How to harness the performance potential of current multi-core processors

Leakage currents have put a stop to the semiconductor industry's ability to increase processor frequency in order to enhance the performance of new microprocessors. Instead, we observe a slew of changes inside the micro-architecture with an aim of enhancing the performance. Several of these changes, however, do not translate into automatic speed improvements for the software. This paper discusses the increased complexity of modern microprocessors by separating out into dimensions each feature that impacts performance and mentions briefly ways of improving software, in particular that of the High Energy Physics community, to take full advantage.