Author: Matt Taylor
Date: 18:28:40 02/21/03
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On February 21, 2003 at 16:11:39, Robert Pawlak wrote: >I've only resisted buying a dual at home because of the heat issue (my computer >is in a room that can get kind of warm, even with one processor). Plus, the cost >is stratospheric, at least for home use. > >I am trying to follow HT, since it looks like "poor man's SMP". I think when >prices come down on the HT enabled chips, you will see more interest in >multithreaded apps. > >Bob A mid-range AMD system can be built for about $500-$600. Add $300 to make that a mid-range AMD SMP system. Good luck building any HT-enabled system for less than $1,100. The processor alone is $550. I doubt interest in multithreading will change a whole lot. Relatively cheap dual-processor systems have been around long enough to penetrate the desktop market, though largely it applies to workstations and servers. I guess the desktop is more of a niche. Anyway, I recall a particular piece of software, something media-related, where the author firmly asserted that it was SMP-capable. It had two threads, so how could it not be? Does it really matter that one thread is a GUI thread spending most of its life blocked waiting on data? Such instances are very discouraging. I guess I shouldn't say there will be no interest, just little benefit... I found that instance amusing. I explained to the user (technical but non-programmer) why the program was not capable of utilizing SMP, and the user figured it out. The author didn't. -Matt
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