ACM

Communications of the ACM

Home/Opinion/Articles/Know Your Algorithms/Abstract

Kode Vicious

Know Your Algorithms

By George V. Neville-Neil
Communications of the ACM, April 2019, Vol. 62 No. 4, Page 22
10.1145/3313140
Comments

View as: Print Mobile App ACM Digital Library In the Digital Edition Share:

Dear KV,

My team and I are selecting a new server platform for our project and trying to decide whether we need more cores or higher-frequency CPUs, which seems to be the main trade-off to make on current server systems. Our system is deployed on the highest-end systems and, therefore, the highest-frequency systems we could buy two years ago. We run these systems at 100% CPU utilization at all times. Our deployment does not consume a lot of memory, just a lot of CPU cycles, and so we are again leaning toward buying the latest, top-of-the-line servers from our vendor. We have looked at refactoring some of our software, but from a cost perspective, expensive servers are cheaper than expensive programmer time, which is being used to add new features, rather than reworking old code. In your opinion, what is more important in modern systems: frequency or core count?

No entries found

Log in to Read the Full Article

Sign In

Sign in using your ACM Web Account username and password to access premium content if you are an ACM member, Communications subscriber or Digital Library subscriber.

Need Access?

Please select one of the options below for access to premium content and features.

Create a Web Account

If you are already an ACM member, Communications subscriber, or Digital Library subscriber, please set up a web account to access premium content on this site.

Join the ACM

Become a member to take full advantage of ACM's outstanding computing information resources, networking opportunities, and other benefits.

Subscribe to Communications of the ACM Magazine

Get full access to 50+ years of CACM content and receive the print version of the magazine monthly.

Purchase the Article

Non-members can purchase this article or a copy of the magazine in which it appears.