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Date:      Sun, 27 Mar 2005 12:36:45 +0200
From:      Anthony Atkielski <atkielski.anthony@wanadoo.fr>
To:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: hyper threading.
Message-ID:  <467157066.20050327123645@wanadoo.fr>
In-Reply-To: <8C700841A4F8661-A38-3B468@mblk-r33.sysops.aol.com>
References:  <c6ef380c050326061976f164b@mail.gmail.com> <1641928994.20050326192811@wanadoo.fr> <8C700529A2DFD74-A44-3A157@mblk-d34.sysops.aol.com> <439876144.20050326220638@wanadoo.fr> <8C7006AE7E80573-FAC-3B652@mblk-r28.sysops.aol.com> <49251524.20050326234521@wanadoo.fr> <8C7007D5D4D30D2-A38-3B313@mblk-r33.sysops.aol.com> <42460B1C.1050008@cloudview.com> <8C700841A4F8661-A38-3B468@mblk-r33.sysops.aol.com>

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em1897@aol.com writes:

> When you get your machine running without a kernel
> let me know. The kernel is the key to the O/S. If you
> don't need networking and don't have many interrupts,
> then it probably doesnt matter that much.

The kernel represents only a small part of total system utilization and
throughput.  Even if everything is single-threaded through the kernel,
you can still get performance benefits from multiple processors, because
they can run userland processes in parallel.

If total system load is 5% kernel and 80% userland in a UP environment,
and moving to a MP environment doubles kernel overhead, total system
load has still increased by only 5%.

In general, many things must be single-threaded through the kernel
because of the need for proper synchronization.  Thus, the kernel always
shows more negative effects from MP than the system as a whole, but
since it is so small in the overall picture, MP still improves global
performance.

-- 
Anthony




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