Same problem with dual 1Ghz P3's running Postgres 7.4.2, linux 2.4.x, and 2GB ram, under load, with long transactions (i.e. 1 "cannot serialize" rollback per minute). 200K was the worst observed with vmstat. Finally moved DB to a single xeon box.
pgsql-performance by date:
Соглашаюсь с условиями обработки персональных данных