hyperthreading?

S

slider_buck

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what exactly is hyperthreading? heard about it bu don't know what it is. is this something i can enable on m system to get it to run faster? i have a p4 2.66 on an ECS motherboard with 768megs of pc2700 if that helps any.
 
Hyperthreading is the technology that allows some P4's to act like two processors.... even windows will show two processors in your system run down (right click on my computer, properties, and then look at the general tab). Or control/alt/delete and go to tasklist, then the performance tab... that will show to processors running and a lot of the time when you are running one program you can look at the performance graph (there would be two of them) and one will be running at 100% while the other isn't being utilized hardly at all. These are ways to check if you have it enabled but I don't think that your 2.66 has it. Some one else might know for sure but I'm sure it is enabled automatically in your bios so if you can't find it where I said in windows you could look in your bios.... (hit delete or F2 usually when your computer turns on boot) and look for the option in the menu settings.. but again a little research on Newegg for your processor will show you if you have the right one or not....

This is just a simple explaination and HT isn't a true dual processor just acts kind of like one in the simplist explaination.

P.S. Probably should have put this in the Intel thread directory...
 
Originally posted by codename47
Hyperthreading is the technology that allows some P4's to act like two processors.... even windows will show two processors in your system run down (right click on my computer, properties, and then look at the general tab). Or control/alt/delete and go to tasklist, then the performance tab... that will show to processors running and a lot of the time when you are running one program you can look at the performance graph (there would be two of them) and one will be running at 100% while the other isn't being utilized hardly at all. These are ways to check if you have it enabled but I don't think that your 2.66 has it. Some one else might know for sure but I'm sure it is enabled automatically in your bios so if you can't find it where I said in windows you could look in your bios.... (hit delete or F2 usually when your computer turns on boot) and look for the option in the menu settings.. but again a little research on Newegg for your processor will show you if you have the right one or not....

This is just a simple explaination and HT isn't a true dual processor just acts kind of like one in the simplist explaination.

P.S. Probably should have put this in the Intel thread directory...
Click to expand...

It sounds all right to m :D. Also i think the only operating system that supports HT is WindowsXP.

Here is something for yall to think about. Since windowsXP home does not support dual processors is windows XP Pro the only operating system that supports HT?
 
I know the 2.5 kernel schedular had a fully HT aware version.
Don't know if it ever got implemented in 2.6 though.
Other than that XP is the only HT aware OS.

Not that you need an HT aware OS to run HT. Any SMP capable OS will work. It can provide less than ideal results, especially in HT capable SMP systems like Dual Xeons.


and just to elaborate a bit on codename47's response
HT (or SMT, symmetric multiThreading) allows for a single physical processor to 'run' 2 threads (applications, programs) at once. Because the Operating system sees it as 2 CPUs, the OS will try and run a thread on each of those 'Logical' processors at the same time.
 
Originally posted by kur1j

Here is something for yall to think about. Since windowsXP home does not support dual processors is windows XP Pro the only operating system that supports HT?
Click to expand...

Windows XP Home supports hyperthreading.
 
it does show 2 processors but i can't find anyting in the bios on enabling it. i did find a setting called "S.M.A.R.T. HDD". what is that setting all about?
 
It allows your hard drive to output information like temperature to the motherboard.
 
If you see both the processors in windows then it is enabled and working.... meaning you have it and have been using it for sometime and never even knew it... You'll only see real benefits from it when you are using programs that are designed to utilize the chip design. Photoshop, some video editing, ect... that is where you will see big gains when comparing your computer againt an equivalent AMD system...

p.s. Be careful in your bios b/c you can really fowl things up if you don't know what settings are and you change something on accident....

Enjoy your HT....
 
i'm pretty sure it is showing 2. when i right click on my computer it shows "intel pentium" and then right undernieth it it shows "cpu 2.66". is that whay you guys are talking about or not?
 
Hyperthreading is very similar to the old Ati Rage MaXX imho. That card introduced dual processors on a single card, yet faltered. Though Hyperthreading hasn't faltered, I find the technology similar. You have two cpu's, though one virtual, working in parallel and offloading the other.
 
Slider_buck, you don't have hyperthreading. The 2.66 Ghz proc is a Northwood 'B' revision with a 533 Mhz FSB, and the only P4 Northwood B with hyperthreading is the 3.06 Ghz P4.

Here's a picture of what hyperthreading looks like. Notice the two graphs in CPU usage history :
http://www.hothardware.com/reviews/images/p4306ht/httaskmanager.htm

What you're looking at in My Computer is your processor's speed (2.66 Ghz).
 
Originally posted by JackNapier
Hyperthreading is very similar to the old Ati Rage MaXX imho. That card introduced dual processors on a single card, yet faltered. Though Hyperthreading hasn't faltered, I find the technology similar. You have two cpu's, though one virtual, working in parallel and offloading the other.
Click to expand...
Hyperthreading is nothing like dual processors on a single card. (Voodoo5 anyone?)
 
yep your right. my screen doesn't show two graphs like that. i'm starting to think i got ripped off on this computer. it doesn't hyperthread and my board doesn't support overclocking. :mad:
 
^ Mark, you're full of it unfortunately. The Voodoo5 wasn't a dual processor card in the same vein as the rage maxx. The maxx actually split up the work, much like Hyperthreading. The V5 only used two texture memory units.
 
Originally posted by slider_buck
yep your right. my screen doesn't show two graphs like that. i'm starting to think i got ripped off on this computer. it doesn't hyperthread and my board doesn't support overclocking. :mad:
Click to expand...

What do you mean ripped off, was it explicitly advertised that your cpu and/or system supported hyperthreading? If you built the system yourself, the CPU would never have said it supported hyperthreading because 2.66ghz P4's don't support hyperthreading. When did you buy it too? Hyperthreading is about a year old, I think the 3.06 P4 was released late in 2002 if I remember correctly.
 
i bought it through a company off of ebay. i thought $500 was a good deal on it but at the time i wasn't really thinking about overclocking it or anything. ohh well live and learn i guess. :D
 
2.66 has no hyperthreading. Only 3.06B, 2.4C, 2.6C, 2.8C, 3.0C and 3.2C has hyperthreading. If you have 2.66, then it doesn't have it.
 
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