How do I measure variability of a benchmark comprised of many sub-benchmarks?

Best idea: ask at the statistics Stack Exchange once it hits public beta (in a week).

I think you're misunderstanding the standard deviation -- if you run your test 50 times and have 50 different runtimes the standard deviation will be a single number that describes how tight or loose those 50 numbers are distributed around your average. In conjunction with your average run time, the standard deviation will help you see how much spread there is in your results.

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