Re: Threads FAQ entry incomplete

Charles Cazabon (linux-kernel@discworld.dyndns.org)
Wed, 20 Jun 2001 13:42:21 -0600


Rodrigo Ventura <yoda@isr.ist.utl.pt> wrote:
>
> BTW, I have a question: Can the availability of dual-CPU boards for intel
> and amd processors, rather then tri- or quadra-CPU boards, be explained with
> the fact that the performance degrades significantly for three or more CPUs?
> Or is there a technological and/or comercial reason behind?

Commercial reasons. Cost per motherboard/chipset goes way up as the number of
CPUs supported goes up. For each CPU that a chipset supports, it has to add a
lot of pins/lands, and chipsets are already typically land-limited.
Motherboard trace complexity (and therefore number of layers) goes up. Add to
that that the potential market goes down as CPUs goes up.

You can buy 4-, 8-, and 16-way motherboards for Intel CPUs (don't know about
more). But the 16-way ones will cost as much as a house.

Charles

-- 
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Charles Cazabon                            <linux@discworld.dyndns.org>
GPL'ed software available at:  http://www.qcc.sk.ca/~charlesc/software/
Any opinions expressed are just that -- my opinions.
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