
In this chapter, you will learn
l
The concept of multicore processing
l
How multicore processors are able to
deliver enhanced performance
l
What is meant by voltage and frequency
scaling
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Some issues faced by multicore processors
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Implications of Amdahl’s law
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x86-based multicore processors of Intel and
AMD
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High speed interconnects—HyperTransport
and QPI
multicore
processors
16
Introduction
In Chapter 15, the idea of enhancing performance was introduced. We discussed pipe-
lining first and then moved on to superscalar techniques. It is not incorrect to say that
performance enhancement is obtained using the concept of parallelization. Pipelining