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Linux only 8 cores

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  • J Offline
    J Offline
    jschell
    wrote on last edited by
    #1

    From the CP newsletter. Claims rather broadly that Linux only uses 8 cores. The Linux kernel has been accidentally hardcoded to a maximum of 8 cores for the past 15 years and nobody noticed – The HFT Guy[^] Obviously a rather startling claim. Googling suggests that quite a few people have taken exception to that claim.

    K D Mike HankeyM 3 Replies Last reply
    0
    • J jschell

      From the CP newsletter. Claims rather broadly that Linux only uses 8 cores. The Linux kernel has been accidentally hardcoded to a maximum of 8 cores for the past 15 years and nobody noticed – The HFT Guy[^] Obviously a rather startling claim. Googling suggests that quite a few people have taken exception to that claim.

      K Offline
      K Offline
      k5054
      wrote on last edited by
      #2

      AFAICT, all cores/threads (12/24) on my system get used when doing parallel tasks. And things seem to scale as expected going from 8 to 12, so *my* experience seems refute those claims. Additionally, I would have thought that those that are using AMD ThreadRippers with 32/64 cores would have noticed that they're not getting the expected boost from the huge core count.

      "A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants" Chuckles the clown

      raddevusR 1 Reply Last reply
      0
      • J jschell

        From the CP newsletter. Claims rather broadly that Linux only uses 8 cores. The Linux kernel has been accidentally hardcoded to a maximum of 8 cores for the past 15 years and nobody noticed – The HFT Guy[^] Obviously a rather startling claim. Googling suggests that quite a few people have taken exception to that claim.

        D Offline
        D Offline
        Daniel Pfeffer
        wrote on last edited by
        #3

        I read the original article. The issue is not that only 8 cores are used, but that the time slice does not scale properly with the number of cores. The larger the number of cores, the larger the inherent multitasking, so less switching is performed on each core to simulate multitasking. The Linux kernel is supposed to use a certain core number-dependent algorithm to calculate the time slice size, but the number of cores used in the calculation is maxed out at 8. IMO, this is deliberate. When you have more than 8 cores, increasing the time slice size gives no real benefit.

        Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.

        1 Reply Last reply
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        • J jschell

          From the CP newsletter. Claims rather broadly that Linux only uses 8 cores. The Linux kernel has been accidentally hardcoded to a maximum of 8 cores for the past 15 years and nobody noticed – The HFT Guy[^] Obviously a rather startling claim. Googling suggests that quite a few people have taken exception to that claim.

          Mike HankeyM Offline
          Mike HankeyM Offline
          Mike Hankey
          wrote on last edited by
          #4

          Why would anyone need more than 8 codes? :)

          As the aircraft designer said, "Simplicate and add lightness". PartsBin an Electronics Part Organizer - Release Version 1.3.0 JaxCoder.com Latest Article: SimpleWizardUpdate

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          • Mike HankeyM Mike Hankey

            Why would anyone need more than 8 codes? :)

            As the aircraft designer said, "Simplicate and add lightness". PartsBin an Electronics Part Organizer - Release Version 1.3.0 JaxCoder.com Latest Article: SimpleWizardUpdate

            P Offline
            P Offline
            PIEBALDconsult
            wrote on last edited by
            #5

            Eight cores oughta be enough for anybody.

            Mike HankeyM K D 3 Replies Last reply
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            • P PIEBALDconsult

              Eight cores oughta be enough for anybody.

              Mike HankeyM Offline
              Mike HankeyM Offline
              Mike Hankey
              wrote on last edited by
              #6

              Anything more is just pretentious!

              As the aircraft designer said, "Simplicate and add lightness". PartsBin an Electronics Part Organizer - Release Version 1.3.0 JaxCoder.com Latest Article: SimpleWizardUpdate

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              • P PIEBALDconsult

                Eight cores oughta be enough for anybody.

