Hyperthreading RAWCKS!

I

InorganicMatter

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Oct 19, 2004
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Having always used single-core processors, my first HT processor runs like a dream. My dad used it at work, and always said he never noticed performance difference. What I didn't realize was that he always has had a SMP system at work (Dual P3 >> P4 HT >> PD), so naturally he never noticed a difference. I, on the other hand, am LOVING my new build. As I type this, I am copying 5+ GB of music without even a slowdown. I can only imagine what dual-core is like.
 
Copying files isn't a CPU-intensive operation. (If it is, you need better hardware.)
 
mikeblas said:
Copying files isn't a CPU-intensive operation. (If it is, you need better hardware.)
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When you're on stuck on the 650 Duron you built your mother in law... it could be. ;)
 
Lolz welcome to intel mate, yeah HT is really great it makes multitasking a breezing heck i play Warcraft and burn DVD's at the sametime.
 
I wish my Athlon XP could do that :(

Hopefully I'll be able to get an X2 sometime soon.
 
Yes, it's nice to be able to do that. Todayy I've been ripping and encoding at least 3 movies at a time on my dual core. No way in hell I'd try it on a single core AMD.
 
sac_tagg said:
Having always used single-core processors, my first HT processor runs like a dream. My dad used it at work, and always said he never noticed performance difference. What I didn't realize was that he always has had a SMP system at work (Dual P3 >> P4 HT >> PD), so naturally he never noticed a difference. I, on the other hand, am LOVING my new build. As I type this, I am copying 5+ GB of music without even a slowdown. I can only imagine what dual-core is like.
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Yup, though it is not SMP, it can be real nice. I've been using Hyperthreading since May 03.

Donnie27
 
yeh the other day my bro was running cs 1.6, wow, teamspeak, and mediamonkey playing music on my rig all at the same time switching back and forth between wow and cs. never even tripped on itself. the amds may run one thing at a time faster but damn.
 
HT is the one thing I am really missing from my 2.8C to my 3000+.

However, even at stock speeds, it was worlds faster in games. On my p4 i go ~60fps average on cs:s and when i switched to my AMD i turned on vsync and my fps never dropped below 75 even in full 32 player servers.

Finally, i dont game that much anymore, so in the end i wish i still had my p4...


Just my thoughts on the subject.
 
I love my 3.2 with HT. I upgraded from a northwood, which my girlfriend wanted me to put in the box I built her for our anniversary. the HT makes a world of difference in my multitasking, and while AMD may be the "top dawg" for gaming, this intel box is no slouch.
 
HT certainly makes Windows feel more snappy and responsive when opening multiple Windows/Apps. You can't really benchmark the benefit HT delivers, but it's a significant one nonetheless. HT is probably the only reason I didn't jump ship to a single-core A64 a long time ago. :)
 
coz said:
You can't really benchmark the benefit HT delivers, but it's a significant one nonetheless.
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Why not? Do you think disabling HT, timing a process, then comparing it to the time for the same process with HT enabled is invalid? For some applications, one finds the benefit is negative; that the application is slower with HT enabled.
 
mikeblas said:
Why not? Do you think disabling HT, timing a process, then comparing it to the time for the same process with HT enabled is invalid? For some applications, one finds the benefit is negative; that the application is slower with HT enabled.
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The smoothness of it all more than makes up for the few points reduction you get in a benchmark. I preferr [H]'s benchmarking motto of "real-world performance." I spend more time surfing/chatting/typing/studying than I do gaming, so HT gives me more real-world performance than a high end single-core-single-threaded processor would.
 
mikeblas said:
Why not? Do you think disabling HT, timing a process, then comparing it to the time for the same process with HT enabled is invalid? For some applications, one finds the benefit is negative; that the application is slower with HT enabled.
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Only by a small percentage. It's the kind of difference that only shows in benchmarks.
 
I definately wouldn't want to be without the benefit of HT now that I've been spoiled by it.
 
Sir-Fragalot said:
Only by a small percentage. It's the kind of difference that only shows in benchmarks.
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I've observed slowdowns in the teens of percent with realistic tasks in real-world applications. (Or did you mean a small percentage of applications, instead of a small percent change?)

