Multicore & Parallel Systems
Computer Science: OCR A Level, topic 1.2.3
Multicore and Parallel Systems
CPU technology has moved on drastically and most now feature multiple cores. Some specialist computers use parallel processors instead.
Multicore
- Most computers (and smartphones) now use multicore systems.
- Multicore systems are CPU chips that have multiple cores inside a single physical chip.
- These multicore systems allow multitasking more easily as processing workload can be shared across the cores.
Optimisation
- Individual pieces of software also need to be optimised to take full advantage of multicore systems.
- Most browsers are optimised for multicore systems. Microsoft Internet Explorer is not.
Parallel
- A parallel CPU is one that has lots of CPU cores (like a multicore CPU).
- These cores all complete the same instructions on slightly different sets of data.
- Parallel CPUs are made for processing large amounts of data very quickly.
- A GPU is a type of parallel processor.