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I would like to use the following phrase for a machine with large number cores. Is this correct? Please let me know.

large number core machine

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    Do you mean "with a large number of cores", or is a large number core a core which is specially designed to handle large numbers? Sep 26, 2011 at 6:17
  • I mean "with a large number of cores".
    – samarasa
    Sep 26, 2011 at 16:02

3 Answers 3

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"Large number core machine" sounds like clumsy or incorrect English. If you are talking about computers, the only grammatically-plausible interpretation that occurs to me is "Large number-core machine"; but that phrase is not semantically plausible because "number-core" is not a phrase used in the computer field.

Whether the previously-suggested many-core term is what you are looking for isn't clear. Some nuances noted in the wikipedia multi-core_processor description may rule it out: "A many-core processor is a multi-core processor in which the number of cores is large enough that traditional multi-processor techniques are no longer efficient... The many-core threshold is roughly in the range of several tens of cores... The terms many-core and massively multi-core are sometimes used to describe multi-core architectures with an especially high number of cores (tens or hundreds)."

Note that many-core refers to chips that contain many CPU cores, rather than to machines with many CPU's spread across many chips, which are multi-CPU machines.

If you have a specific chip in mind, with a specific number of cores, terms like dual-core, tri-core, quad-core, hexa-core, and octo-core are in common use.

If what you refer to is a GPU then look for terminology specific to such chips.

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To answer the question directly, "Large number" is being used here as an adjective for core to express multiplicity. That is not the usual usage. As an adjective "Large number" typically refers to something related to numbers themselves, such as "large-number arithmetic".

According to Wikipedia:

The terms many-core and massively multi-core are sometimes used to describe multi-core architectures with an especially high number of cores (tens or hundreds).

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The commonly used term for this is many-core machine.

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  • Thank you. I agree with that. However, I would like to know whether the phrase "large number core machine" is correct usage or not?
    – samarasa
    Sep 26, 2011 at 3:28
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    "Large number core machine" doesn't sound right. "High-number-core machine" or "high-count core machine" might be a little better, and "a machine with a large number of cores" would be better yet.
    – xpda
    Sep 26, 2011 at 3:33
  • Thank you. How about "machine with large number cores"?
    – samarasa
    Sep 26, 2011 at 3:40
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    A "machine with a large number of cores" would be correct. If you leave out the "a" and "of" it will be understandable but not correct.
    – xpda
    Sep 26, 2011 at 3:47
  • Could you add your suggestions in the comments to your answer, please?
    – samarasa
    Sep 26, 2011 at 4:01

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