If an atomic store in thread A is tagged memory_order_release and an atomic load in thread B from the same variable is tagged memory_order_consume, all memory writes (non-atomic and relaxed atomic) that are dependency-ordered before the atomic store from the point of view of thread A, become visible side-effects within those operations in thread B into which the load operation carries dependency. That is, once the atomic load has been completed, those operators and functions in thread B that use the value obtained from the load are guaranteed to see what thread A wrote to memory.

This type of ordering is automatic on virtually all architectures. The only major exception is the (obsolete) Alpha architecture. A typical use case for this type of ordering would be read access to data that rarely gets changed.