Hyper threading

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kingduqc

Limp Gawd
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Dec 22, 2011
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So I was looking for a cpu upgrade, waiting Haswell to come out. And I started thinking about an i5 or i7. The only big difference between those two is hyper threading right? But what kind of real world performance gain you get out of it? I'll use it mainly for gaming, but would like to stream and/or record gameplay and do some light video editing. The price difference doesn't really bother me but it would be dump to not take it into consideration if it's really useless. It seem that benchmark of HT on VS HT off have been done in the past, but games back a few years didn't really make use of more cores. Specially with the upcoming consoles will have 8 cores in em. I wonder if hyper threading would worth it for gaming, but also while multitasking. Could a kind man run some benchmark on games that make use of more then 4 core in a real world environment (Listening to music, having Skype open, a few tab on a web browser while recording the gameplay and post the results of having HT turned on vs off? I know it sound specific but only recording the framerate while playing a game and only doing that with the cpu seems pointless if you want to compare the use of more core(hyper threatening). A more earth to earth situation where many things is happening in the background seem logical to me (the benchmark I've saw from about 2 year ago didn't include any kind of multitasking and video capturing :S)

I don't know what games use many cores (crysis 3 probably, company of heroes 2 beta seemed heavy on the cpu, civ V, metro 2033, bad compagny 2/bf3) and if having more application open in the background would affect that result. To me it would be more fair to compare HT on vs HT off in a situation where most of us would game and not just having the game.
 
While recording gameplay was the important part, that's why it was in bold. This bench look like most of the bench I've seen, they only focus on having the game playing. Nothing else witch I don't think translate into real world environment where you would have 5-6 program in the back ground or you recording the gameplay/streaming.
 
If you are aiming for the future, well, go with an i7 3770k only for the reason that as you stated with the new of consoles the more cores possible will improve the performance on games.. Ofc, today a i5 3570k its a overpowered chip for games, and have enough power to handle the games for a lot of times.. Couple of years maybe the implement of HT on i7 make a enough advantage and power to keep you happy for more time...

Here a review between i5 3570k and i7 3770k http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/551?vs=701
 
Araxie said:
If you are aiming for the future, well, go with an i7 3770k only for the reason that as you stated with the new of consoles the more cores possible will improve the performance on games.. Ofc, today a i5 3570k its a overpowered chip for games, and have enough power to handle the games for a lot of times.. Couple of years maybe the implement of HT on i7 make a enough advantage and power to keep you happy for more time...

Here a review between i5 3570k and i7 3770k http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/551?vs=701
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I know an i5 is plenty to play games, I'm talking about playing and recording gameplay, said it twice already. No benchmark for that anywhere.
 
Considering HT are no real cores, and recording needs some CPU power, HT CPU can't record well a game that requires 4 cores for heavy work. It might help with browser on backround because browser on background isn't CPU intensive, but recording is another matter.

I remember how Zock is recording his plays twitch.tv/Zockyzock/new of a game that basically requires about 2 cores, and his CPU speed indicator is really high (this means it's slow), thus recording needs quite a bit of CPU power and HT doesn't provide any (It just allows CPU to work in pauses when other thread looked for data not in cache).
 
Considering HT are no real cores
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Yes however the existing cores are overprovisioned to allow for more instructions to be simultaneously executed than a typical single thread will have thus allowing slots for the virtual cores to execute.

It just allows CPU to work in pauses when other thread looked for data not in cache
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HT does more than just that. It tries to keep all of the execution slots in the pipelines full as much as possible. Without HT there would be more idle execution slots because of decencies, branches ...
 
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I just upgraded Feb 1st from 775 to 1155. I chose the i5 3570k and overclocked it right to 4.4. Last friday I sold that i5 to a friend who wants to upgrade and I got the i7 3770k and it's running 4.5 right now and I have to say I really noticed the HT difference. Not in games but in video encoding that I do. Overall it's just stupidly fast and I would definitely recommend anyone not waiting for Haswell to try and get the 3770k. It's amazing beyond anything I had hoped for.
 
cantoncobaltsssc said:
I just upgraded Feb 1st from 775 to 1155. I chose the i5 3570k and overclocked it right to 4.4. Last friday I sold that i5 to a friend who wants to upgrade and I got the i7 3770k and it's running 4.5 right now and I have to say I really noticed the HT difference. Not in games but in video encoding that I do. Overall it's just stupidly fast and I would definitely recommend anyone not waiting for Haswell to try and get the 3770k. It's amazing beyond anything I had hoped for.
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Yeah but still there are people who do not understand the fact that HT its very usefull and its really a jump in performance...

