Why no multiprocessor consumer machines?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rich
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Rich

Seems like they are just coming out of the dark ages in terms of this.
Dual-core is the best they can offer. Why aren't some machines
available to
consumers made so you can plug in up to 10 processors, etc?
I figure the limitation is Windows, but I'm not sure.
 
Seems like they are just coming out of the dark ages in terms of this.
Dual-core is the best they can offer. Why aren't some machines
available to
consumers made so you can plug in up to 10 processors, etc?
I figure the limitation is Windows, but I'm not sure.
Click to expand...

Most software is single threaded so it can only benefit from one CPU
core anyway. Windows has limitations on the amount of CPUs you can run,
for example to run 4 dual core opterons you need something like Windows
Server 2003 or the Enterprise version.

I noticed BestBuy has been advertising dual-core PCs on and off for
about the past 5-6 months.
 
Rich said:
Seems like they are just coming out of the dark ages in terms of this.
Dual-core is the best they can offer. Why aren't some machines
available to
consumers made so you can plug in up to 10 processors, etc?
I figure the limitation is Windows, but I'm not sure.
Click to expand...

The fundamental reason for the dearth of multi-core *consumer* computers
is that the concept is of no use whatsoever to the vast majority of
*consumers*.

I'm sure your post was rhetorical.

Q
 
Quaoar said:
The fundamental reason for the dearth of multi-core *consumer* computers
is that the concept is of no use whatsoever to the vast majority of
*consumers*.

I'm sure your post was rhetorical.

Q
Click to expand...

That doesn't stop them from making $600 video cards. How many
consumers own those?
 
How many consumers own those?
Click to expand...

Consumers buy Ferraris too, but that doesn't mean most people
need/want/can afford a Ferrari.

I'm often surprised at just how satisfied people are with PCs I'd scrap.
Over-eager enthusiasts drive progress in most fields, and PCs are no
different.

Andrew McP... owner of a PC with a spare core which may well die of
boredom.
 
Andrew said:
Consumers buy Ferraris too, but that doesn't mean most people
need/want/can afford a Ferrari.

I'm often surprised at just how satisfied people are with PCs I'd scrap.
Over-eager enthusiasts drive progress in most fields, and PCs are no
different.
Click to expand...
That was my point. That is whom such a product (a scalable,
multi-processor
machine) should be aimed at.
P.C.s are dying. Production is down. They need something to set them
apart from
laptops which are taking over.
 
That was my point. That is whom such a product (a scalable,
multi-processor machine) should be aimed at. P.C.s are dying.
Production is down. They need something to set them apart from
laptops which are taking over.
Click to expand...

There's already many things that set them apart from laptops.
Price, performance, reliability, expandability, a decent screen, better
keyboard/mouse, etc. I've never owned a notebook although I've used many
different owns on the road. Great if you need something in the field. A
very very poor choice for a desktop replacement IMO. My current desktop
runs my web, ftp, news, MythTV server with 4 HDTV tuners, raid controller
with 3 drives. Let's see a laptop do that and run 24/7 for several years.:-)
 
Seems like they are just coming out of the dark ages in terms of this.
Dual-core is the best they can offer. Why aren't some machines
available to
consumers made so you can plug in up to 10 processors, etc?
I figure the limitation is Windows, but I'm not sure.
Click to expand...

There are plenty of dual core consumer machines everybody sells them. If
you want 8 cores then you are looking at a four dual core Opteron 8xx
server, as long as you have 10 or 15K to spend then HP or IBM will be
happy to sell you one. You can also buy those from a whitebox
manufacturer, there are a lot of quad Opteron motherboards on the market.
If you want something bigger than that then that you are looking at a
blade server, once again anyone who wants one can buy one. If you have
$100,000,000 burning a hole it your pocket, IBM will be happy to sell you
a Blue Gene, although for a system like that the Department of Commerce
might take an interest in you if you are outside of the US.
 
Rich said:
Seems like they are just coming out of the dark ages in terms of this.
Dual-core is the best they can offer. Why aren't some machines
available to
consumers made so you can plug in up to 10 processors, etc?
I figure the limitation is Windows, but I'm not sure.
Click to expand...

The limitation is simply cost. The processor vendors
and motherboard manufacturers have built commodity hardware
aimed at the one to two socket market. Four socket
systems are significantly more than two times more costly
than two socket systems, and systems with more than four
sockets are proprietary designs requiring significant
(and expensive) engineering support to build (e.g. think
L3 cache controller ASICS, fancy cross-bar switching
networks, NUMAlink, CRAYlink, NUMA-Q, etc).

Just for example, the current opterons have 3 HT links
and the HT bus has a 3-bit address field (allowing eight
addressible entities). Given the need for at least one
PCI tunnel/LPC/Southbridge, that means a processor
can communicate with only 6 other processors.

That said, any consumer with the $$ can buy a 1024
processor SGI Altix system anytime they wish. Just
make sure you have a 1000A service and good HVAC.

You can also expect that with quad core processors available
in a couple of years, a quad-socket quad-core system is
an effective 16 processor box; this will be pretty close
to commodity in 4 years.

From a software perspective, some operating system vendors charge
significantly more for operating systems capable of effectively
utilizing more than four processors. Windows, for example.
Linux, on the other hand, will cheerfully run on the
aforementioned Altix. It is quite challenging for
operating software programmers to scale the operating system
for larger processor counts, as the standard synchronization methods
(e.g. spinlocks) seldom scale well past four or eight processors.

scott
 
When XP was introduced it was said that the home edition was the identical
code as pro except that its ability to work with two processor boards was
disabled and a few other networking functions were disabled (and only pro
could update an NT or 2000 system).

Richard.
 
Richard said:
When XP was introduced it was said that the home edition was the identical
code as pro except that its ability to work with two processor boards was
disabled and a few other networking functions were disabled
Click to expand...

Those promises were certainly broken...
 
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