Multicore Support

Mathematica 5.2 introduces new support for threading of numerical linear algebra over multiple-CPU or multicore computers.

In addition, Mathematica's notebook front end is a separate process from its computational kernel, allowing them to run on separate cores or CPUs. This gives a responsive interface even when the kernel core is under full load.

Multicore chips have more than one CPU core; multiple-processor computers have more than one CPU chip. Both are being introduced by manufacturers to speed up tasks by splitting threads or processes among different processors so that they can be performed in parallel.

Optional gridMathematica is available for tying together multiple computers, each containing one or several CPUs and/or cores.