hyperthreading- old technology in CPU terms

[CleanSlate]

So, why is it that paying extra for an i7 to get a chip worthy of it is a necessity?

I would have gone i5 had hyperthreading been on any of the chips worth my while. Also, buying an intel motherboard vs buying an amd motherboard is almost a joke when it comes to price and value.

It must be frustrating as a consumer. I know it was for me. Which is why I had to spend my cash else where. Don't get me wrong, I could have afforded a top of the line i7 but why would I encourage such blatant price gouging and Apple-like strategies of raping peoples pocket books just to get old technology? I don't buy Apple products either and it's not a huge secret why. Ethics, mostly.

No, I don't want your patched up yet 10 year old technology for double the price for brand new technology from your competitor and then also to get price gouged again on your peripherals and attachments or even a necessary motherboard that has more than one extra pcie slot and two ram slots.

Am I just annoyed for no reason here or what? In a very strict business/money is king sort of way it makes sense but in a sane/customer satisfaction and customer relations view point it's just blatantly/obviously bad business tactics.

 

[MrGuvernment]

how is it old tech, it is old as when it came out but works well for today.

no one is forcing you to buy an i7, also, they come with other things like more cache and such.

you seem to be annoyed for no reason, i7 are faster then i5's not just because of HT.

How is it bad buisness practice?

 

[munkle]

It's the same as anything else in life. Look at a car, an automatic transmission isn't standard on alot of cars, if you actually look at the cost of the car the auto trans is an added cost even though most cars are sold with an automatic. You're just paying for extra features.

 

[Forceman]

I really don't understand the rant at all. Intel has a range of processors for sale, from i3 all the way to i7, each with different features. It's called market segmentation, and everybody does it. As for HT being old technology - x86 itself is pretty old technology, so why aren't you bitching about that? And what brand new technology does AMD have that you reference?

 

[serpretetsky]

You really have to clarify these statements, because i'm not sure I understand you.

why is it that paying extra for an i7 to get a chip worthy of it is a necessity?

Why do you have to pay extra to get a chip that is worthy of that extra you paid? Is that what you're asking? Why you have to pay extra to get something better? Please clarify, because as you can tell, how i'm currently understanding you makes no sense

I would have gone i5 had hyperthreading been on any of the chips worth my while. .

You would have gotten an i5 had hyperthreading been on any of the i5? Is that what you meant? Because that's what i7's are.... i5's with Hyperthreading. Again, i think i am very heavily misunderstanding you.

 

[BanDeodorant]

What if the only SKU on Socket 1155 was the i7-2600K and it was selling for the same price as it is now? You would be forced to pay that price anyway. At least in reality you have a choice to save ~$100 by getting the i5-2500k without HT. Choice is good, and PRO consumer, and I'm sure everyone else is happy that they can get the cheaper processor when they don't NEED hyper threading. HT is a feature, and intel charges extra for it (not to mention extra cache on the i7). You want it? You gotta pay for it. It actually not only makes perfect business sense to LET the consumer choose, but it also makes sense in regards to customer satisfaction. So no, it's not a bad business tactic at all. Why wouldn't Intel give you HT for "free"? The same reason you don't get an HD 6970 when you purchase a measly HD 6950. (Intentional bad example)

 

[tangoseal]

Just wait AMD will be selling true 8 core Dozer for like $3xx or you can get a 10 core intel EX for like $3299 (Guessing based upon intels history of exploiting the wallet) and it has hyper-threading but just turn off the HT and you have a 10 core CPU without hyper-threading or you can design one yourself and smoke both intel and AMD become very rich and have a dedicated forum on hardocp just for your brand..

For the trolls. The Intel 2600K is a True Quad Core. The 2500K is a true Quad Core, the Core2Duo is a true Dual Core, the Phenom Series is either a true Dual or Quad Core, The Ivy will be a true X core, the EX is already coming out with more than 4 true cores, and the Bulldozer will be a True Quad or more Core. Hey trolls (Like the one below me) read my post before pooping in your own mouths!

 

[MrGuvernment]

"true" 8 core, give me a break, let me guess, core 2 duo "wasnt" true dual core... mean while they still beat AMD upand down...


amd "true" what ever is all "true BS" that AMD fanpeople try to hold onto......

Intel exploiting the wallet? explain please, considering an i5 is faster then a "true" AMD 6 core 10** series....

 

[Falkentyne]

Looks like someone's mad.

