Hypothetically, a situation where b-plan is stress testing a new dual G4 system, with slightly different clock frequencies, bus frequencies, system loads, etc every day, could very well produce these results. You see, that was what got me going on this. Well that, and BBRV's talk of a "secret weapon" and "if you think the Pegasos II is good now, just wait" ;-) (what is secret about some 1GHz G4's * 3 anyway?).
Both the Pegasos 1 and the Pegasos 2 has been marketed as a "Dual PPC" system (it's even written on the PCB on the motherboards). No dual CPU cards for the Peg1 was made, which is quite understandable (the Articia could obviously hardly handle *a single* G4), but in the Pegasos II it's a different situation.
But the question is, when do we get to see one of these dual CPU cards? The Pegasos II is a great piece of hardware, but computer hardware is aging quite fast. USB 1.1, Firewire 400, ATA100 etc might be sufficient for most purposes today, but perhaps it won't be that sexy in a year from now, in the summer of 2005? If there will ever be a dual CPU card for the Pegasos II, then now would be the time, when the Pegasos is gaining interest and things are going fine with Freescale. The Pegasos/ODW has a CPU slot for a reason, and it needs options, including the very most extreme available. Freescale themselves would probably be interested in this too, and so would their customers.
And another thing - the target segment of dual CPU cards would be the *power users* (servers, renderers, etc), that simply *can't get enough* of horse power and thus needs even more power than *a single piece* of *the most powerful* CPU could ever offer. To fulfill the needs of that segment it would only make sense to put two of the most powerful CPU's (like Apple does with their G5) on a dual CPU card (like 2x 7447A @ 1.5GHz, more or less overclocked), and as noted earlier, this could result in RC5-72 stats more or less like them above.
To sum up:
- The Pegasos is a dual CPU capable motherboard.
- Now is the time to make a dual CPU card. Wait much longer, and a Pegasos III (or at least a slightly upgraded "Pegasos 2.5") would perhaps make better sense.
- A dual CPU card is for those who can not get enough of CPU power, thus it should be two of the most powerful CPU's, regardless of their price.
- Two of the most powerful CPU's would bring RC5 results similar to the above, on a single computer.
- This would also justify comments like "secret weapon" and "if you think the Pegasos II is good now, just wait".
I am just brainstorming here, based on *no facts* whatsoever. Everything is probably totally incorrect, and I don't mean to cause any unnecessary rumours or such. It's probably quite obvious that I have no inside knowledge at all (Piru might have, I don't know), but I am hoping for a dual CPU card nevertheless! :-)