If you know what you are doing, the C11&#x2F;C++11 memory model (or another one with roughly the same features, like the linux kernel memory model) and how a computer actually works, I don&#x27;t think you will find a single architecture on which an atomic implementation of Lock-free Single Producer, Single Consumer (SPSC) queue will not outperform a spinlock.<p>If you use overkill sequential consistency to do that, you might actually end up slower in some cases.<p>Given the amount of expertise you need to use atomics properly (far more difficult than sticking to critical sections), it might as well be preferable to stick with those at application level unless you really need extreme performance and know the applicable memory model and the corresponding target stack (maybe processor architecture, maybe C11&#x2F;C++11 memory model if you use it, maybe additional compiler guarantee on that and related stuffs, maybe all at the same time).<p>Not that in the end an acquire &#x2F; release pattern is so hard to understand, but in my experience programmers already can&#x27;t even stick to properly using critical sections as in textbooks (not even talking about what happens when the textbook is a piece of shit, like when it presents double-checked locking without any regard to the model needed for it to work properly =&gt; people end up writing that in C++ on plain variables...).<p>Really, stick to the (good) textbooks and the simplest patterns if you don&#x27;t know enough about memory models and how processors and compilers work in 2016... How fast you execute buggy code is not a very interesting property, sequential consistency is expensive in lots of cases, and using weaker atomic is incredibly difficult (each time I think I know enough about weak atomics I found something that explain how various model are subtly weaker than I previously thought, not even talking about the fact that the C11&#x2F;C++11 model is subtly formally unsound and compilers actually not formally respect it... so much if you try to prove some algorithms)