Is HyperThreading worth the extra £80?

[Cythreill]

So it looks like the 3770k will be £80 more than the 3570k.

As far as I know the only difference between the chips is HyperThreading. So basically I'm asking myself if I should pay £80 for HyperThreading.

Now, I know it's currently useless for gaming, but what about in the future? In 2 years time, would games be making use of this technology?

 

[Don Karnage]

Will continue to be useless in gaming. Just get the 3570K

 

[aaksheytalwar]

3770k oc a bit better as well

 

[tweakboy]

No need to spend that extra money for HT unless.........

You use these apps..

Premiere - video editing
Vegas - Video Editing
Photoshop - Photo Rendering
Sonar X1 - Digital Audio Workstation ..
and other HT 64 bit apps.

If you use these then YES get the 3770k ........

If you don't use any of these then get the 3570k ..... gl

 

[LoneNinja]

Games do already use hyperthreading, they just don't need 8 threads, hyperthreading helps I3 perform better in games.

Right now the main advantage to having hyperthreading is productivity software, that stuff is designed to use as many cores as possible, but if all you plan to do is game than an I5 is a much better value.

 

[Makaveli]

Games do already use hyperthreading, they just don't need 8 threads, hyperthreading helps I3 perform better in games.

Right now the main advantage to having hyperthreading is productivity software, that stuff is designed to use as many cores as possible, but if all you plan to do is game than an I5 is a much better value.

This^^

 

[ninaholic37]

Hyperthreading is just a virtual/squashed-into-one-core extension of having multiple cores, is it not?

I found another thread about Hyperthreading and Games here too:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2149659

 

[QuantumPion]

Doesn't the i7 have more L3 cache? How much does that affect the performance for games?

 

[Cythreill]

Thanks for all the replies.

So how likely is it games will make use of 8 threads within the next couple of years?

edit: yes, the 2600k/3770k have 2MB more L3 Cache. Not sure if this will have any effect on the majority of games.

 

[shabby]

Save your money, the 3570k is fast enough, a couple % increase isn't going to be noticeable at all. Im glad i bought the 2500k rather than the 2600k, i haven't found a need to overclock it yet.

 

[Cythreill]

I'm just wondering if in 2+ years, games will come out that make use of more than 4 cores, and thus HT would be giving large increases.

If that happens, I'll be kind of disappointed that I got the 3570k.

 

[bryanW1995]

I went from a 920 D0 @ 4.0 to a 2500k @4.5, and I absolutely don't miss HT at all. And I run SETI 24/7 when I'm not gaming, so I should be in the HT target market. IMHO, HT on a quad core isn't worth it unless you're on WC or you can snag a deal on one for nearly the same price as the 4c/4t cpu.

By the time you need a cpu with more than 4 cores, you'll need to upgrade your rig, anyway. Save the £80 and get the cheaper cpu, you'll be glad you did.

edit: FYI, part of the reason that I recommend the non-HT cpu if you're not WC is that you're likely to either have a quieter rig at the same cpu clock speed, or a faster rig at the same noise level if you're using air cooling. I experienced that myself, and I made the tradeof to go with a nearly silent rig on my 2500k @ 4.5. I am extremely glad that I did, but I could have gone 4.9 or so at the same noise level used for 4.0 on my 920. You'll likely get more enjoyment out of a quieter rig and/or 10% higher clock with air cooling than you will out of HT, regardless of whether you would actually benefit from HT or not. Obviously, WC is a different animal, though I've heard that even on water you can often get a few hundred more mhz with HT disabled.

 

[Maximilian]

Hello fellow ocUker! I saw your thread there as well

Currently BF3 can use 8 cores so it will make use of HT, civ V also makes use of it. In the future C&C generals 2 will be using the same engine as BF3 so it will likely use 8 cores as well.

Here is a set of benchmarks that gets thrown around a lot:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1151970/my-own-bf3-benchmark-hyperthreading-on-vs-off/10

The i7 975 has HT and is able to beat the 2500k sometimes. HT will make a difference in a few games in the future but if I were you I would just get a cheap used 2600k, don't think I would pay £80 more for HT that's a bit too much.

 

[Joseph F]

No need to spend that extra money for HT unless.........

You use these apps..

Premiere - video editing
Vegas - Video Editing
Photoshop - Photo Rendering
Sonar X1 - Digital Audio Workstation ..
and other HT 64 bit apps.

If you use these then YES get the 3770k ........

If you don't use any of these then get the 3570k ..... gl

Holy hell, tweakboy gives sound advice! :thumbsup:

 

[bryanW1995]

Hello fellow ocUker! I saw your thread there as well

Currently BF3 can use 8 cores so it will make use of HT, civ V also makes use of it. In the future C&C generals 2 will be using the same engine as BF3 so it will likely use 8 cores as well.

