Windows 7 scales to 256 processors
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Posted in Blog, Windows, Microsoft on
Mark Russinovich is a cool guy. He also happens to be a Microsoft Technical Fellow and Windows Kernel guru. Best of all, he has been talking at length (some 45 minutes or so) to the MSDN ‘Channel 9′ network about what’s inside Windows 7.
Sure, news about Windows 7 has been leaking like crazy especially now that early versions are available for free.
But this is different, this is not speculation, this is someone who really knows his stuff spilling the technical beans about Windows 7.
Now that’s where everyone’s ears should perk up, mine did. Especially when it got to the bit about how the reworking of the ‘dispatcher spin lock’ in Windows 7 means that the OS can scale to a whopping 256 processors. He goes into some technical detail about how bottlenecks have been removed to make this possible.
I mean, what geek could not be seduced by the lure of a forthcoming Windows Server 2008 release that supports 256 logical cores? Must be a possibility, considering that it will be a Windows 7 based upgrade. About bloody time as well, after all 32 core limits are so 20th century.
There is not a lot a point in me just trying to explain all this in highly technical detail, in text, when Russinovich does a perfect job in person. Seriously, if you care about this stuff it is worth sacrificing 45 minutes of your life to view the video. And I wouldn’t be saying that, I wouldn’t be pointing you away from IT Pro for goodness sake, if it wasn’t so!
Comment by Finno - November 16, 2008 on 11:16 am
To paraphrase: 256 cores should be enough for anyone.
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