                K Offline
                K Offline
                k5054
                wrote on last edited by
                #7

                Ah! But how many threads? I seem to recall a CPU (maybe MIPS?) that supported 3 threads per core, and there's tales of IBM Power supporting 4 or 8 TPC, and I think Sun SPARC had chips that supported 8 TPC. Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those! Oops, sorry, wrong forum :)

                "A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants" Chuckles the clown

                P Greg UtasG 2 Replies Last reply
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                • K k5054

                  Ah! But how many threads? I seem to recall a CPU (maybe MIPS?) that supported 3 threads per core, and there's tales of IBM Power supporting 4 or 8 TPC, and I think Sun SPARC had chips that supported 8 TPC. Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those! Oops, sorry, wrong forum :)

                  "A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants" Chuckles the clown

                  P Offline
                  P Offline
                  PIEBALDconsult
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #8

                  (PIEBALD looks up Itanium specs...)

                  1 Reply Last reply
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                  • K k5054

                    Ah! But how many threads? I seem to recall a CPU (maybe MIPS?) that supported 3 threads per core, and there's tales of IBM Power supporting 4 or 8 TPC, and I think Sun SPARC had chips that supported 8 TPC. Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those! Oops, sorry, wrong forum :)

                    "A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants" Chuckles the clown

                    Greg UtasG Offline
                    Greg UtasG Offline
                    Greg Utas
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #9

                    I think how many threads per core are supported is determined by the O/S, not the CPU.

                    Robust Services Core | Software Techniques for Lemmings | Articles
                    The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.

                    <p><a href="https://github.com/GregUtas/robust-services-core/blob/master/README.md">Robust Services Core</a>
                    <em>The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.</em></p>

                    K 1 Reply Last reply
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                    • Greg UtasG Greg Utas

                      I think how many threads per core are supported is determined by the O/S, not the CPU.

                      Robust Services Core | Software Techniques for Lemmings | Articles
                      The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.

                      K Offline
                      K Offline
                      k5054
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #10

                      I'm thinking in terms of "Hyperthreading", or "Virtual Cores", which is definitely hardware, not software.

                      "A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants" Chuckles the clown

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                      • K k5054

                        AFAICT, all cores/threads (12/24) on my system get used when doing parallel tasks. And things seem to scale as expected going from 8 to 12, so *my* experience seems refute those claims. Additionally, I would have thought that those that are using AMD ThreadRippers with 32/64 cores would have noticed that they're not getting the expected boost from the huge core count.

                        "A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants" Chuckles the clown

                        raddevusR Offline
                        raddevusR Offline
                        raddevus
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #11

                        I have an AMD® Ryzen 5 2600x six-core processor × 2 (12) core in mine and I notice that all my cores get used also. Running Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS all seems good.

                        K 1 Reply Last reply
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                        • raddevusR raddevus

                          I have an AMD® Ryzen 5 2600x six-core processor × 2 (12) core in mine and I notice that all my cores get used also. Running Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS all seems good.

                          K Offline
                          K Offline
                          k5054
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #12

                          Yeah, but see Daniel Pfeffer's reply down-thread. The actual issue has to do with time-slice calculations for the scheduler, not the use of CPU cores/threads. If performance could be better with finer grained calculations for more than 8 cores, it's probably pretty subtle. Like all things, there's probably a point of diminishing returns, and maybe somewhere around 8 cores, scheduling characteristics don't make much difference overall. No doubt someone like the guys over at Phoronix will do some benchmarking with patched kernels and report. Then we'll know what, if anything, we've been missing.

                          "A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants" Chuckles the clown

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                          • P PIEBALDconsult

                            Eight cores oughta be enough for anybody.

                            D Offline
                            D Offline
                            dandy72
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #13

                            PIEBALDconsult wrote:

                            Eight cores oughta be enough for anybody.

                            Consider (a) the number of cores in an AMD Threadripper CPU (b) the fact that you can use AMD CPUs as space heaters You might want to make use of more cores during those cold winter nights...

