What happens to computers with two CPUs?

Going back to the days of computers with two CPUs, many people will surely remember systems equipped with two Intel Pentium III processors thanks to motherboards that supported dual sockets. At that time, these systems were quite expensive and only for tech enthusiasts.

Systems that currently use 2 CPUs are commonly found in servers.

Today, owning a computer with two CPUs is outdated. So why did this technology disappear from the market? Let's find out.

The era of computers with multi-core CPUs.

To understand this, we need to know that the Intel Pentium III, while powerful, only has a single core, which limits its multitasking capabilities. Before the advent of multi-threading technology, dual CPUs were a temporary solution, leading to the emergence of several software solutions.

Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP) allows two Pentium III CPUs to share memory and execute threads in parallel, but only specially designed applications truly take advantage of this. Operating systems like Windows NT and Linux already support distributing processes across two CPUs, but the performance improvement is negligible for single programs.

Today, computers with two CPUs are no longer necessary. While some servers still support multiple Intel Core Xeon CPUs, consumer computers no longer use this configuration. This is primarily due to memory bandwidth limitations.

Modern CPUs today have many cores, which is more than enough for most users' needs.

Critical servers typically have two CPUs, each with its own memory controller to optimize performance for critical tasks such as virtualization and large-scale databases. However, this is no longer important for the average user.

In reality, today's consumer CPUs have more cores and threads, making dual-CPU computers obsolete. Owning a dual-CPU computer doesn't offer any real benefit to the average user. If you want to experiment with a dual-CPU system, you could consider buying a used server with dual Xeon processors, but fully utilizing its potential isn't easy.

Ultimately, the world has moved beyond the era where dual-CPU computers were necessary for intensive tasks. Technological advancements have given users more efficient options without the need to invest in outdated and energy-intensive systems.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/dieu-gi-xay-ra-voi-nhung-chiec-may-tinh-co-2-cpu-185241127153031061.htm