Features

Double Your CPU Power, Almost

Just as hot-rodders cram a pair of motors into dragsters and most airliners use two or more jet engines, doubling up on processing power is a way to get more out of a workstation. Using a dual-processor system requires multithreaded software, a subject we will address next week in part two of this story, but this week we will focus on what makes dual-processing an increasingly popular choice among workstation users.

With sales of about 1.3 million systems per year, the current workstation market has been hit by the one-two punch of flat sales and declining price tags. Anthony Kros, associate analyst at Gartner Dataquest says dual processing systems is a bright spot in an otherwise down market. "As the economy improves, sales of dual-processing workstations will pick up fast because they offer a lot of power for the money."

While about one-third of all workstations can accommodate using two CPUs, only a small portion come with both processors installed, according to Gartner's Kros. Many choose to upgrade later by adding a processor. This area is forecast to grow by 1 percent annually over the next few years. With some systems costing as little as a couple thousand dollars and others selling for upwards of $100,000, a stumbling block is high price. "They do a lot but they can cost a lot," says Kros. "From modeling complex drug interactions to designing car parts to simulating a complicated series of financial trades, these are the right tools when single-processor workstations run out of steam."

Throwing several CPUs at a problem is nothing new, but early power systems used asymmetrical multiprocessing where processors performed dedicated tasks. Inefficient and needlessly rigid, this has given way to symmetrical multiprocessing, which spreads out the increased power of extra processors over the computer's range of functions, from floating point operations to memory activities to input-output to data storage. The computer responds with the CPU most able to deliver power.