When will we see Hyper Threading become more popular in games?

[illuz]

I see threads getting posted most days asking about which processor to go for in terms of gaming, and nigh on every response has been the i5 3750k due to the fact that most games do not see a performance increase with utilising hyperthreading, and even if they do use hyperthreading the performance increase (sometimes decrease I've read?) does not substitute for the extra £80-100 splash of the cash just for the sake of hyper threading.

I'm going to be buying my processor soon, and with next gen consoles just round the corner, when do you think it will be common for games to utilise the hyper threading technology of the latest Ivy Bridge processors to substitute that extra cash for the performance increase?

I want to future proof my PC, but in all honesty I'm not going to be video encoding or getting full use of the hyper threading technology if I go with an i7 right now. Aside from gaming, I'll be programming but I've never had a problem or spent hours waiting for something to compile.

I think I'm going to go with the i5 over the i7 after all but whats your opinions on this? Either way, I can sell my i5 when HT technology really starts to be apparent in greater performance and get myself an i7 or the latest HT processor.

EDIT// Didn't see the other thread, sorry about this!

 

[cmndr_andi]

Hi there,

Hyperthreading is a technology which takes a single physical core and allows it to run two threads. If the system is using heavily multithreaded software then it will run accross all the threads you can give it. So for every hyperthreaded core it will be running two threads at high utilization - this means that compared to a non-hyperthreaded core it is being loaded more heavily. Therefore, if you directly compare two otherwise identical CPUs, one with hyperthreading enabled and one with it disabled - then in these high CPU intensity, multithreaded applications the performance of the hyperthreaded CPU will be ~10-20% greater.

However, current games just don't use many threads and those that do don't utilize them very heavily. Therefore, you just don't see any performance increase with a hyperthreaded CPU in games.

It is conceivable that future games will make heavy use of 5-8 CPU cores - but I personally don't see it happening for some time (and by that time you would probably be better off buying something else with your extra £80).

 

[illuz]

I understand what hyper threading is but as you say many games just don't use them enough to see a good performance increase. I think my mind is made up, i5 it is!

 

[MonsterMoshi]

Many games don't use hyperthreading YET

That's all i'm thinking

 

[jeff6475]

When will we see Hyper Threading become more popular in games?
next week

 

[Kotu]

I can't find a reference for it, but I don't think hyperthreading allows true multithreading. From what I understand the tech works by allowing commands to be executed in the spare space left by a previous command so they both work in the same cycle. If the first command is a complex one then there isn't enough space left for anything meaningful to use the rest of the space.

This means when you run something like prime95 or those PI calcs the hyperthreading works well because the cpu is doing loads of tiny commands. A game on the other hand probably does much more complex commands meaning the hyperthreading doesn't get a chance to be used.

Don't take this as fact though, I can't find anything to back it up with at the moment.