Also to the OP actually im able to run some unzip, some video encodes on background and still keep playing games like hitman 3, far cry 3, skyrim, assassins creed 3, without notice any hit on performance, and i do that several times and mine its a sandy.. Be relax and secure with a i7 ivy..
 
cantoncobaltsssc said:
I just upgraded Feb 1st from 775 to 1155. I chose the i5 3570k and overclocked it right to 4.4. Last friday I sold that i5 to a friend who wants to upgrade and I got the i7 3770k and it's running 4.5 right now and I have to say I really noticed the HT difference. Not in games but in video encoding that I do. Overall it's just stupidly fast and I would definitely recommend anyone not waiting for Haswell to try and get the 3770k. It's amazing beyond anything I had hoped for.
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We are one month away from haswell and you are telling me I should not wait? 5-10% performance per clock + new platform (upgrade path basically and not a dead platform) + Potential more overclock headroom for the same price?

anyway, thanks. I guess im going for the i7
 
I was just suggesting that anyone who was on the fence about wait for Haswell or go with Ivybridge to def get the i7 if going with IVY instead of the i5. That's what I meant to say sorry for any confusion. Does anyone know for sure what 1150 boards are going to cost cause I got my ASROCK Extreme 4 for 80.00 as bundle with i5 I bought. Then I turned around sold i5 to my buddy for his upgrade and used the money towards i7. If the boards are going to be affordable then I would def say wait for Haswell. If they are going to be 200 or more then I'm glad I didn't wait.
 
They will be priced similar to what they are replacing.
 
HR_The_Butcher said:
No luck with video capture, but here's some excellent HT on and off comparisons for BF3.

http://chipreviews.com/cpu/frostbite-2s-limit-6-core-performance-in-battlefield-3/5/
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This is interesting. Normally I'd say BF3 is GFX limited, but...

4 core has better minimum framerate with HT, but better average framerate without HT.
However 6-core has both minimum and average framerate better without HT.

I wonder how would Vishera 6-core and 8-core fare in that test.
 
If you have the time to wait, the extra money , and you tend to keep your processors for a while between upgrades, then go with the HWL i7-K.
 
If you want to stream and game on the same PC at the same time, you will want at least a 3770k/4770k. Hyperthreading helps a good deal with streaming performance. I sent one of my team members a 3770k to replace his 2500k - he noticed nearly double in-game FPS while streaming GW2 after the upgrade, and it was readily apparent this was true from watching his stream.

Note that to have perfect performance in any game while streaming at 720p60/1080p30 or higher, you will need to capture and stream from a secondary computer. A capture card running in the same PC that you're gaming on will make no difference in streaming performance. I don't really see the merits in any step in between a single 4770k rig and a multi-computer setup.

Streaming is not some minor "background application". If you are streaming at a good quality, it will heavily tax your CPU, which will impact your performance on any modern "realistic" looking game. If you are not streaming in a high quality, no one will watch your stream. On my 3770k@4.5ghz, I was able to stream GW2 @ 1080p just fine, but trying BF3 would nearly max out my CPU and stutter a bit.

Entry level / 720p30 - Wait for 4770k, it's a month away and has many encoding-specific architectural improvements in addition to the raw IPC improvements. This single PC setup's abilities will be dictated by the games you are playing, 1080p may not be possible with a good gameplay experience in a few newer games.
High level / 720p60/1080p30/1080p60+ - set up a second comp to capture & stream. This is much more expensive but will lead to a perfect environment for both you and your viewers...if you're more than just musing with the concept of streaming you will want to look into this.


TL;DR If streaming is important to you, do not skimp on the CPU. Go [H]ard or you'll be disappointed.
 
cantoncobaltsssc said:
I just upgraded Feb 1st from 775 to 1155. I chose the i5 3570k and overclocked it right to 4.4. Last friday I sold that i5 to a friend who wants to upgrade and I got the i7 3770k and it's running 4.5 right now and I have to say I really noticed the HT difference. Not in games but in video encoding that I do. Overall it's just stupidly fast and I would definitely recommend anyone not waiting for Haswell to try and get the 3770k. It's amazing beyond anything I had hoped for.
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Can you disable HT on you CPU and do tests? I wonder what part of difference has been caused by larger cache, better silicon, and higher clock. (I actually think about Ivy-E. If a large cache has noticeable impact, I might wait few months and go for Ivy-E, of course Haswell wider execution engine is nice too.)

Too bad you didn't run few repeatable benchmarks before you got rid of your i5.

