To hyperthread or not to hyperthread...

[GogoTheMimic]

I currently have a 2.66ghz P4 and am thinking about upgrading to a 2.8 P4 with Hyperthread. Will I really see that much of a difference in performance or should I not bother? I'll probably be able to get $150 or so out of my current CPU and I've seen new 2.8's for around $180 so spending 30 bucks for an upgrade isn't too bad in my opinion. I guess my question is what the hell is the difference between hyperthreaded and not? Thanks.

 

[jollyrancher]

I assume you're talking about going from a 133mhz fsb to a 200mhz fsb because just throwing in a new chip won't give you hyperthreading if you have a 133mhz fsb, and if you already have a 200mhz fsb then you already have hyperthreading. If you're talking about somehow installing a new mobo and chip that would jack up your fsb for only $30, then do it, because that's a great deal and it would greatly increase performance. Going from 2.6 to 2.8 on the same fsb for $30 wouldn't really do much.

 

[vleespet]

Jollyrancher: I doubt it if you even know what hyperthreading exactly is.
GogoTheMimic: When using hyperthreading, your CPU will split the mhz (in this case 2x 1.4 ghz), and use them like they are 2 completely different cpu's. This is recommended if you want to play games without chopping while doing for example a DivX conversion (you give the first part to DivX and the second part to the game and vice versa). That's the whole thing, nothing more, nothing less.

 

[fivefeet8]

HyperThreading will help if you run a lot of applications at the same time. Word, Ie, mp3 encoding, watching a movie, playing a game. ect.. It will not boost your performance in single application usage.

I usually keep other applications closed while I play some cpu/gpu intensive games so it won't do much if that's what your into.

If however, you like encoding movies while serfing the net and watch a dvd movie at the same time, then Hyperthreading may be what you need.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

I assume you're talking about going from a 133mhz fsb to a 200mhz fsb because just throwing in a new chip won't give you hyperthreading if you have a 133mhz fsb, and if you already have a 200mhz fsb then you already have hyperthreading. If you're talking about somehow installing a new mobo and chip that would jack up your fsb for only $30, then do it, because that's a great deal and it would greatly increase performance. Going from 2.6 to 2.8 on the same fsb for $30 wouldn't really do much.

With a Pentium 4 processor, I'm not sure, but with Athlon XP T-breds and Athlon XP Bartons:

I have been getting wording that the best bang for the buck is:

Get an Athlon XP T-bred 1700+ and overclock it with a nForce2 based motherboard by increasing the FSB from 133 mhz to 200 mhz.

The two popular Athlon motherboards to choose with nForce2 chipset:

Abit NF7-S:

This motherboard right now looks like the best motherboard for overclockers
that is the most popular.

Asus A7N8X:

This motherboard is capable of being a good overclocker, but is majorly finicky.
Probably this motherboard will go wacko without the more expensive DDR SDRAM
modules. It's even possible that the DDR SDRAM modules, even just the minorly less expensive grade DDR SDRAM modules will cause data corruption.

With Via chipsets, in the overclocking area, when they can allow processors to overclock good, the fact that anytime the FSB is raised beyond 166 mhz, the AGP bus will go beyond 33 mhz and the AGP bus beyond 66 mhz.

 

[fivefeet8]

I don't understand how your answer relates to his question since he wasn't asking about changing to an amd system or the best bang for the buck or overclocking an amd system.

 

[jollyrancher]

Jollyrancher: I doubt it if you even know what hyperthreading exactly is.

If you're going to flame me, at least have something intelligent to say. You guys are going on about what hyperthreading is when you should be wondering how he's going to "upgrade" to hyperthreading for $30. The only ways to do it are to get a new mobo or to install the Powerleap adapter, which only work for certain mobos with specific bios support. You can't just buy a new CPU for $180 and sell your old one for $150 and suddenly have hyperthreading.

 

[GogoTheMimic]

My MSI mobo has HT support and had I known that when I put the comp together, I probably would've gotten a HT P4. I usually do run a ton of programs at once so maybe getting HT is a good idea.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

Your Pentium 4 motherboard seems to be a good overclocker, but you probably were still required to lower the frequencies for stability.

(Maybe you should try 2.8 ghz or a little bit lower)

BTW, until I saw some 2.8 ghz Pentium 4 processors with HT, I thought HT was available only with the 3.06 ghz and higher Pentium 4 processors :huh:

 

[jollyrancher]

I didn't realize your mobo already had hyperthreading support without a hyperthreading CPU (usually non-HT PC's just have HT BIOS support). So sure, you'll see multitasking improvements with HT. But for straight-up performance, there are currently few games/applications that are so high-end that they will benefit much from HT. I'm not sure what all this overclocking talk is about, but it doesn't seem neccessary unless you've got an older CPU that's struggling.

 

[GogoTheMimic]

Well I do have a tendancy to fiddle around with OCing my 2.66 that I have.

 

[Tagrineth]

GogoTheMimic: When using hyperthreading, your CPU will split the mhz (in this case 2x 1.4 ghz), and use them like they are 2 completely different cpu's. This is recommended if you want to play games without chopping while doing for example a DivX conversion (you give the first part to DivX and the second part to the game and vice versa). That's the whole thing, nothing more, nothing less.

:lol:

It doesn't split the frequency!

There's much more to the implementation of Hyperthreading than any of you realise. I suggest you all read up, Anand has a good article on it IIRC.

Basically though, a 2.8GHz P4 with HT, barring cache issues, will indeed act like a pair of 2.8GHz P4's. There are some... problems with sharing the cache between applications, but the performance loss compared to two real 2.8GHz Xeons is somewhere around 20-30% AT WORST, and in many cases there is no loss - you actually get the equivalent of dual-processor for free. Note, though, that usuall the best performance gains are seen in single apps which have HT optimisations, much less for variable apps, and sometimes (though very rarely now, with firmware and micro startup code improvements) performance will decrease... but that's why it's still possible to turn HT off. =)

Basically, though, there's nothing inherently "wrong" with HT, and performance losses are quite rare now - why else would a company like Intel offer HT CPU's to the masses? Remember, the first Intel Xeons to include HT had it disabled by default, and those aren't even intended for home use. :flowers:

In any case, though, for $30 that is one fantastic upgrade. DO IT.