Problem
The trend toward multiple-processor and multicore architectures has placed increasing strain on interconnections between processors, memory, and I/O controllers. Intel s Quick Path Interconnect (QPI) and the Hyper Transport Consortium s Hyper Transport (HT) are two widely used approaches to addressing the performance bottleneck. Investigate both interconnection standards, and compare similar multicore processors from Intel and AMD that implement each standard. Do the standards address the same basic performance issues? Which offers the best performance? Which do you expect to dominate the marketplace, and why?