.NET: ThreadStatic vs lock { }. Why ThreadStaticAttribute degrades performance?

Question

I've written small test program and was surprised why lock {} solution performs faster than lock-free but with [ThreadStatic] attribute over static variable.

[ThreadStatic] snippet:

[ThreadStatic]
private static long ms_Acc;
public static void RunTest()
{
    Stopwatch stopwatch = new Stopwatch();
    stopwatch.Start();
    int one = 1;
    for (int i = 0; i < 100 * 1000 * 1000; ++i) {
        ms_Acc += one;
        ms_Acc /= one;
    }
    stopwatch.Stop();
    Console.WriteLine("Time taken: {0}", stopwatch.Elapsed.TotalSeconds);
}

lock {} snippet:

private static long ms_Acc;
private static object ms_Lock = new object();
public static void RunTest()
{
    Stopwatch stopwatch = new Stopwatch();
    stopwatch.Start();
    int one = 1;
    for (int i = 0; i < 100 * 1000 * 1000; ++i) {
        lock (ms_Lock) {
            ms_Acc += one;
            ms_Acc /= one;
        }
    }
    stopwatch.Stop();
    Console.WriteLine("Time taken: {0}", stopwatch.Elapsed.TotalSeconds);
}

On my machine first snippet takes 4.2 seconds; second - 3.2 seconds, which is 1 second faster. Without ThreadStatic and lock - 1.2 seconds.

I'm curious why [ThreadStatic] attribute in this simple example adds so many to program execution time?

UPDATE: I feel very sorry, but these results are for DEBUG build. For RELEASE one I got completely different numbers: (1.2; 2.4; 1.2). For DEBUG numbers were (4.2; 3.2; 1.2).

So, for RELEASE build there seems to be no [ThreadStatic] performance penalty.

Answer 1

For RELEASE build there seems to be almost no [ThreadStatic] performance penalty (only slight penalty on modern CPUs).

Here comes dis-assembly code for ms_Acc += one; for RELEASE optimization is enabled:

No [ThreadStatic], DEBUG:

00000060  mov         eax,dword ptr [ebp-40h] 
00000063  add         dword ptr ds:[00511718h],eax 

No [ThreadStatic], RELEASE:

00000051  mov         eax,dword ptr [00040750h]
00000057  add         eax,dword ptr [rsp+20h]
0000005b  mov         dword ptr [00040750h],eax

[ThreadStatic], DEBUG:

00000066  mov         edx,1 
0000006b  mov         ecx,4616E0h 
00000070  call        664F7450 
00000075  mov         edx,1 
0000007a  mov         ecx,4616E0h 
0000007f  mov         dword ptr [ebp-50h],eax 
00000082  call        664F7450 
00000087  mov         edx,dword ptr [eax+18h] 
0000008a  add         edx,dword ptr [ebp-40h] 
0000008d  mov         eax,dword ptr [ebp-50h] 
00000090  mov         dword ptr [eax+18h],edx 

[ThreadStatic], RELEASE:

00000058  mov         edx,1 
0000005d  mov         rcx,7FF001A3F28h 
00000067  call        FFFFFFFFF6F9F740 
0000006c  mov         qword ptr [rsp+30h],rax 
00000071  mov         rbx,qword ptr [rsp+30h] 
00000076  mov         ebx,dword ptr [rbx+20h] 
00000079  add         ebx,dword ptr [rsp+20h] 
0000007d  mov         edx,1 
00000082  mov         rcx,7FF001A3F28h 
0000008c  call        FFFFFFFFF6F9F740 
00000091  mov         qword ptr [rsp+38h],rax 
00000096  mov         rax,qword ptr [rsp+38h] 
0000009b  mov         dword ptr [rax+20h],ebx