Question

At work, your boss asks you to consider a new computer system component that is twice as fast as the current component. The component is responsible for 40% of the system’s computing effort. What is the system speedup that can be achieved by upgrading to the new component? (calculate your answer to 2 decimal places)

Answer 1

Speedup according to Amdahl's Law = 1 / [ 1 - f1 - f2 + .. +( f1 / S1) + ( f2/S2) + ( f3/S3) .. ]

f1 , f2 etc. : fraction of enhancements

S1 , S2 etc : Speedup corresponding to each fraction of enhancement

In our case

So here f1 = 40% = 0.4

S1 = 200

Hence Speedup = 1 / [1 - 0.4 + 0.4/200] = 1.66