title: Float versus Integer arithmetic performance on modern chips
body: <p>Consider a Viterbi decoder on an additive model. It spends its time doing additions and comparisons. Now, consider two: one with C/C++ <code>float</code> as the data type, and another with <code>int</code>. On modern chips, would you expect <code>int</code> to run significantly faster than <code>float</code>? Or will the wonders of pipelining (and the absence of multiplication and division) make it all come out about even?</p>