Here is a set of benchmarks that gets thrown around a lot:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1151970/my-own-bf3-benchmark-hyperthreading-on-vs-off/10

The i7 975 has HT and is able to beat the 2500k sometimes. HT will make a difference in a few games in the future but if I were you I would just get a cheap used 2600k, don't think I would pay £80 more for HT that's a bit too much.

FWIW, my current rig is much faster at civ 5 (my #1 game by far) than my old 920 was. And as stated previously, I don't push this one nearly as hard as I did the 920. I am actually so satisfied with the 2500k that I've decided to hold off on upgrading to IVB, even though I already had the money budgeted for it. I just sprang for a couple of 256 gb m4's instead, I think that I'll get more out of those until haswell arrives, anyway.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Ye forgot HT for gaming. I would bet its also gonna be useless the next 3 years+ in gaming terms.

 

[Absolute0]

I think HT is more futureproof, depending on how long you want the CPU to last. Games and apps have become more multithreaded slowly but we can expect it to keep increasing steadily.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

I think HT is more futureproof, depending on how long you want the CPU to last. Games and apps have become more multithreaded slowly but we can expect it to keep increasing steadily.

this

 

[gevorg]

IMHO, hyper-threading is worth it on dual-core systems, since it is more likely to be used. On quad-cores, there is currently a very limited set of desktop applications that can take advantage of it.

Best way to future proof your computer is by buying midrange components today, rather than highend components, and use the savings to buy future components.

 

[hyrule4927]

Hasn't been mentioned in here yet, but if you have any interest in distributed computing, hyperthreading is certainly worth it.

 

[Blades]

What I never understood is that technically, a single threaded application would utilize 12.5% of a 4 core proc... whereas with no HT.. that # would be 25%.. NeroAACEnc/MeGUI audio conversion would be an example of how this could be a pain in the ass.. thats just one instance i remember, where it was single threaded.... and a long wait..

 

[Don Karnage]

Hello fellow ocUker! I saw your thread there as well

Currently BF3 can use 8 cores so it will make use of HT, civ V also makes use of it. In the future C&C generals 2 will be using the same engine as BF3 so it will likely use 8 cores as well.

Here is a set of benchmarks that gets thrown around a lot:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1151970/my-own-bf3-benchmark-hyperthreading-on-vs-off/10

The i7 975 has HT and is able to beat the 2500k sometimes. HT will make a difference in a few games in the future but if I were you I would just get a cheap used 2600k, don't think I would pay £80 more for HT that's a bit too much.

If you play on Medium then HT is worth it but on Ultra its a waste of money

 

[Cythreill]

Hello fellow ocUker! I saw your thread there as well

Currently BF3 can use 8 cores so it will make use of HT, civ V also makes use of it. In the future C&C generals 2 will be using the same engine as BF3 so it will likely use 8 cores as well.

Here is a set of benchmarks that gets thrown around a lot:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1151970/my-own-bf3-benchmark-hyperthreading-on-vs-off/10

The i7 975 has HT and is able to beat the 2500k sometimes. HT will make a difference in a few games in the future but if I were you I would just get a cheap used 2600k, don't think I would pay £80 more for HT that's a bit too much.

That benchmark shows that HT only improves BF3 when you use lower/medium settings, though.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

I went from a 920 D0 @ 4.0 to a 2500k @4.5, and I absolutely don't miss HT at all. And I run SETI 24/7 when I'm not gaming, so I should be in the HT target market. IMHO, HT on a quad core isn't worth it unless you're on WC or you can snag a deal on one for nearly the same price as the 4c/4t cpu.

By the time you need a cpu with more than 4 cores, you'll need to upgrade your rig, anyway. Save the £80 and get the cheaper cpu, you'll be glad you did.

edit: FYI, part of the reason that I recommend the non-HT cpu if you're not WC is that you're likely to either have a quieter rig at the same cpu clock speed, or a faster rig at the same noise level if you're using air cooling. I experienced that myself, and I made the tradeof to go with a nearly silent rig on my 2500k @ 4.5. I am extremely glad that I did, but I could have gone 4.9 or so at the same noise level used for 4.0 on my 920. You'll likely get more enjoyment out of a quieter rig and/or 10% higher clock with air cooling than you will out of HT, regardless of whether you would actually benefit from HT or not. Obviously, WC is a different animal, though I've heard that even on water you can often get a few hundred more mhz with HT disabled.

A lot of ignorance, right here. Just FYI, some of us do more on our rigs than just game:

But hey, HT obviously doesn't do anything at all.

If the main thing you do is gaming and you don't see yourself running much multi-threaded software, then go for an i5.

 

[Maximilian]

That benchmark shows that HT only improves BF3 when you use lower/medium settings, though.

Because high settings are bottlenecked by the graphics card and are not a show of CPU performance.