which P4 does support Hyper Threading (if any)

[EvilMan666]

Hi!

I've just read on a german newssite (onlinekosten.de) that all P4 with 533 FSB should support Hyper Threading after a biosupdate. I can't believe this, is it true?

I thought that only the XEON P4 CPUs does Hyper Threading?

Please tell me the truth 🙂

Greetings, Ingo

 

[BD231]

From what I've read, Hyper Threading is disabled "ON" the P4, so I dont think that bios update info is valid. Last I heard was that HT support will be enabled on the 3ghz and up part's.

 

[MadRat]

HT is only in Northwood, not in Williamette. All 533fsb ones will have it, but it won't be long before a patch is made for the 400fsb P4A's. Apparently there is a bug in the original P4A cores when it came to the HT design. It is fixed in the B- and C-steppings of the P4 cores.

 

[lambasa]

Uhhh, sorry EvilMan. Hyper Threading is "built in" to Northwood, but it is disabled by a fusing option. There will be no BIOS updates or any other patches that will enable it. When Intel enables Hyper Threading, only the new P4's will have it. I believe when the 3GHz Northwood is released, Hyper Threading will be enabled. You will have to buy a new CPU if you want it.

 

[MegalodoN]

So based on this info the p4 1.8a doesn't have Hyper-Threading enable?

 

[bjc112]

Originally posted by: MegalodoN
So based on this info the p4 1.8a doesn't have Hyper-Threading enable?

No.

 

[ST4RCUTTER]

Like the others have said, Hyperthreading is built into the current Northwoods, but it won't be active until the Prescott makes its debut. The chips should also incorporate 1MB of on-die cache. I wouldn't be surprised if Intel includes other optimizations as well thanks to manufacturing capabilities that are (or should be) the envy of the industry.

Chip Architect

 

[MadRat]

Sounds like an awful lot of fancy specualtion. How successful was chip-architect.com at predicting past performance before it was released?

 

[kgraeme]

There was recently a story at the Register about 3Ghz Northwoods being the first to have HyperThreading enabled, and the current i845g platform can't utilize HyperThreading whereas the i845e can. It lead to a bit of a thread here.