Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!mailrus!uflorida!gatech!hubcap!aglew
From: aglew@mcdurb.Urbana.Gould.COM
Newsgroups: comp.parallel
Subject: Re: Superlinear(?) speedups
Message-ID: <3935@hubcap.UUCP>
Date: 19 Dec 88 13:18:40 GMT
Sender: fpst@hubcap.UUCP
Lines: 8
Approved: parallel@hubcap.clemson.edu

>It does not seem possible that n processors could run faster than n
>times one processor for a given global algorithm.  One need only time
>slice the runs of the n processors on the 1 processor, ignoring the
>very real effects of cache effectiveness, etc ...

And as I am fond of pointing out, timeslicing => context switch costs,
and reduction of context switch costs is one very real source of
linear super-unitary speedup.