A team of researchers wants to have doubled the performance of a computer. A new technology is used for this. The advantage is that it does not require any new hardware. But it could take some time before this technology comes to our systems.
Researchers at the University of California, Riverside claim they would be able to double the performance of any modern PC. The highlight: This all works without a prior hardware upgrade.
The research team presented their results and described a new system called “simultaneous and heterogeneous multithreading” (SHMT). You can find the technical essay online at dl.amc.org.
But does this mean that PC gaming will ultimately become affordable again? You shouldn’t get excited so early, because you won’t be able to use the technology right away.
New technology is intended to accelerate processes and thus increase performance
Modern computers currently consist of multiple processors. This includes the CPU, the graphics processor of the graphics card or the computing cores that are responsible for machine learning (TPU).
Since different parts of the PC are responsible for executing different workloads through instructions, there are bottlenecks and latency between data. Because the data has to be transferred between the processors. And that costs time and therefore also performance.
What exactly is SHMT doing here? SHMT aims to solve the problem by allowing multiple processes to execute a single task at the same time. This not only reduces the workload per processor, but also speeds up the efficiency of the task and uses less energy.
The researchers’ results are impressive:
When will the technology be available? According to the team, current devices must go through a quality test. Here you can then determine whether there are incompatible processor architectures or components. It is therefore still unclear when we will be able to benefit from this technology. So far, however, the initial results look promising.
Maybe we’ll actually save ourselves a few expensive hardware upgrades for our gaming PC in the future.
By the way, the most powerful PC in the world is built in Germany. A new supercomputer is being built in Jülich. This should be faster than all other systems. In the future it will be used primarily for AI training:
The most powerful computer in the world is to be built in Germany and will be ready for use in just one year