pthreads mutex number and performance

Question

• how many pthreads mutex are usually available in a typical system?

• Is having many pthreads mutex degrades performance?

Answer 1

Several answers:

1. You are asking the wrong question. If you need more than a 1000 or so mutexes, you are likely doing something wrong.
2. As many as you need. Non-process-shared mutex does not usually consume any resources except RAM.
3. Having many unused mutexes degrades performance in exactly the same way as having many integers; that is, not at all (assuming sufficient RAM).