lookups in the
> Vacuum in Pg 17 and saw significantly larger overhead per lookup when
> the lookups themselves were slower, i.e. a case where the lookups were
> done in random order (inded was on created on a column filled with
> random())
>
> So while just a tight loop of N million rtdsc calls will give you the
> lower limit, it is likely not very representative of actual overhead.

Isn't the same issue still there if you call clock_gettime() but that it
is just less noticeable due to the high cost of clock_gettime()?

Andreas

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