Multiple choice

A CPU has a five-stage pipeline and runs at 1 GHz frequency. Instruction fetch happens in the first stage of the pipeline. A conditional branch instruction computes the target address and evaluates the condition in the third stage of the pipeline. The processor stops fetching new instructions following a conditional branch until the branch outcome is known. A program executes 9 10 instructions out of which 20% are conditional branches. If each instruction takes one cycle to complete on average, the total execution time of the program is:

  1. 1.0 second

  2. 1.2 seconds

  3. 1.4 seconds

  4. 1.6 seconds

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation