Hyper-threading

[pcslookout]

Is it really worth making sure your Intel processor has Hyper-threading? I can't decide. What kind of advantages in the future will it bring if any? I know it helps a lot with video encoding, photoshop, and music editing.

 

[zlejedi]

If you are asking about 2500K vs 2600K then no.

Save 100$ for upgrade to Ivy Bridge next year.

 

[pcslookout]

If you are asking about 2500K vs 2600K then no.

Save 100$ for upgrade to Ivy Bridge next year.

Well that is fine but I am asking in general?

 

[Spjut]

It seems to help dual cores quite a bit in modern, well-threaded games

 

[pcslookout]

It seems to help dual cores quite a bit in modern, well-threaded games

What about quad cores as well ?

 

[Cogman]

What about quad cores as well ?

You probably won't see too much gains there. Hyperthreading works best when you have an application that does lots of integer and floating point operations while being threaded. This is really a pretty limited space (games, sometimes). Other than that, there aren't a lot of big gains from hyperthreading.

 

[Idontcare]

My subjective opinion - I own both the 4C/8T i7-2600K for desktop and a 2C/4T i5-2410M in my laptop.

IMO for desktop PCs' apps the HT feature is more gimmick than tangible performance, and since its desktop the performance/watt is not exactly top priority for me.

For mobile performance though, where power consumption is key, the performance boost to come from HT is a welcome add-on given the overall lower clocks of the cores involved.

I would not want a 1C/2T chip for my laptop, HT is not a good-enough alternative to having a real-core when it comes to the OS responsiveness that is enabled by dual-core over single-core CPU's. But a 2C/4T chip is a nice solution to those who want a decent balance between single-threaded performance but reasonable battery life.

For laptops, comparing a 2C/2T vs. 2C/4T vs. 4C/4T on the basis of price, performance, and power-consumption, I feel the 2C/4T CPU is an nice balance at this time. I also think a 2M/4C bulldozer clocked down for mobile products will likely be a great compromise as well for the same reasons.

But on the desktop, the discussion of HT or no-HT is, to me anyways, akin to the discussions in Memory and Storage on the topic of "DDR3-1600 or DDR3-2133?". Where there is no question that 2133 is better, but is it materially better for the price-bump involved?

Its all subjective. For me, whether my CPU cost $200 or $300 was sort of irrelevant in the scheme of it meaning my desktop either cost $2100 or $2200. I wasn't about to plop down $2100 and short-change myself the performance bump from HT for sake of saving a mere $100 on top of it. For others though, that $100 means a great deal more to them and as such they are equally more compelled to not part with it so easily or readily and the performance boost of HT is not worth it.

Over-all though, for desktop systems, I'd rather have more faster cores than fewer slower ones with HT enabled. And I'll probably feel the same way when BD gets here, but that's just my opinion, which can change in time as well.

 

[bononos]

Is it really worth making sure your Intel processor has Hyper-threading? I can't decide. What kind of advantages in the future will it bring if any? I know it helps a lot with video encoding, photoshop, and music editing.

Its a big deal for low end i3's which are a very good buy for the price. Apart from the apps you listed, it is also good for gaming.

 

[pcslookout]

Thanks everyone quite helpful information. I will keep up to date as things change because we all know they can a moments notice.

 

[The Ultimate]

In the best case scenario, it can give you up to 30% performance boost, usually is around 7%-18%, sometimes very intensive computing software leaves no bubbles in the execution engine, resulting in a impact in performance when Hyper Threading is enabled. But usually that doesn't happen with common software, may be scientific stuff.

 

[sm625]

See

http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph4524/40757.png

In this case a 2.80 GHz pentium G840 is quite a bit faster, clock for clock, than an i3-2100. One must assume it is HT causing this mini-meltdown.

Now that intel has a 3.0GHz G860, I would very much like to see an indepth comparison to the i3-2100 in gaming.

 

[drizek]

Over-all though, for desktop systems, I'd rather have more faster cores than fewer slower ones with HT enabled. And I'll probably feel the same way when BD gets here, but that's just my opinion, which can change in time as well.

I'd agree with you, except we passed the threshold for single core performance a while ago. Even with all its inefficiencies, a Bulldozer chip at 5GHz is really more than enough for just about anything you could want to do. At this point, and increasingly in the future, most of the most demanding applications are multithreaded and HT/many cores will become increasingly important.

Either way, I'm hoping to get a 4-core/8-thread low voltage Ivy Bridge in my next macbook air.

That's the other thing, actually. a low voltage quad core will deliver better performance/watt in a laptop than a standard voltage dual core running at higher clocks, and it should even best a low voltage dual core. This is especially true for IB since their main power improvements are on the lower end of the voltage scale.

