I don't really know what I'm talking about, hence my post here for clarification.
This is my current understanding:
Traditionally the answer is simply that if the cpu doesn't support SMP (such as an i7-2600K) then it's not possible to put more than one in a system.
But what the SMP enabled CPUs (like the Xeon E5-2600 series) offer is interconnections and logic to allow 'glueless' SMP, which means the chipset doesn't really need to do anything special, which makes the chipset cheaper.
BUT what if you added 'glue' to the chipset? You see this sort of custom interconnect logic in supercomputers and high-end servers so it's clearly possible.
How difficult would it be and (more importantly) how much would it be to bring a similar capability to the enthusiast market?
Obviously it wouldn't be as efficient as the 'native' solution, but for some applications a 'ghetto' workstation with 4 i7-2600Ks at $1300 would be FAR more cost effective. To get comparable power with official SMP CPUs, you would need 2 E5-2687Ws at $1900 a pop, or $3800 total.
This is my current understanding:
Traditionally the answer is simply that if the cpu doesn't support SMP (such as an i7-2600K) then it's not possible to put more than one in a system.
But what the SMP enabled CPUs (like the Xeon E5-2600 series) offer is interconnections and logic to allow 'glueless' SMP, which means the chipset doesn't really need to do anything special, which makes the chipset cheaper.
BUT what if you added 'glue' to the chipset? You see this sort of custom interconnect logic in supercomputers and high-end servers so it's clearly possible.
How difficult would it be and (more importantly) how much would it be to bring a similar capability to the enthusiast market?
Obviously it wouldn't be as efficient as the 'native' solution, but for some applications a 'ghetto' workstation with 4 i7-2600Ks at $1300 would be FAR more cost effective. To get comparable power with official SMP CPUs, you would need 2 E5-2687Ws at $1900 a pop, or $3800 total.