hyperthreading

[geugenes]

I just updated to ver. 6.1 of Performance Test and noticed that under the CPU info, it said hyperthreading was disabled on my old Dell's P4. Is that normal and should I be concerned?

GEugeneS

[passmark]

Your PC will function perfectly well with either Hyperthreading on or off.

Hyperthreading simulates a 2nd CPU. With some applications this can speed them up by 10% - 30%. On other applications there might be not be any difference or even a performance penalty due to cache contention.

[geugenes]

Thank you for the hyperthread info. However, it would seem that whether to enable or disable would depend on the programs you were running. Do you know if anyone maintains a hyperthread/program database so as to see if your computer would be benefitting?

I would assume mine would not benefit as most of the programs I use, including MS office are several years old. But Internet Explorer is new as well as Music Match (v. 9).

Gary

[passmark]

The programs that benefit most from hyper-threading are those that are,
1) Very CPU intensive (not disk, RAM nor 3D intensive)
AND
2) Are coded to use multiple threads or processes
AND
3) Don't operate on the same data (avoid caching conflicts)
AND
4) Use different portions of the CPU in different threads. e.g. one thread
doing integer maths and another doing floating point maths.

It is in fact fairly rare than a single application meets these criteria unless the developer has made an effort to do so. But when running multiple CPU intensive applications are the same time you are more likely to see a benefit.

[geugenes]

thanks again. I since I often use the internet while listening to MusicMatch and/or running other intensive apps like virus and spyware checks, I think I will investigate enabling hyperthreading. Is it easy to "enable".

Gary

[passmark]

On most PC's is can be enabled from the BIOS setup screen.