Re: xeon processors

From: Christopher Browne <cbbrowne(at)acm(dot)org>
To: pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: xeon processors
Date: 2004-06-25 22:24:59
Message-ID: m3r7s3s2bo.fsf@wolfe.cbbrowne.com
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Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw when systemguards(at)yahoo(dot)com (Jaime Casanova) would write:
> Can anyone tell me if postgresql has problems with xeon processors?
>
> If so, there is any fix or project of fix it?

Well, there's a known issue that IA-32 systems with more than 4GB of
memory use an extension known as "PAE" to bank-switch between the
banks of memory.

Any time you switch banks, there's a fair little bit of work to be
done. That includes multitasking systems that need to context switch
a few thousand times per second.

The "fix" for this problem is to rewrite all of your applications so
that they become conscious of which bits of memory they're using so
they can tune their own behaviour. This, of course, requires
discarding useful notions such as "virtual memory" that are _assumed_
by most modern operating systems.

The fix is to buy hardware that hasn't been hacked up so badly.
--
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