Dave Cramer <pg(at)fastcrypt(dot)com> writes:
> So the the kernel/OS is irrelevant here ? this happens on any dual xeon?
I believe so. The context-switch behavior might possibly be a little
more pleasant on other kernels, but the underlying spinlock problem is
not dependent on the kernel.
> What about hypterthreading does it still happen if HTT is turned off ?
The problem comes from keeping the caches synchronized between multiple
physical CPUs. AFAICS enabling HTT wouldn't make it worse, because a
hyperthreaded processor still only has one cache.
regards, tom lane