The first thing done by timespec_trunc() is : if (gran <= jiffies_to_usecs(1) * 1000) This should really be a test against a constant known at compile time. Alas, it isnt. jiffies_to_usec() was unilined so C compiler emits a function call and a multiply to compute : a CONSTANT. mov $0x1,%edi mov %rbx,0xffffffffffffffe8(%rbp) mov %r12,0xfffffffffffffff0(%rbp) mov %edx,%ebx mov %rsi,0xffffffffffffffc8(%rbp) mov %rsi,%r12 callq ffffffff80232010 imul $0x3e8,%eax,%eax cmp %ebx,%eax This patch reorders kernel/time.c a bit so that jiffies_to_usecs() is defined before timespec_trunc() so that compiler now generates : cmp $0x3d0900,%edx (HZ=250 on my machine) This gives a better code (timespec_trunc() becoming a leaf function), and shorter kernel size as well. Signed-off-by: Eric Dumazet