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Multi-channel SSD's could solve the disk issues. Imagine a drive or device that could handle 16 (or 32/64/whatever) read or write operations simultaneously from separate threads. It would almost require a kernel on the device to manage the requests and take care of dependencies, but it is within the realm of reason. It could effectively give the OS DMA type access to the hard drive.
Multiple and/or multiplexed Ethernet ports could fix the network issues. Many motherboards come with two Ethernet ports now and if the OS would "automagically" divide the network traffic between them it could boost performance. Include smart routers and switches that are "multi-port PC" aware and you have a considerably faster network. Now add to it some sort of technology that could multiplex different streams (from separate threads) across the same wire and you could have a very significant improvement to performance in a multi-core world.
64+ cores, 1 ethernet card.
64+ cores, 1 keyboard.
There is only so much parallel processing can help in a serial world.
More appropriately:
64 cores: 1 keyboard, 1 mouse, 1 ethernet card, 3 sound outputs, 3 disks, 2 monitors, 3 bittorrents, and that new game (with separate and multiple threads for physics, sound, graphics, AI, input, network).
Currently, adding cores is easier than ramping up clock speed. Most tasks where performance is key will benefit from multithreading as much, if not more, than simply higher clock speed.
Looking in the task manager, I have 650 threads going, and the only thing I'm doing is cooking a late breakfast. That would be a pain, but luckily I've got multiple heat sources.
It's not a serial world. DOS died a long time ago.
Member since:
2005-07-12
And what's wrong with that?