--- James Mansion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >A dual-core 2.6 Opteron is about US$1079. > whereas > >a single core is about $460. So for about > $200. > >more I can build 2 2.6Ghz systems that give me > a > >lot more bang for my buck than 1 dual-core > >system. > > Well, the bleeding edge is always at a premium. > But you mention a wall. A wall doing what? > Single threaded monte-carlo? Single postgres > query? > > Almost any real-world load that will stress > a modern server box comes from multiple > requests. > > As for pf performance - who the hell cares? > Are > you routing between two 10GBit LANs? Frankly I don't care about pf performance, but your comments indicate your ignorance as to how it performs under load. pf will barf on many real networks pushing a lot less than you think, depending on the complexity of the ruleset. > > If you're using that much CPU, then if you care > what OS you're using, your app is badly > written, > cos you should first avoid entering the kernel > anyway as much as you can. Ah, from the mouths of babes (or people who live in tiny caves)! If your network is pushing 300-500K pps its nice to have a firewall or security device or router that can handle it. And those filtering/network functions don't benefit much from MP. The "wall" is what such a box can handle with the fastest processor available. Typically MP doesn't scale well for such APPs, as the overhead associated with threading the kernel slows the raw performance more than is gained by having multiple processors. Getting past the wall would be good, but if the trade off is being able to do some other stuff with the box simultaneously, the capacity can't diminish too much, because once your traffic levels are past the wall you are in trouble. That is the "Wall" for people who are on real networks. You could always count on the wall advancing as our buddies at AMD and Intel increased the GHZ. Now we're going sideways, and many can't afford to have the wall regress to accommodate smoother audio performance. DT __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