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                            • Mike HankeyM Mike Hankey

                              Why would anyone need more than 8 codes? :)

                              As the aircraft designer said, "Simplicate and add lightness". PartsBin an Electronics Part Organizer - Release Version 1.3.0 JaxCoder.com Latest Article: SimpleWizardUpdate

                              J Offline
                              J Offline
                              jmaida
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #14

                              The '640K' quote won't go away -- but did Gates really say it? | Computerworld[^]

                              "A little time, a little trouble, your better day" Badfinger

                              Mike HankeyM P 2 Replies Last reply
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                              • D dandy72

                                PIEBALDconsult wrote:

                                Eight cores oughta be enough for anybody.

                                Consider (a) the number of cores in an AMD Threadripper CPU (b) the fact that you can use AMD CPUs as space heaters You might want to make use of more cores during those cold winter nights...

                                P Offline
                                P Offline
                                PIEBALDconsult
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #15

                                Uh huh, here in freaking Phoenix.

                                D 1 Reply Last reply
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                                • J jmaida

                                  The '640K' quote won't go away -- but did Gates really say it? | Computerworld[^]

                                  "A little time, a little trouble, your better day" Badfinger

                                  Mike HankeyM Offline
                                  Mike HankeyM Offline
                                  Mike Hankey
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #16

                                  Interesting article.

                                  As the aircraft designer said, "Simplicate and add lightness". PartsBin an Electronics Part Organizer - Release Version 1.3.0 JaxCoder.com Latest Article: SimpleWizardUpdate

                                  J 1 Reply Last reply
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                                  • Mike HankeyM Mike Hankey

                                    Interesting article.

                                    As the aircraft designer said, "Simplicate and add lightness". PartsBin an Electronics Part Organizer - Release Version 1.3.0 JaxCoder.com Latest Article: SimpleWizardUpdate

                                    J Offline
                                    J Offline
                                    jmaida
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #17

                                    I first heard this quote from my Grad School prof at about the same time frame. We were experimenting with different memory access schemes for RISC processors the hottest CPU design at the time (bit slicing, segmentation, etc. ). Fun times.

                                    "A little time, a little trouble, your better day" Badfinger

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                                    • P PIEBALDconsult

                                      Uh huh, here in freaking Phoenix.

                                      D Offline
                                      D Offline
                                      dandy72
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #18

                                      I'm not without sympathy. The *one* time I had an AMD CPU for my primary machine...I remember shutting it down at times because it was just getting too damned hot in summer, despite the AC unit keeping the rest of the house reasonably cool. Nothing wrong with the CPU or heatsink, as I was repeatedly told this was "to be expected" with that particular generation (I forget which exactly). I have no need for a machine that has to be turned off due to the amount of heat it throws off. I've never owned another system with an AMD CPU.

                                      J 1 Reply Last reply
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                                      • J jmaida

                                        The '640K' quote won't go away -- but did Gates really say it? | Computerworld[^]

                                        "A little time, a little trouble, your better day" Badfinger

                                        P Offline
                                        P Offline
                                        PIEBALDconsult
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #19

                                        I think he's denied it, but I'm going to keep repeating it anyway. The sentiment still has value, wherever it originated.

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                                        • D dandy72

                                          I'm not without sympathy. The *one* time I had an AMD CPU for my primary machine...I remember shutting it down at times because it was just getting too damned hot in summer, despite the AC unit keeping the rest of the house reasonably cool. Nothing wrong with the CPU or heatsink, as I was repeatedly told this was "to be expected" with that particular generation (I forget which exactly). I have no need for a machine that has to be turned off due to the amount of heat it throws off. I've never owned another system with an AMD CPU.

                                          J Offline
                                          J Offline
                                          jschell
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #20

                                          dandy72 wrote:

                                          because it was just getting too damned hot in summer, despite the AC unit keeping the rest of the house reasonably cool.

                                          That sounds a bit scary. So the CPU was getting so hot that it was warming up the room (not just computer) that you were in to such an extent that you turned it off to get cooler? Sounds more like a fireplace or an oven than the computer.

                                          T D 3 Replies Last reply
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