This must be the QQ thread of the day.
Tell you what, genius. Just go back in your cave and hammer away on the C64 with 64k RAM And your BASIC 2.0. Or whatever it was called. Since you clearly can't cope with the real world....why not just remove yourself from it?

 

[ShuttleLuv]

Load up 11.7 gigs of memtest if you have 12 gigs and watch how smooth it is. Thats HT in motion.

 

[Acer_Sheep]

Why you buying computers even? That is also old technology, seems principle of currect computers was set back in mid 70s and till today it remained very much unchanged so why to buy hardware when it's so expensive and old?

 

[ShuttleLuv]

Yeah whats a mouse??? My sister had one of those on her little v-tech toy computer back in 94.

 

[drescherjm]

Also, buying an intel motherboard vs buying an amd motherboard is almost a joke when it comes to price and value.

I agree. AMD does not match Intel in motherboard quality or value. They do beat Intel in the very low end motherboards but I would not spend $250 for a processor and put that in a $50 motherboard.

With that said wait a few weeks. True AM3+ motherboards will be much closer to Intel in quality, value and price.

 

[pxc]

HyperThreading isn't a "10 year old technology". It's a marketing name for simultaneous multi-threading (SMT). How it's implemented in each architecture is different. Prescott era Pentium 4 HT has little to do with Nehalem or Sandy Bridge HT. Even certain Power, PowerPC and SPARC models have it and future ARM chips will also use it.

If you want to justify buying something slower, fine it's your money. While AMD has nothing even close in performance to the $300 i7 2600K, the next closest thing (Phenom II X6 1100T) isn't any cheaper than the still faster i5 2500K (each would cost around $200 for the CPU and $100 -$130 for a decently featured, but not high end board) and the i5 uses much less power than the X6 1100T space heater.

Why not rant about how AMD is ripping off consumers by selling a Phenom II X6 1100T for the same price as the i5 2500K, while the X6 1100T runs 10%-50% slower?

 

[RamonGTP]

Well by that logic you shouldn't own a computer at all since all CPU's use transistors and transistors have been around for many decades.

 

[TehQuick]

obvious troll is obvious

 

[tangoseal]

"true" 8 core, give me a break, let me guess, core 2 duo "wasnt" true dual core... mean while they still beat AMD upand down...


amd "true" what ever is all "true BS" that AMD fanpeople try to hold onto......

Intel exploiting the wallet? explain please, considering an i5 is faster then a "true" AMD 6 core 10** series....

After 6.8 years on these forums, I guess you have shined your troll style to maximum bling.

And say what again?

Look at the price!

And this keeps up with and beats it in some cases for far less of a price:
And you say Intel doesnt price gouge?

 

[serpretetsky]

After 6.8 years on these forums, I guess you have shined your troll style to maximum bling.

And say what again?

Look at the price!

And this keeps up with and beats it in some cases for far less of a price:
And you say Intel doesnt price gouge?

Are you implying that the majority of people that buy the 990 processor would be better served with the 2600k and that intel is misinforming them in some way?

 

[Uberbob102000]

After 6.8 years on these forums, I guess you have shined your troll style to maximum bling.

And say what again?

Look at the price!

And this keeps up with and beats it in some cases for far less of a price:
And you say Intel doesnt price gouge?

Holy shit! Extreme editions cost as much as a top of the line processor and have almost no value what so ever!? Oh wait... it's always been that way. If AMD is top of the performance heap with Bulldozer you can bet they'll have a $1000 FX chip out there.

I see absolutely no issue with this, and I'm not really sure why you do either since AMD did the same fucking thing and would now if they could.

I'm not even gonna get started with the OP because that didn't even begin to make sense.

 

[tangoseal]

Wow Uberbob10200 or whatever your name is.. are you getting all Chihuahua behind your digital fence with your harsh language. LOL. I never said I had a problem with Intel charging an arm and a leg. I was replying to another person, not you. Unless you are troll muffin buddies or something.

OP,

If you read a few down from your post, which really pissed a whole lot of people off for some odd reason, you will see how I was referring to the fact you dont like hyper threading so go and get a processor with true cores and no hyper threading. Or you could have in example gotten a high priced Intel solution with hyper threading and a bunch of cores for thousands of dollars, turned off hyper threading since you didn't believe in it and had a lot of true cores. I like HT and run it all the time. I guess my sarcasm is too sophisticated for most simple minded digital pit fighters.

