Performance

Recommendation

The recommended generator for single use is PCG64DXSM although SFC64 and Xoshiro256 are both excellent alternatives. Romu is a newer generator that is also very fast.

For very large scale applications – requiring 1,000+ streams – PCG64DXSM combined with a SeedSequence and spawn, SFC64 initialized using distinct Weyl increments (k), or one of the cryptography-based generators AESCounter (if you have hardware acceleration), EFIIX64, SPECK128, Philox, or HC128 if you do not) initialized with distinct keys are all excellent choices.

Unless you need backward compatibility, there are no good reasons to use any of the Mersenne Twister PRNGS: MT19937, MT64, SFMT, and DSFMT.

Timings

The timings below are the time in ns to produce 1 random value from a specific distribution. SFC64 is the fastest, followed closely by Xoshiro256, PCG64DXSM, JSF, and EFIIX64. The original NumPy MT19937 generator is slower since it requires 2 32-bit values to equal the output of the faster generators.

Bit Gen

Uint32

Uint64

Uniform

Expon

Normal

Gamma

Romu(variant=”trio”)

2.3

2.1

2.0

5.2

9.3

18.2

SFC64

2.3

2.5

2.4

5.1

9.6

18.7

Romu

2.5

2.5

2.4

5.0

9.5

18.8

Xoshiro256

2.5

2.5

2.5

5.2

9.8

19.2

PCG64DXSM

2.3

2.9

3.0

5.3

11.0

20.7

JSF

2.4

3.0

3.0

5.8

10.2

20.0

EFIIX64

2.5

3.0

3.0

5.4

10.5

20.4

PCG64

2.3

3.1

3.1

5.9

11.3

21.4

Xoshiro512

2.7

3.5

3.3

5.8

10.3

20.3

SFMT

2.9

3.3

3.1

6.3

11.0

20.9

LXM

2.6

3.5

3.5

6.3

11.3

21.9

PCG64(variant=”dxsm-128”)

2.8

3.4

3.5

6.1

12.5

23.1

DSFMT

3.0

4.2

2.7

7.0

12.2

21.7

MT64

2.8

4.0

4.2

6.9

12.8

23.7

JSF32

3.0

4.3

4.3

6.9

11.2

22.9

Philox(n=2, w=64)

3.2

4.7

5.1

8.1

14.7

27.4

Philox

4.0

5.9

6.1

8.8

13.6

27.0

AESCounter

4.4

6.0

5.7

9.1

14.4

27.4

MT19937

3.8

6.3

7.2

9.2

14.8

28.8

ThreeFry(n=2, w=64)

4.1

6.5

6.9

9.5

15.7

30.6

NumPy

3.0

4.6

5.8

14.4

20.1

39.8

HC128

4.1

7.2

7.2

10.5

16.6

31.5

Philox(n=4, w=32)

4.2

7.6

8.7

10.8

16.5

32.6

SPECK128

5.4

8.1

9.7

11.4

17.0

33.4

ThreeFry

5.9

9.1

9.3

12.0

16.7

34.9

ChaCha(rounds=8)

6.7

10.4

10.3

13.2

18.1

36.4

ChaCha

9.7

16.6

16.4

19.6

24.4

49.0

ThreeFry(n=4, w=32)

9.0

16.8

17.5

20.7

24.3

54.1

RDRAND

129.5

129.9

129.6

136.9

139.6

287.4

The next table presents the performance relative to NumPy’s RandomState in percentage. The overall performance is computed using a geometric mean.

Bit Gen

Uint32

Uint64

Uniform

Expon

Normal

Gamma

Overall

Romu(variant=”trio”)

128

219

282

278

215

219

217

SFC64

129

189

244

283

210

213

205

Romu

118

185

242

285

212

212

202

Xoshiro256

119

185

229

279

205

208

198

PCG64DXSM

128

163

190

271

182

192

183

JSF

126

155

193

250

197

199

182

EFIIX64

120

154

193

264

190

195

181

PCG64

128

149

184

246

178

186

175

Xoshiro512

111

131

176

249

195

196

170

SFMT

104

143

185

228

183

190

167

LXM

114

135

164

227

177

182

162

PCG64(variant=”dxsm-128”)

105

138

165

234

160

172

158

DSFMT

100

110

213

206

165

184

156

MT64

104

117

136

210

156

168

145

JSF32

99

108

134

208

178

174

145

Philox(n=2, w=64)

91

98

114

177

136

145

124

Philox

75

79

95

163

147

147

112

AESCounter

67

77

102

158

139

145

109

MT19937

78

74

80

156

135

138

105

ThreeFry(n=2, w=64)

72

71

84

152

128

130

101

HC128

72

64

80

136

121

126

96

Philox(n=4, w=32)

71

61

66

134

122

122

91

SPECK128

55

57

59

127

118

119

83

ThreeFry

51

51

62

120

120

114

80

ChaCha(rounds=8)

45

45

56

109

111

109

73

ChaCha

30

28

35

73

82

81

49

ThreeFry(n=4, w=32)

33

28

33

69

82

73

48

RDRAND

2

4

4

10

14

14

7

Note

All timings were taken using Linux on an Intel Cascade Lake (Family 6, Model 85, Stepping 7) running at 3.1GHz.