Windows 7 to support 256 CPU cores, with linear performance scaling?

[VirtualLarry]

Read this .

I thought that past 16 cores, CPU scaling issues made it not worth increasing the number of cores, according to one study, I think from Sandia.

Has that study been debunked?

 

[Modelworks]

The problem is being able to divide single task so that they can use multiple cores. It is a software design problem. Things like how do you speed up task like a XOR instruction. Our programming languages were all designed with a basis in single threads with the idea that if we wanted the program to run fast we would just get a faster cpu to run each instruction quicker. Parallel programming, something I worked on a ton in the late 1990's , requires programmers to re-think software design. I can write SMP code in assembly that uses all cores available, but when I move to C or C++ the efficiency drops quite a bit because I no longer have direct control over what is taking place in the instructions. Compilers are getting better and the tools are improving, but we have a long way to go.

 

[VirtualLarry]

NEW! Announced almost a year ago.
By epobirs on 10/13/09, Rating: 2
By epobirs on 10/13/2009 11:46:14 AM , Rating: 2

Rather old news. This stuff was all discussed at PDC and WinHEC last year. At the latter event a server system with 256 hardware threads was up and running to show how the new stuff works. Virtualization paradise in a fairly small package. Using 8-core Nehalems, it only takes 16 sockets to provide all of those threads.

Wow, 256-core machines already exist?

 

[Maximilian]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
NEW! Announced almost a year ago.
By epobirs on 10/13/09, Rating: 2
By epobirs on 10/13/2009 11:46:14 AM , Rating: 2

Rather old news. This stuff was all discussed at PDC and WinHEC last year. At the latter event a server system with 256 hardware threads was up and running to show how the new stuff works. Virtualization paradise in a fairly small package. Using 8-core Nehalems, it only takes 16 sockets to provide all of those threads.

Wow, 256-core machines already exist?

Its 128 core with hyperthreading, so shows up as 256.