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Hyper-threading or not ?

Skyforger

Skyforger

Skyforger

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Joined
17 Aug 2010
Posts
116
I read somewhere that H-T off is better for the GTA IV so did switch it of and after like a year when i was playing with BIOS again saw that the H-T is off and i switch it on and my pc is been acting funny.
So big question should i leave it on or off ?
 
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"Hyper-threading works by duplicating certain sections of the processor—those that store the architectural state—but not duplicating the main execution resources. This allows a hyper-threading processor to appear as two "logical" processors to the host operating system, allowing the operating system to schedule two threads or processes simultaneously." - Will let you decide for your self.
 
Leave it off as I do, no benefit in 99% of games, if you do a lot of decoding type work then it is a benefit, but for general PC usage and gaming it is not necessary. You will much lower temps with it disabled as well.
 
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I agree that turning it off does improve performance in games, for instance in Alien Vs Predator I had 17 fps in some areas with HT on, with it off I had a constant 60 in the same area.
 
All the context switching between cores tends to cause stuttering
in games , I did tests about a year ago and games ran smoother with it off
 
Extensive gaming tests here show i7 HT on/off makes little or no difference in games and well within the margin of error and therefore inconclusive.

As expected really.
 
My 920 is at 4.2Ghz with HT on.

To be honest most gaming benchmarks seem to suggest little difference, yet any encoding or rendering tasks can be nearly twice as fast. Seems pointless to have an i7 and not have it enabled? Could have gone i5 and saved a few bucks otherwise.

E-I
 
HT gives anything from a -few% to +25% depending on software.

At one time Microsoft did not like HT'ing, but this was because SQL Server and OS's thought the HT cores were physical cores. I know Win 7 is HT aware, and I presume service packs make the older OS's HT aware also.

On topic, Win 7 has better power management over cores than previous OS (XP). For example Win 7 can see that other cores are clocked down (saving power), and assign threads to the core(s) already in use, only clocking up other cores when existing running cores are at capacity.

XP does not see this, and assigns threads to other cores, even when there was spare execution time on the cores already running.
 
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I read recently to turn hyper threading off to improve overclocking. This seemed strange to me as why buy a CPU with hyper threading then disable it? However, I gave it a go and found that my CPU (i7 920 D0) ran about 10oC cooler and actually scored higher in the LinX stress test (about 52GF/s).

If your priority is gaming (on an i7) then turn it off. It'll run cooler and use less electricity.

However I found that, for example, in Adobe Premiere hyperthreading increased performance by over 20% - i.e. it's faster when you really need all the speed you can get. Because of this I keep it enabled on my PC as this is the type of stuff I do (and otherwise I may as well have saved my money and stuck with a socket 775 quad core!)
 
If nothing you run benefits from 8 threads leave it off for potential energy savings.

^your i7 has a more intelligent cache layout and better memory controller than c2d. It probably uses less electricity too.
 
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