And lastly to you really interesting 6.8 year veterans who don't read member signatures, yup, im really going to bat for AMD with my epic watercooled AMD 2600K processor and AMD socket 1155 motherboard.

 

[RamonGTP]

Wow Uberbob10200 or whatever your name is.. are you getting all Chihuahua behind your digital fence with your harsh language. LOL. I never said I had a problem with Intel charging an arm and a leg. I was replying to another person, not you. Unless you are troll muffin buddies or something.

There was no harsh language in his post. And you know exactly what his name is since it's up on your screen. Grow up.

 

[LAiN_OfTheWired]

ITT: trolls trolling fanboys, fanboys trolling fanboys, and fanboys trying to troll trolls

OP: How doesn't paying a bit of a premium for a slightly improved version of Intel's SMT implementation that spans 4 cores make sense? It makes sense for those of us who actually use programs that will show an improvement with it being used. If you don't need it, don't pay the premium. Simple enough, right?

 

[Antiuniverse]

ITT: trolls trolling fanboys, fanboys trolling fanboys, and fanboys trying to troll trolls

OP: How doesn't paying a bit of a premium for a slightly improved version of Intel's SMT implementation that spans 4 cores make sense? It makes sense for those of us who actually use programs that will show an improvement with it being used. If you don't need it, don't pay the premium. Simple enough, right?

</thread>

Someone should lock this...

 

[mhenley]

SERIOUS QUESTION - Does Hyperthreading really make a difference? I don't own one of the processors in question, but I never understood how the virtual splitting of one physical cores into two logical ones would improve system performance. The total number of mathematical computations per second (in theory) is hardware limited based on clock speed. I'm looking at benchmarks and speculating that the 9 point difference is not because of the lack of Hypertreading, but because of the 100MHz difference between the processors.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/...core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/15

In short, I don't see the need to drop the extra bucks for the 2600k over the 2500k. Looking for a serious explanation and perhaps a short list of programs that actually use that technology.

Just wait AMD will be selling true 8 core Dozer...

Except it's not really true 8 core. It's 8 modules, but every 2 modules share a floating point unit. "True" would be 8/8 not 8/4. If you want AMD and need a lot of FLOPS then 1090T or 1100T is still a better choice than what 'dozer can do. I'm looking forward to the benchmarks, because they will determine what my next build will be.

 

[drescherjm]

Does Hyperthreading really make a difference?

In applications that can use it yes.

In short, I don't see the need to drop the extra bucks for the 2600k over the 2500k.

Assuming you are using this for gaming. The problem with games is very few of them can use more than 4 cores and at that they need to be maxing out the cores.

but I never understood how the virtual splitting of one physical cores into two logical ones would improve system performance.

It is not done by simply dividing the pipeline so that instead of 1 thread running on a core there are two threads.

 

[serpretetsky]

i5 750 vs i7 860 ( chose these two because unlike 2500k vs 2600k, they have same cache, but 860 has HT and has a 5% increase in clock frequency)

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/109?vs=108

please note that in somme of the multithreaded benches, the score actually exceeds the simple 5% clock advantage the i7 has over the i5. Some of them seem to give the i7 around a 20% increase in performance. Again, this is only for multithreaded or multiapplication uses. Many people (including myself) don't really have a need for 4 HT vs regular 4 core.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper-threading

 

[nissanztt90]

SERIOUS QUESTION - Does Hyperthreading really make a difference? I don't own one of the processors in question, but I never understood how the virtual splitting of one physical cores into two logical ones would improve system performance. The total number of mathematical computations per second (in theory) is hardware limited based on clock speed. I'm looking at benchmarks and speculating that the 9 point difference is not because of the lack of Hypertreading, but because of the 100MHz difference between the processors.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/...core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/15

In short, I don't see the need to drop the extra bucks for the 2600k over the 2500k. Looking for a serious explanation and perhaps a short list of programs that actually use that technology.

In a nutshell...the CPU has tasks to complete. Sometimes a certain task A has to wait for a piece of information before the CPU can complete it. Hyperthreading allows the CPU to put task A into a hold queue, while it starts on task B, so it does not have to wait for task A to be complete. From what i read here on the forums, HT doesnt generally show a huge performance increase, but people say things just feel much smoother when using HT.

 

[tangoseal]

I think my games feel smoother and vid conversions really are faster with HT on. I am not going to lie if its old technology, and it might be old, it sure still makes a big difference in my opinion.

