Date: Mon, 28 Apr 1997 10:53:55 -0700 From: "Michael L. VanLoon -- HeadCandy.com" <michaelv@MindBender.serv.net> To: Narvi <narvi@haldjas.folklore.ee> Cc: smp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Quad Pro 150 motherboard? Message-ID: <199704281754.KAA28971@MindBender.serv.net> In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 28 Apr 97 12:04:34 %2B0300. <Pine.BSF.3.95.970428120206.13944B-100000@haldjas.folklore.ee>
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>> >a 4 or 6 CPU P6 board for *other* than a large server...think about that
>> >for a few minutes.
>> >(hint: NT4 Workstation can't handle more than 2CPUs and that is the most
>> >popular commercial SMP-capable OS)
>> Bullshit.
>Well, at least 2 of the 2 NT workstations installed from 2 different CD-s
>claim they are capable of upto 2 proc-s. I haven't also seen in any place
>a reference that says otherwise.
That's because your _license_ restricts you to no more than two
processors.
I've seen NT run on up to 8-way Pentium and Pentium Pro, and DEC
Alpha, boxes. We use 4-way Alphas and Compaq's all over the place at
work.
There's nothing inherent in the design of NT that restricts it even to
8-way. It's just that's the most I've seen it run on, and NT isn't
really designed to run optimally on massively parallel designs.
Sequent, for example, has some proprietary patches to the NT kernel
which enable it to run efficiently on their up-to-32 processor (as far
as I know up to 32 -- I'm not a Sequent expert) Intel-based
"mini-main-frames".
This coupled with the fact that, as far as I know (and it's not very
far), there isn't a standard for multi-processor design, for Intel
chips, that goes beyond four processors. So anything bigger would be
somewhat proprietary and require specific support code.
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Michael L. VanLoon michaelv@MindBender.serv.net
--< Free your mind and your machine -- NetBSD free un*x >--
NetBSD working ports: 386+PC, Mac 68k, Amiga, Atari 68k, HP300, Sun3,
Sun4/4c/4m, DEC MIPS, DEC Alpha, PC532, VAX, MVME68k, arm32...
NetBSD ports in progress: PICA, others...
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