Zomoa said:
Note that to have perfect performance in any game while streaming at 720p60/1080p30 or higher, you will need to capture and stream from a secondary computer. A capture card running in the same PC that you're gaming on will make no difference in streaming performance. I don't really see the merits in any step in between a single 4770k rig and a multi-computer setup.
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So basically you are encouraging him to use his current computer for a capture, move his GFX card, and RAM to a new case, and use two computers. Saving few bucks on CPU might be viable choice in that case.

Interesting idea. I guess that depends on a capture card, a capture card that is able to encode to h264 in 1920x1080 could run at basically any CPU as long as the Ethernet controller would have enough free CPU time. (In fact decent capture card might work well even on the same computer.)

AVerMedia Live Gamer HD looks like it should work. (Of course capture cards have theirs natural quirks, and while they work after user spend effort, expect initial problems and teeth grinding.)
 
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Let me get to this tonight. I hvae a 6 core xeon with HT enabled, play bf3, and use playclaw to screencap.

I'll do a run with HT on and HT off, with an FPS counter in the corner to see what happens.

Could get interesting.
 
Raghar said:
So basically you are encouraging him to use his current computer for a capture, move his GFX card, and RAM to a new case, and use two computers. Saving few bucks on CPU might be viable choice in that case.

Interesting idea. I guess that depends on a capture card, a capture card that is able to encode to h264 in 1920x1080 could run at basically any CPU as long as the Ethernet controller would have enough free CPU time. (In fact decent capture card might work well even on the same computer.)

AVerMedia Live Gamer HD looks like it should work. (Of course capture cards have theirs natural quirks, and while they work after user spend effort, expect initial problems and teeth grinding.)
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Only advocating offloading to 2nd rig if he is playing taxing games, can afford it, and will use it often. It's a serious investment, and I'd say a single rig 4770k experience will probably be sufficient for most users.

Avermedia LiveGamer HD is a good capture card, used it before I upgraded to DeckLink 4k Extreme and it worked great. The only reason I upgraded is because I wanted to do 1080p60fps. The built in encoding feature of the avermedia card is really only good for super low end solutions...it's about 1/2 as efficient as x264, which means you're either looking at tons of required bitrate (people with shit internet cant watch you) or low quality...neither of which are desirable. Much better to have the CPU do the encoding if you can. However, the capture side of the Avermedia LiveGamer HD is the best entry level solution that I've found.


You can adjust the encoding quality of your stream to better suit how much load your CPU can take. I'm offloading to an OC'd i7 970 rig and it hits ~80% load when only encoding/streaming. x264 scales fairly well with additional logical cores & overclocking. If you have additional headroom to use, you can use slower encoding settings, which will result in a higher quality, clearer stream.

"veryfast" is probably the slowest encoding setting you want to use on a single-rig streaming solution. According to this data, it doesn't scale well past 6 logical cores...however, you're going to get some benefit from HT on a quad core. IIRC, my team mate went from 20-30 FPS while streaming GW2@720p to 40-50 FPS when we bumped his processor from a 2500k to a 3770k.


This extra headroom will help out when your CPU is juggling the tasks of running your game and streaming at the same time. Slower encoding settings continue to scale in performance through 12 logical cores.

http://git.videolan.org/?p=x264.git;a=blob;f=doc/threads.txt
http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/316410-Follow-up-x264-CPU-usage-threads-vs-instances

From everything I've seen in data on the net as well as personal testing, x264 video encoding can really make use of HT.
 
Raghar said:
AVerMedia Live Gamer HD looks like it should work. (Of course capture cards have theirs natural quirks, and while they work after user spend effort, expect initial problems and teeth grinding.)
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I do, and am planning to do. That capture card, upgrade primary computer to 4770K, demote current primary, which is a 2600K, to my streaming computer, replacing an E8500 that barely has the horsepower to stream at all.

It depends on the game though. Some games just don't use much CPU. Others, like Planetside 2 (what I play), are incredibly CPU bound and can use all the offloading of tasks and CPU increases you can do.
 
I did a short off the cuff test. I had 9 instances of a game running on my 3770k, tested them with hyperthreading on and off. Hyperthreading on was quite a bit better.
 
I thought this thread was dead, geez. Thanks guys, Def going 4770k. I wont be getting a second rig dedicated for capture because this is just fur the heck of it, nothing much serious. I read the bf3 bench, seems quite interesting. I think I'll do benches on my old rig vs new one to see how CPU bottleneck I was, probably gonna notice some big difference.
 
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