One scenario involves multiple runnable threads that are memory-intensive and doing lots of cache misses, HT is going to be worse because it will encourage those two threads to compete against eachother. The problem will compound with more threads (or, more cache misses) because HT switches on cache misses.

This is why I believe the real problem is memory latency. Some mornings, I think that dual core processors are a downright bad idea because users will see the multiple processors, assume they'll get double the performance, and then be disappointed when the software doesn't perform any better. After a point, it can'tperform better because the two cores are competing for the memory bus.
 
mikeblas said:
I've observed slowdowns in the teens of percent with realistic tasks in real-world applications. (Or did you mean a small percentage of applications, instead of a small percent change?)

One scenario involves multiple runnable threads that are memory-intensive and doing lots of cache misses, HT is going to be worse because it will encourage those two threads to compete against eachother. The problem will compound with more threads (or, more cache misses) because HT switches on cache misses.

This is why I believe the real problem is memory latency. Some mornings, I think that dual core processors are a downright bad idea because users will see the multiple processors, assume they'll get double the performance, and then be disappointed when the software doesn't perform any better. After a point, it can'tperform better because the two cores are competing for the memory bus.
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Both. I've noticed little to no change in applications that don't support HT. There is sometimes 0% difference, and sometimes 1-3% difference. I have heard of some rare applications that have real HT problems and take a massive performance hit. However, those applications are very rare to my knowledge.
 
Sir-Fragalot said:
I have heard of some rare applications that have real HT problems and take a massive performance hit. However, those applications are very rare to my knowledge.
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I'm pretty sure that was actually due to the original implementation of HT itself (in northwood) and was an issue that was fixed in prescott. In the original HT northwood if two threads were running and one thread had an abnormally large amount of cache misses the other thread would tank and take a huge performance hit. In prescott they fixed that issue. Maybe there are other strange program quirks that make the hit even larger, though...I'm not sure.
 
I went from a 2.8GHz Celeron D to a 3.0E Prescott with HT... and noticed a huuuuuuuge increase in windows and real-world 'pop'. I want to get an AMD setup, but since I'm only gaming about 30% of the time that I'm on my machine, I don't think I'd want to sacrifice any of that 'pop' for a handful of FPS in games.
 
Eva_Unit_0 said:
I'm pretty sure that was actually due to the original implementation of HT itself (in northwood) and was an issue that was fixed in prescott. In the original HT northwood if two threads were running and one thread had an abnormally large amount of cache misses the other thread would tank and take a huge performance hit. In prescott they fixed that issue. Maybe there are other strange program quirks that make the hit even larger, though...I'm not sure.
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Not sure. Intel claims that Hyperthreading was improved on the Prescott core. Not sure what "improvement" they are talking about.
 
I still find HT procs very smooth compared to non-HT procs. My Pentium M 1.8 just doesn't have the snappiness my desktop has, and that one is just a 2.4C. I built a couple Athlon 64 machines, and while they were fast, they didn't feel as smooth.

Still, doesn't beat a true SMP system, but those cost a little more depending. ;)
 
Hmm Im considering jumping to a 3200 or 3500 a64, would I feel the HT missing THAT MUCH ? :(
 
Juic3 said:
Hmm Im considering jumping to a 3200 or 3500 a64, would I feel the HT missing THAT MUCH ? :(
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I didn't think it would matter that much, but the truth is that I really missed it when I switched from a 3.9GHz Pentium 4, to a Athlon 64 3800+. I wasn't happy with it's performance in anything but games.

My dually Opteron satisfies all my needs though. I'm happy now.
 
Sir-Fragalot said:
I didn't think it would matter that much, but the truth is that I really missed it when I switched from a 3.9GHz Pentium 4, to a Athlon 64 3800+. I wasn't happy with it's performance in anything but games.

