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Linux for Hyperthreading

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SpeedFreak03

Golden Member
Can linux take advantage of hyperthreading? I am building a P4 2.6C/Abit IS7 rig soon, and I want to get back into linux. What distributions/kernel versions can use hyperthreading well? My favorite distribution is JAMD Linux 0.0.6B (a highly i686 optimized version of Red Hat), so do you think it will use HT effectivly? Thanks, Josh
 
Anything to do with hardware is generally the realm of the kernel and has little to do with the distro. IIRC hyperthreading has always been well supported by linux.
 
Recent 2.4 kernels have basic HT support, for full support I _believe_ you need 2.6 though. But as I don't like P4s and as such don't own any, I can't comment on how good/bad the support is. I'll be truly SMP as long as I own a computer =)
 
Yeah SMP is awesome...but I just dont have the money for that though. I did use to have a dual P3 system though, but I sold it for financial reasons. The feel of those systems is great!
 
A dual Athlon system isn't very expensive, chips are cheap and they use normal PC2100 memory. You don't get the same clock rates at the P4, but that hardly matters. I still have a dual Athlon system and I don't be upgrading it until I can either afford a dual Xeon system or a dual Opteron system, preferably the Opteron.
 
how much (approximately) would it cost to put together a dual-athlon setup? I have been considering this, but I have trouble finding info. Also, do u think that for multitasking and some video encoding, would I benifit more from a dual-cpu system or just hyperthreading? I have been missing my duallie... Like what mobo do u have, ram, cpus etc, and do u recommend them? Thanks for all your help, Josh
 
A P4 system might be better for the encoding because of the faster FSB and memory, but I don't know how much the HT would help doing other things while the encoding is going on, I wouldn't bet on much. Ideally you'd want a dual Xeon setup, then you'd have the best of both worlds. A single Xeon 2.8GHz w/ 533FSB is just over $300, depends on how much cash you have to spend I guess. AthlonMPs only go up to 2600+ I think, which is just over 2Ghz with the larger cache, I think AMD stopped because they want to push the Athlon64 or Opteron to replace them soon.

I personaly have a Tyan TigerMP (the original, not the MPX) with 2 1.2Ghz chips and 1G DDR2100, it's fine for me but the little video I do is just using transcode to convert codecs or resize things, nothing major.
 
My system:

2x 1.3ghz duron, about $45 each when you count heatsink
tiger mp, I think I got mine for $130 or something like that. There are better, less finicky, and more modern boards available though.
Some registered pc2100, maybe $80 or so for the 512MB total I'm using (and it was bought a while back). The durons only run at 100mhz fsb, but nowadays, a low end XP should be close to the same price as my durons anyways.
 
I just slapped together a decent MP system on NewEgg, consisting of 2 AMD Athlon Palamino 1.2GHz 266FSB CPUs NewEgg, a Gigabyte AMD760 chipset board (NewEgg, and a stick of 512MB Corsair PC2100. Came to $374 total. Now in your opinion, what would "feel" faster (like opening programs, kind of like snapiness), the dual Athlon setup or a P4 2.6C, because they both cost around the same!
 
Newegg and googlegear for new stuff, but I've bought lots of stuff on ebay and on the FS/FT forums here. Some things are a better deal used (both my ram and mobo were), but others make more sense to buy new (those durons are so damn cheap that no one really sells them for less used).

also I wouldn't spend extra on the MP chips, I would just buy normal XPs or whatever and then cross the bridges on them. Not difficult at all.
 
But do you think it is worth it for me to go dual? I mean I surf the net, read email, play the occassional game (maybe 1-2 times a month), burn CDs, listen to MP3s, sometimes record TV from TV tuner and convert to DivX (like 4 times a month though), and thats about it. Would I benefit from dual processors? My old dual P3 (might have been P2 - its been a while) was quite a box in its day, but now with HT, I dont know if I even need dual (the only reason I had it before was because I got the mobo and 2 CPUS for like $300 from an old neighbor that was moving, haha one CPU was worth more than that back then!)
 
Originally posted by: SpeedFreak03
But do you think it is worth it for me to go dual? I mean I surf the net, read email, play the occassional game (maybe 1-2 times a month), burn CDs, listen to MP3s, sometimes record TV from TV tuner and convert to DivX (like 4 times a month though), and thats about it. Would I benefit from dual processors? My old dual P3 (might have been P2 - its been a while) was quite a box in its day, but now with HT, I dont know if I even need dual (the only reason I had it before was because I got the mobo and 2 CPUS for like $300 from an old neighbor that was moving, haha one CPU was worth more than that back then!)
Click to expand...

Probably not. The main thing I like about smp is that one process can be taking 100% cpu, and your machine acts as if nothing is happening, because it has a whole other cpu left. I can compile stuff and go about my business at the same time with very little slowdown (sometimes there is some choppiness if there's heavy drive access). It just kinda depends. I could honestly go without duals, but to me the cost wasn't much more, and I take advantage of it often enough that I think it was worth it. But it's not like my machine is bogged down 24/7, either.
 
Yeah that was what I was thinking. I read up a little bit, and I found that I would benefit more from faster clock speeds and HT then dual cpus. Thanks for all your guys help though!
 
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