I was trying to measure the difference of using a for and a foreach when accessing lists of value types and reference types.
I used the following class to do the profiling.
public static class Benchmarker
{
public static void Profile(string description, int iterations, Action func)
{
Console.Write(description);
// Warm up
func();
Stopwatch watch = new Stopwatch();
// Clean up
GC.Collect();
GC.WaitForPendingFinalizers();
GC.Collect();
watch.Start();
for (int i = 0; i < iterations; i++)
{
func();
}
watch.Stop();
Console.WriteLine(" average time: {0} ms", watch.Elapsed.TotalMilliseconds / iterations);
}
}
I used double for my value type.
And I created this 'fake class' to test reference types:
class DoubleWrapper
{
public double Value { get; set; }
public DoubleWrapper(double value)
{
Value = value;
}
}
Finally I ran this code and compared the time differences.
static void Main(string[] args)
{
int size = 1000000;
int iterationCount = 100;
var valueList = new List<double>(size);
for (int i = 0; i < size; i++)
valueList.Add(i);
var refList = new List<DoubleWrapper>(size);
for (int i = 0; i < size; i++)
refList.Add(new DoubleWrapper(i));
double dummy;
Benchmarker.Profile("valueList for: ", iterationCount, () =>
{
double result = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < valueList.Count; i++)
{
unchecked
{
var temp = valueList[i];
result *= temp;
result += temp;
result /= temp;
result -= temp;
}
}
dummy = result;
});
Benchmarker.Profile("valueList foreach: ", iterationCount, () =>
{
double result = 0;
foreach (var v in valueList)
{
var temp = v;
result *= temp;
result += temp;
result /= temp;
result -= temp;
}
dummy = result;
});
Benchmarker.Profile("refList for: ", iterationCount, () =>
{
double result = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < refList.Count; i++)
{
unchecked
{
var temp = refList[i].Value;
result *= temp;
result += temp;
result /= temp;
result -= temp;
}
}
dummy = result;
});
Benchmarker.Profile("refList foreach: ", iterationCount, () =>
{
double result = 0;
foreach (var v in refList)
{
unchecked
{
var temp = v.Value;
result *= temp;
result += temp;
result /= temp;
result -= temp;
}
}
dummy = result;
});
SafeExit();
}
I selected Release and Any CPU options, ran the program and got the following times:
valueList for: average time: 483,967938 ms
valueList foreach: average time: 477,873079 ms
refList for: average time: 490,524197 ms
refList foreach: average time: 485,659557 ms
Done!
Then I selected Release and x64 options, ran the program and got the following times:
valueList for: average time: 16,720209 ms
valueList foreach: average time: 15,953483 ms
refList for: average time: 19,381077 ms
refList foreach: average time: 18,636781 ms
Done!
Why is x64 bit version so much faster? I expected some difference, but not something this big.
I do not have access to other computers. Could you please run this on your machines and tell me the results? I'm using Visual Studio 2015 and I have an Intel Core i7 930.
Here's the SafeExit() method, so you can compile/run by yourself:
private static void SafeExit()
{
Console.WriteLine("Done!");
Console.ReadLine();
System.Environment.Exit(1);
}
As requested, using double? instead of my DoubleWrapper:
Any CPU
valueList for: average time: 482,98116 ms
valueList foreach: average time: 478,837701 ms
refList for: average time: 491,075915 ms
refList foreach: average time: 483,206072 ms
Done!
x64
valueList for: average time: 16,393947 ms
valueList foreach: average time: 15,87007 ms
refList for: average time: 18,267736 ms
refList foreach: average time: 16,496038 ms
Done!
Last but not least: creating a x86 profile gives me almost the same results of using Any CPU.
