Hyperthreading

nogoodreason

nogoodreason

nogoodreason

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Just wondering whether anyone on this forum has hyperthreading disabled, and what difference they find it makes to their performance.

I've been told that disabling HT can lower temps, and that it's not that important when playing games - yet I'm still leaning towards keeping it because it sounds like a major performance booster on a daily basis.

What's the general consensus on the use of hyperthreading? (See sig for my rig)
 
Hyperthreading. This is going to be approximate, but it's a start.

A cpu processes data in blocks of a specific size. Often the data it has available to process comes in smaller amounts than this, leaving a space where the processor is idle. Hyperthreading is hacking up a second 'thread' of data into pieces which roughly fit in these spaces. So it processes two threads per core, one at the same speed it would without hyperthreading, and the other a bit slower as it relies on gaps from the first.

So hyperthreading significantly helps multithreading, doing lots of things at once. Think of it as doing four difficult things fast and four more a bit slower, instead of just doing four fast. The consequence is that the processor spends less time idle, and as each execution generates heat it runs hotter.

So yes, disabling it will cool it down. But it will also mean it's slower. It's one of the big arguments for i7 over C2Q. The others being 'turbo boost', tri channel ddr3, and improvements in cache management.


I think I'm going to disable turbo boost and enable hyperthreading. I'd be interested to know peoples opinions on whether to use turbo boost or not. I might have the wrong name here, I mean the multiplier going up by one when most cores are fairly idle.
 
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I keep it on.

It keeps temps down when your loading all 8 threads. And that is when you actually need the performance.

Therefore turning it off does NOTHING. Esp on these new i7s when cores are turned off when they aint used.

Keep it on.
 
In a practical sense, how noticeable would the difference be on my rig?

Would daily use - say: email, web browsing, chat - be noticeable either way? And, for a gaming rig, would better gaming performance be had with it running, or would it be more advisable to disable it and use that difference in temperature to achieve a better overclock instead?
 
For those uses an i7 was never a good idea, it's not going to matter either way. Gaming doesn't need or want 8 threads, the rest of it wouldn't stress a single core. Why do you have 12gb of ram?

^sounds a bit hostile, I fear mainly because I want 12gb of ram and don't have it :(

Regardless, given you can't stress the i7, it is probably better to turn hyperthreading off and clock it higher. However, the limiting factor is probably using 12gb instead of 6gb of ram, so you'll also get better performance if you drop down to 6gb and clock the cpu higher.
 
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Leaving HyperThreading on gives you a far better performance increase than the possible extra 200MHz you might get from turning it off.
 
JonJ678 said:
For those uses an i7 was never a good idea, it's not going to matter either way. Gaming doesn't need or want 8 threads, the rest of it wouldn't stress a single core. Why do you have 12gb of ram?

^sounds a bit hostile, I fear mainly because I want 12gb of ram and don't have it :(
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I tell myself it's because I use CS4 a fair bit for work (and because I'm impatient and hate waiting for things to load), but the truth is just because I'm a nerd who wastes far too much money on his machine. :)

JonJ678 said:
Regardless, given you can't stress the i7, it is probably better to turn hyperthreading off and clock it higher. However, the limiting factor is probably using 12gb instead of 6gb of ram, so you'll also get better performance if you drop down to 6gb and clock the cpu higher.
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Had I understood the full extent of i7 overclocking before I ordered this, I may have stuck with 6GB. But I refuse to see an i7 rig with 12GB of DDR3 as a "limited" system because it still has the ability to beat my old rig blindfolded.

But if I'm able to get my CPU to 3.8GHz and my RAM to 9-9-9-24 @1866MHz then I'll be happy as that will pack one hell of a punch. And I don't think that'll be too hard to reach once I get my head around the overclocking side of things.
 
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What's the processor clocked at? If you can push it higher by taking 6gb of the ram out, it'll be faster without it
 
nogoodreason said:
Help me out with my overclock and I'll answer that for you. :)
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No can do I'm afraid man, so far I've got a board and a processor but no ram. Corsair should turn up on thursday, then I'll see just how far it'll go on the stock cooler. Why are ek mounting plates so bloody hard to find all of a sudden :(
 
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