dual processor

[Nick Craig-Wood]

Paul Rubin <http> wrote:
>  Jorgen Grahn <jgrahn-nntq at algonet.se> writes:
> > I feel the recent SMP hype (in general, and in Python) is a red herring. Why
> > do I need that extra performance? What application would use it?
> 
>  How many mhz does the computer you're using right now have?  When did
>  you buy it?  Did you buy it to replace a slower one?  If yes, you must
>  have wanted more performance.  Just about everyone wants more
>  performance.  That's why mhz keeps going up and people keep buying
>  faster and faster cpu's.
> 
>  CPU makers seem to be running out of ways to increase mhz.  Their next
>  avenue to increasing performance is SMP, so they're going to do that
>  and people are going to buy those.  Just like other languages, Python
>  makes perfectly good use of increasing mhz, so it keeps up with them.
>  If the other languages also make good use of SMP and Python doesn't,
>  Python will fall back into obscurity.

Just to back your point up, here is a snippet from theregister about
Sun's new server chip.  (This is a rumour piece but theregister
usually gets it right!)

    Sun has positioned Niagara-based systems as low-end to midrange
    Xeon server killers. This may sound like a familiar pitch - Sun
    used it with the much delayed UltraSPARC IIIi processor. This time
    around though Sun seems closer to delivering on its promises by
    shipping an 8 core/32 thread chip. It's the most radical multicore
    design to date from a mainstream server processor manufacturer and
    arrives more or less on time.

It goes on later to say "The physical processor has 8 cores and 32
virtual processors" and runs at 1080 MHz.

So fewer GHz but more CPUs is the future according to Sun.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/07/sun_niagara_details/

-- 
Nick Craig-Wood <nick at craig-wood.com> -- http://www.craig-wood.com/nick