 

[pcslookout]

I'd agree with you, except we passed the threshold for single core performance a while ago. Even with all its inefficiencies, a Bulldozer chip at 5GHz is really more than enough for just about anything you could want to do. At this point, and increasingly in the future, most of the most demanding applications are multithreaded and HT/many cores will become increasingly important.

Either way, I'm hoping to get a 4-core/8-thread low voltage Ivy Bridge in my next macbook air.

That's the other thing, actually. a low voltage quad core will deliver better performance/watt in a laptop than a standard voltage dual core running at higher clocks, and it should even best a low voltage dual core. This is especially true for IB since their main power improvements are on the lower end of the voltage scale.

That makes sense but the question is how long until non-demanding applications or general use ones become multithreaded if ever ? Like games too ? Will they ?

 

[drizek]

Games are already becoming multithreaded.

Basically, every game that isn't multithreaded will have no problem running on a 4-5GHz bulldozer or sandy bridge core. All games that are more demanding than that will almost certainly be written to take advantage of multiple cores.

 

[pcslookout]

Games are already becoming multithreaded.

Basically, every game that isn't multithreaded will have no problem running on a 4-5GHz bulldozer or sandy bridge core. All games that are more demanding than that will almost certainly be written to take advantage of multiple cores.

How many at this time about and could you name a few please?

What about general or normal applications used on a daily basic? Browsers, email clients, newsgroup readers, WinRAR, Steam, Skype, and Ad Muncher?

 

[drizek]

Battlefield 3,

I think there are a lot of games threaded for at least 2 cores. I don't think hyperthreading 4 to 8 cores will help you much in games though.

Google chrome runs each tab as a separate process, so it will take advantage of multiple cores somewhat.

 

[pcslookout]

Battlefield 3,

I think there are a lot of games threaded for at least 2 cores. I don't think hyperthreading 4 to 8 cores will help you much in games though.

Google chrome runs each tab as a separate process, so it will take advantage of multiple cores somewhat.

Thanks. What about Firefox when they run things in separate processes ? Not as far as Google Chrome but extensions, browser UI, etc. Flash now of course already is.

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

The value of Hyper-threading comes largely from what you are going to be doing with the computer. Since very few games can take advantage of more than 3 threads the value of hyper-threading on the Intel® Core™ i7-2600K is very minimal. If you are do some something like audio/video creation or some other heavily multi-threaded application or extreme multi-tasking then you will see more advantages out of hyper-threading on the Intel Core i7-2600K.

For most of us, the sweet spot is 4 threads of support. With a low power user like my mother the 2c/4t will work well. On the other hand for me at home when I game the 4c/4t is a better spot. This is why I say that the Intel Core i5-2500K is one of the best processors that we have ever released, as it does such a good job at hit a good price point and delivering top of the line performance for most people.

Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team

 

[pcslookout]

Thanks everyone for the help. Greatly appreciated.

 

[The Ultimate]

Welcome to the multithreaded era!

 

[AtenRa]

See

http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph4524/40757.png

In this case a 2.80 GHz pentium G840 is quite a bit faster, clock for clock, than an i3-2100. One must assume it is HT causing this mini-meltdown.

Now that intel has a 3.0GHz G860, I would very much like to see an indepth comparison to the i3-2100 in gaming.

Core i3 2100 (2C/4T) vs Pentium G850
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/289?vs=404

Hyper Threading + larger Cache really helps dual core CPUs today, quad cores dont take that much.

 

[mrjoltcola]

I wouldn't pick the 2600K for Hyperthreading, I'd pick it for the larger cache, if that matters to you.

There is no point in waiting for Ivy Bridge, unless you are already running a 1st gen i7. You can build a Sandy Bridge / SATA 6Gb/s SSD system today that will have the horsepower to last for years. Games are just scratching the surface of the potential power of the Sandy Bridge quads.

 

[Majic 7]

I wouldn't pick the 2600K for Hyperthreading, I'd pick it for the larger cache, if that matters to you.

There is no point in waiting for Ivy Bridge, unless you are already running a 1st gen i7. You can build a Sandy Bridge / SATA 6Gb/s SSD system today that will have the horsepower to last for years. Games are just scratching the surface of the potential power of the Sandy Bridge quads.

I hope you're right, see sig. But I remember just a few years ago seeing a lot of people say that a 3 Ghz dual core should be all you need for quite a while. Two years later I found plenty of reasons to replace my 8500.

 

[pcslookout]

What does the extra cache help with?

 

[mrjoltcola]

Anything that is CPU intensive. It is 2MB more data that is local (closer to the CPU) in high-speed RAM, vs. fetching from main RAM. The processor spends a significant portion of its time stalled waiting on data access from memory. The more cache, the less time spent waiting, so the end result is faster execution.