"The first phase of Torrenza's rollout, announced today, will enable a new class of chipset that, Schmid told us, could literally plug into an open
CPU socket. With "4x4" and other
AMD platforms, pairs of dual-core CPUs can be installed together, with "4x4" enabling two such pairs for eight total simultaneous cores. More will follow, says AMD, when quad-core processors are introduced next year. But as an option, Torrenza will empower an OEM to devise a co-processor that fits into the open CPU slot, using the HyperTransport connection to link directly to the CPU.
Although AMD does not state this explicitly - perhaps in an attempt not to offend someone in particular - in bypassing the
system bus, one also presumably bypasses the
operating system, since no software drivers...or, more accurately, no
software, may be necessary to implement such a communications link. The implications of conceivably removing the operating system from the process of managing hardware interactions over the system bus through device drivers, could be enormous. Conceivably, this could pave the way for
a virtual system technology for AMD that could rival Intel's VT efforts."
Além do facto de se usar um cpu num socket e um fpu / gpu noutro esta tecnologia vem permitir a comunicação entre os diversos processadores sem passar pelo bus do sistema e inclusive o OS. A ser verdade a comunicação entre o cpu e o fpu ou gpu é directa, não sendo necessário drivers para tal ( vejo aqui um grande ganho em termos de velocidade ).