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From: bcrwhims@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (Carsten Whimster)
Subject: Re: Dual Pentium MotherBoard.
Message-ID: <DFKIA4.AL0@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca>
Sender: news@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (news spool owner)
Date: Wed, 27 Sep 1995 14:15:39 GMT
References: <44735j$7qo@kappa.usc.edu> <DFHG2v.7Mw@ritz.mordor.com> <4491rp$gb0@mozo.cc.purdue.edu>
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In article <4491rp$gb0@mozo.cc.purdue.edu>,
Chien-hung Lin <lin1974@expert.cc.purdue.edu> wrote:
| In article <DFHG2v.7Mw@ritz.mordor.com>,
| Chris Mauritz <ritz@ritz.mordor.com> wrote:
| >Free/NetBSD/Linux won't take advantage of the extra cpu.
|
| What systems or OS or programs would take advantage of the extra
| CPU? Would it need a driver to run the extra CPU, if so how much memory
| would it take up?
The O/S has to support it, and I have never heard of a driver being
able to do this on its own. There are two types of (common) systems,
from what I hear: each CPU has its own memory and cache ($), each CPU
shares the memory and/or cache. There are some of both on the market.
| In addition, how much performance would one expect to see w/ the extra CPU,
| would I need 2 CPU fans instead of one?
IBM says that with OS/2 SMP and a well threaded program, the benefits
are up to nearly 100%, but with a single threaded program, the
benefits would be much lower, maybe 25%, and this benefit is only
realized because the O/S can run on a separate CPU. It really varies a
lot.
--
Carsten Whimster bcrwhims@uwaterloo.ca
EDM/2 Associate Editor and Book reviewer
Team OS/2 POV-Panel/2 author
http://www.undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca/~bcrwhims/