 

[tangoseal]

ITT: trolls trolling fanboys, fanboys trolling fanboys, and fanboys trying to troll trolls

OP: How doesn't paying a bit of a premium for a slightly improved version of Intel's SMT implementation that spans 4 cores make sense? It makes sense for those of us who actually use programs that will show an improvement with it being used. If you don't need it, don't pay the premium. Simple enough, right?

LOL you make sense and I had to laugh because its true! Its the internet. Imagine if the Internet was banned some how. The whole world would explode for lack of a digital venting place for people.

 

[RamonGTP]

I think my games feel smoother and vid conversions really are faster with HT on. I am not going to lie if its old technology, and it might be old, it sure still makes a big difference in my opinion.

Actually hyperthrading has been shown to have a negative to no impact at all on gaming. If there are any games that benefit from it, I haven't seen it.

Personally I can't blame someone for questioning whether or not HT is worth the price premium, but the issue here is that you're not being forced to pay the premium, You can always go with a 2500k instead of a 2600k if you don't think you want/need it. There is a price premium as well as a power/temp premium for HT as well as potentially lower overclocks so it's certainly something to consider when specing out a new build.

 

[Uberbob102000]

Actually hyperthrading has been shown to have a negative to no impact at all on gaming. If there are any games that benefit from it, I haven't seen it.

Personally I can't blame someone for questioning whether or not HT is worth the price premium, but the issue here is that you're not being forced to pay the premium, You can always go with a 2500k instead of a 2600k if you don't think you want/need it. There is a price premium as well as a power/temp premium for HT as well as potentially lower overclocks so it's certainly something to consider when specing out a new build.

There are a couple games I've found that can use it. But I leave it on more for other multithreaded tasks and even then a 4.7GHz Core i7 is plenty fast, with or without HT.

 

[German Muscle]

half the people in here dont even know what hyperthreading really is or how it works.

Like it was said before. Obvious troll is obvious.

 

[tangoseal]

half the people in here dont even know what hyperthreading really is or how it works.

Like it was said before. Obvious troll is obvious.

Well for those that dont know. We can try and explain or here is something....

Simultaneous Multithreading, or the Intel-trademarked name Hyperthreading is a hardware mechanism that provides multiple copies of architectural registers in a CPU that permits the CPU to run a second thread of control when a first thread is stalled due to a cache miss, branch mis-prediction, or data dependency.

These two threads are not fully independent of one another, because they typically share a virtual memory table. Best performance occurs when the operating system scheduler is aware when two virtual processor cores are completely independent, and when they are a single hyperthreading core.

Source: http://wiki.corensic.com/wiki/Simultaneous_Multithreading,_Hyperthreading

So basically in example if you had a single core processor with HT, i.e. Pentium 4ht, When the core stalls or misses some math somewhere, until that issue is corrected or rectified the CPU can utilize the hyperthread technology to continue finding a solution for the problem it was given. it happens so damn fast you cant even perceive it. Anything more than one core and you lose me. I have no idea how it works in multi core environments but Intel does and its a great technology, I love it, and I DO notice there is a perfromance increase in games with it on and those games recognize multiple cores i.e. supreme commander 2 etc... which btw games that support more than one core do run faster when I compare them on both my processors. I have 2500K and 26K. When I put my 2500 in my signature system below a month ago or whatever and clocked it to 4.8, the 26 does run smoother overall. God its hard to perceive but its there especially in those titles that support the extra threads. Or then again it could be the extra 2 megs of cache. That does make a difference im sure, however im not Anandtech or Hard so I dont skillful reviews.

And more example. When I did a test a while ago, I used my 2500K at stock speed and used intel quicksync and ran some video encoding test on my Asrock mini ITX H67. The 2600K w/o quicksync at stock clocks almost kept up with the quicksync. I think that was due to the extra threads.I would bargain that the 2600K with the extra threads and quicksync on would make a much faster encoding platform. Heck I might even swap the two CPUs and make the 2500K my main gaming processor now that I think about it and use the 2600k just for quicksync encoding.

 

[plugwash]

SERIOUS QUESTION - Does Hyperthreading really make a difference?

In apps with sufficiant threads (e.g. video encoding) yes it does. When you look at say anadtechs comparison of the 2500K with the 2600K (at stock) the difference in highly multithreaded tasks is far greater than can be accounted for by the 3% difference in clockspeed. The cache may also be making a small difference in some apps but I doubt it's that significant overall.