My dually Opteron satisfies all my needs though. I'm happy now.
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Damn a 3.9GHz Pentium 4. What was it stock speeds orginally? I would love to have a 3.9Ghz P4 :D
 
Um... I dont know what you guys are talking about, but I had a 3ghz p4 with hyperthreading and I didnt notice any type of real world performance increase when multitasking over my Athlon64.
 
if you are just running a game, winamp/media player and a chat program, you will not really benefit from HT or dual cores. its like encoding while playing games or ripping/burning+something else cpu intesive that causes dual cores/smp to shine
 
There is a noticeable difference. I really miss HT but I don't see any decent mobos out there and the ones that are are too pricey and you need ddr2... no thanx. Though I really miss HT I'm happy with my 3000+ running at 3800+ :)
 
Or having three full rows of the taskbar displayed, like I do. Runs pretty shitty on an Athlon XP though.
 
Lazy_Moron said:
Damn a 3.9GHz Pentium 4. What was it stock speeds orginally? I would love to have a 3.9Ghz P4 :D
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Pentium 4 550 (3.4GHz stock)@3.9GHz. Stock voltage up to about 3.85GHz if I recall correctly. I only raised the voltage by s small amount of voltage to get to 3.9GHz, and a little more voltage to get to 4.2GHz. Although I couldn't get it to stop throttleing due to high heat. I needed water cooling. I firmly believe that chip has more in her.
 
Xeero said:
if you are just running a game, winamp/media player and a chat program, you will not really benefit from HT or dual cores. its like encoding while playing games or ripping/burning+something else cpu intesive that causes dual cores/smp to shine
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see that's the reason why HT really isn't the be-all-end-all of cpus. It doesn't really matter for mundane tasks, and in REAL multitasking the fact that it is still only one cpu comes back to bite it in the butt. HT may help performance when playing a game while encoding, but it's still going to take a huge performance hit regardless, and would be far from how it would run alone.
 
That is far from true. I have an AMD3k and my P43.0 used to be able to open up and rn more programs in a much faster time. Why do I have a AMD? Simply because I don't want to change my ram and they have all this screw up with the dual cores... meaning, I have to buy some real expensive board and buy new ram to get dual. With AMD on the other hand I'm looking to go dual very shortly and I just need to buy a chip. That's it. INTEL really messed up with the chipsets and also lagging much on SLI. You can get a quality AMD mobo for around 130 (including SLI). You cannot get that with INTEL and I would have to buy new memory. Fact is the jump to DDR2 isn't that significant anyway... so that is why I don't have a P4... Those 630's really do look sweet... but :( I hate the mobos and the fact I need to change my memory.
 
If you really want HT goodness then do the dual 1.3GHz LV Xeon OC to 3.2GHZ.

It shows in windows as 4 cpu's!!! And is smooth as silk in multitasking.

My LV's have clocked to 3.6GHz on air cooling but they started getting unstable in Prime95 at 3.4GHz, windows was fine at 3.6.
But I wanted to be sure of my stability. So, I only run them at 3.2GHz.

Plus it's pretty cheap to do these days. ;)



 
MC FLMJIG said:
That is far from true. I have an AMD3k and my P43.0 used to be able to open up and rn more programs in a much faster time.
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Define programs? i've used p4 w/ ht and amds k7/k8. honestly, when it comes to basic computing. music, surfing, chat, games. there is no real benefit with ht. Those programs i've listed wont open any faster. Now, if you are talking about rendering something in photoshop or premiere while gaming. or compressing a file while playing a game. then definitely ht has an advantage. but just opening basic programs? er.... i think its the placebo effect
 
Xeero said:
Define programs? i've used p4 w/ ht and amds k7/k8. honestly, when it comes to basic computing. music, surfing, chat, games. there is no real benefit with ht. Those programs i've listed wont open any faster. Now, if you are talking about rendering something in photoshop or premiere while gaming. or compressing a file while playing a game. then definitely ht has an advantage. but just opening basic programs? er.... i think its the placebo effect
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I did my own sort of test by turning off and on HT, because honestly I didn't think it would make a difference, I mean it's still only one processor. But the things I tested were, folding while gaming, ripping audio while gaming, running teamspeak while gaming. All of those showed improvement with HT, I used fraps and with HT on I would gain an average of 13fps. Then I just did things like having multiple IE windows open and switching between them, while ripping audio and playing music. I also had a presentation going with power point and surfed and chatted. There were some noticable improvements most of the time with HT on, but only when somthing else is quite CPU intensive.
 
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