A system and method for accelerating evaluation of functions. In one embodiment, a method includes receiving, by a processor, a value to be processed, and notification of a function to be applied to the value. The value is represented in a floating point format. The value is converted, by the processor, to a fixed point format. Which of Newton-Raphson and polynomial approximation is to be used to apply the function to the value in the fixed point format is determined by the processor. The function is applied to the value in the fixed point format to generate a result in the fixed point format. The result is converted to the floating point format by the processor.