Third Stage Engineering

Brendan Gregg · 16 Nov 2025

Brendan Gregg did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
Computer hardware performance depends on hardware, software, and tuning together, not hardware alone.

Their wordsYou need all three stages to reach the highest, and most competitive, performance.
Our reading
Fair hardware benchmarks must use the best software and tuning for each hardware option, not hardware specs alone.

Their wordsThe most accurate and realistic evaluation for HW involves selecting the best software and then tuning it, and doing this for all HW options.

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The other pieces are the ones whose claims are worded most like this one's. That measures language, not agreement: they may argue the opposite.