What is avx?

AVX is a set of advanced vector extensions designed to improve performance for intensive calculations in fields such as scientific computing, image processing, and machine learning. It is an extension to the x86 instruction set architecture used in modern CPUs, offering new instructions and registers for processing multiple pieces of data in parallel.

AVX was first introduced by Intel in 2011 with their Sandy Bridge microarchitecture, and has since been improved with additional features in subsequent generations of CPUs. AMD also implemented support for AVX in their processors.

One of the key features of AVX is its support for 256-bit wide vector registers, allowing for the processing of eight single-precision floating point numbers or four double-precision floating point numbers in parallel. This can significantly accelerate computations that can be parallelized, such as matrix operations or image processing algorithms.

Overall, AVX can provide a substantial performance boost in applications that can take advantage of its capabilities, making it a valuable tool for developers working in high-performance computing and other compute-intensive fields.