However you have to remember that the "virtual cores" created by hyperthreading are only of use once all the real cores are being used. That means in gaming and most ordinary desktop apps it isn't going to make any difference.

I never understood how the virtual splitting of one physical cores into two logical ones would improve system performance.

Sometimes a thread can be waiting on data from memory or waiting for the results of another instruction. In a conventional in-order CPU (original pentium, atom etc) when this happens the processor has to wait until that data is available.

In an out-of-order CPU (most PC CPUs since the pentium pro) the instructions can be re-ordered but there are limits to the ammount of instruction reordering that is practical. So for relatively long stalls (e.g. a fetch from main memory) the processor still ends up stalled waiting for the data.

Hyperthreading allows the processor to quickly (far quicker than the OS could switch threads) switch to another thread when a stall happens and therefore the core execution units can be kept doing useful work a large percentage of the time.

 

[mhenley]

To those who provided serious answers to my question, thank you.

 

[OFaceSIG]

So, why is it that paying extra for an i7 to get a chip worthy of it is a necessity?

I would have gone i5 had hyperthreading been on any of the chips worth my while. Also, buying an intel motherboard vs buying an amd motherboard is almost a joke when it comes to price and value.

It must be frustrating as a consumer. I know it was for me. Which is why I had to spend my cash else where. Don't get me wrong, I could have afforded a top of the line i7 but why would I encourage such blatant price gouging and Apple-like strategies of raping peoples pocket books just to get old technology? I don't buy Apple products either and it's not a huge secret why. Ethics, mostly.

No, I don't want your patched up yet 10 year old technology for double the price for brand new technology from your competitor and then also to get price gouged again on your peripherals and attachments or even a necessary motherboard that has more than one extra pcie slot and two ram slots.

Am I just annoyed for no reason here or what? In a very strict business/money is king sort of way it makes sense but in a sane/customer satisfaction and customer relations view point it's just blatantly/obviously bad business tactics.

Even though I'm an AMD guy I love when people start threads like these. You KNOW you're going to start a flame war? Why even start? You're going to accomplish nothing at all.

 

[jzodda]

There are a couple games I've found that can use it. But I leave it on more for other multithreaded tasks and even then a 4.7GHz Core i7 is plenty fast, with or without HT.

This is news to me. What couple of games can use HT? A cursory google search brings up the same questions/statements. Either its asking when it will be used or that its "hurting" performance in games. Interestingly enough some of those questions go back 5+ years.

 

[pxc]

This is news to me. What couple of games can use HT?

There are several games that use > 2 threads. HT is available on dual core/4 thread processors too. The question isn't really if games use HT. The question is what games use more threads than the number of available physical processors. The OS will try to schedule threads to run as well as possible.

Quad core + HT gets much less benefit because very few games have a noticeable load on more than 4 cores (and even those do not suffer much if HT is disabled). I'd guess that software PhysX may get a benefit with HT enabled if 3 or 4 threads are used by the game itself. Games on quad core CPUs don't really benefit any from HT.

Long-winded way of say that for a gaming system, the i7 2600K has very few to no advantages over the i5 2500K.

 

[RamonGTP]

The more important question in regards to HT and games isn't "do games use HT" but "Does HT help in gaming" the overwhelming evidence suggests it doesn't help and in some games, marginally decrease performance.

 

[pxc]

Grrrr.

http://www.++++++++++++++++++++/for...aunch-clarkdale-core-i5-661-cpu-review-9.html (last 3 items in the table)

OMG, HT does help in games! It really depends on the load and number of physical cores.

lawl, a certain canadian site is blocked here I guess. I don't even want to know why. The data from that link:

                     Intel Core i5-661  Intel Core i5-661  Performance 
                     HT Off             HT On              Difference
Far Cry 2            70.11 FPS          82.19 FPS          +17%
World in Conflict    41 FPS             46 FPS             +12%
Street Fighter 4     184.58 FPS         192.46 FPS         +4%

You could magnify the tiny variance between tests runs to try to make it seem that HT "marginally decrease performance" but it's not true. The reason why HT helps or not isn't voodoo. If there are enough threads and a core is underutilized, HT can help. If there are not enough threads, HT will probably not help. If the cores are fully utilized and more threads are available, HT may not help and may actually hurt performance. Games generally do not have the last 2 problems, especially while video card limited.