Performance
In situations where more than one program executes at the same time, an SMP system will have considerably better performance than a uni-processor because different programs can run on different CPUs simultaneously.
In cases where an SMP environment processes many jobs, administrators often experience a loss of hardware efficiency. Software programs have been developed to schedule jobs so that the processor utilization reaches its maximum potential. Good software packages can achieve this maximum potential by scheduling each CPU separately, as well as being able to integrate multiple SMP machines and clusters.
Access to RAM is serialized; this and cache coherency issues causes performance to lag slightly behind the number of additional processors in the system.
Read more about this topic: Symmetric Multiprocessing
Famous quotes containing the word performance:
“Still be kind,
And eke out our performance with your mind.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Nobody can misunderstand a boy like his own mother.... Mothers at present can bring children into the world, but this performance is apt to mark the end of their capacities. They can’t even attend to the elementary animal requirements of their offspring. It is quite surprising how many children survive in spite of their mothers.”
—Norman Douglas (1868–1952)
“Just as the performance of the vilest and most wicked deeds requires spirit and talent, so even the greatest demand a certain insensitivity which under other circumstances we would call stupidity.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)