Do "nops" add to the latency of a program?

Hi all,
My compiled program has had a few nops put in the listing, and I've
noted a few places where nops could be used, eg:

push 5
pop edi
cmp eda, edi

which I can shorten to cmp eda, 5.
Does the inclusion of nops slow the program down? Does the computer
skip over them, or
does it still "process" them, even if they do nothing?

TIA

Trev

.

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