157k views
5 votes
Calculate the overall speedup of a system that spends 40% of its time in calculations with a processor upgrade that provides for 100% greater throughput. Write the answer as an integer percent.

a. 40%
b. 60%
c. 80%
d. 100%

1 Answer

4 votes

Final answer:

The overall speedup of a system after a processor upgrade with a 100% increase in throughput for tasks that take up 40% of its time is calculated to be a 25% improvement in speed, which does not match any of the provided answers. There may be an error in the question or its options.

Step-by-step explanation:

Calculating the overall speedup of a system after a processor upgrade is a problem that falls under the category of performance improvement in computing. If a system spends 40% of its time in calculations and receives a processor upgrade that doubles the throughput (a 100% increase) for those calculations, we can use Amdahl's law to find the overall speedup.

The formula for calculating the speedup is given as:

Speedup = 1 / [(1 - Fraction_enhanced) + (Fraction_enhanced / Speedup_enhanced)]

Here Fraction_enhanced is the fraction of time the system is improved by speedup due to the processor upgrade (0.40 or 40%), and Speedup_enhanced is the factor by which the processor improves (which is 2 in this case, as a 100% increase means a doubling of performance).

Applying these values:

Speedup = 1 / [(1 - 0.40) + (0.40 / 2)]
Speedup = 1 / [0.60 + 0.20]
Speedup = 1 / 0.80
Speedup = 1.25

As a percentage, this speedup is a 25% overall improvement. However, since the question asks for the answer in integer percent and the provided options do not include 25%, there might be a mistake in the provided options or the question itself.

User Joli
by
8.2k points