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Multithreading - What's it Mean to Developers?

Posted by Hemos on from the the-power-of-the-sun dept.

sysadmn writes "Yet another reason not to count Sun out: Chip Multithreading. CMT, as Sun calls it, is the use of hardware to assist in the execution of multiple simultaneous tasks - even on a single processor. This excellent tutorial on Sun's Developer site explains the technology, and why throughput has become more important than absolute speed in the enterprise. From the intro: Chip multi-threading (CMT) brings to hardware the concept of multi-threading, similar to software multi-threading. ... A CMT-enabled processor, similar to software multi-threading, executes many software threads simultaneously within a processor on cores. So in a system with CMT processors, software threads can be executed simultaneously within one processor or across many processors. Executing software threads simultaneously within a single processor increases a processor's efficiency as wait latencies are minimized. "

5 of 357 comments (clear)

  1. Multithreading? by PopeAlien · · Score: 4, Funny

    I dont mean to look a gift horse in the mouth..

    ..but wouldn't it be even better if it was hyper-multi-threading?

    --
    air and light and time and space
  2. INKEY and TSRs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Can I still use INKEY in my basic programs? Will multi-threading make it more efficient? Can I actually run a second program on my DOS PC without having to force it as a TSR?

  3. Thruput ... by foobsr · · Score: 2, Funny

    Throughput computing maximizes the throughput per processor and per system. So a processor with multiple cores will be able to increase the throughput by the number of cores per processor. This increase in performance comes at a lower cost, fewer systems, reduced power consumption, and lower maintenance and administration, with increase in reliability due to fewer systems. (from TFA, emphasis mine)

    So it seems they invented a way to linearly scale peformance. WOW! But maybe I misunderstood and the thing is over my head.

    CC.

    --
    TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
  4. sounds hyper by pyrrho · · Score: 2, Funny

    all you need is the ability to run processes... which I do right here.... on this abacus...

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    -pyrrho

  5. Re:Hyperthreading by owlstead · · Score: 2, Funny

    This is not college. Slashdot does not start with "there are no stupid questions". There are, you asked one, AND it was already more covered than the genitals in a tiroller soft sex movie.