I know that if I run linux on a typical quad-core chip, like the Intel Core i7 920, then a pthreads program can spawn multiple threads on any of the 4 cores.

What if I have a workstation that has a single systemboard with two chips, or four chips, each with multiple cores? Can my pthreads program spawn threads on any of the cores? Or, do I have to run multiple pthreads programs, and each program can only spawn threads on the cores of the same chip?

Also, regarding shared memory, can the threads on one chip access DRAM memory connected to another chip?

Are these answers different for AMD multi-core chips?