Who Will Benefit From Hyper-Threading?

qoncept asks: "I've read a number of reviews of Intel's new Pentium 4 3.06ghz processor with multithreading and I've noticed that perhaps it is being reviewed as an option to the wrong people, and in fact Intel may even be marketing it to the wrong people. It seems that, as a business move, Hyper-Threading may not have been worth Intel's investing in it. Most reviews show that in single threaded benchmarks, there are literally no benefits to using HT. In multithreaded processes, the results are moderate at best. Yet, of course, the reviews seem to say the feel is better. There you go -- it won't increase your productivity by compiling your Java. But, price point permitting, it may be exactly what the casual home user wants -- save money by getting, say a 3.06ghz HT CPU instead of a 3.6ghz CPU without, yet have Internet Explorer, mIRC, AIM and Word run just as 'comfortably.' The benchmarks don't say much for HT, but I'm at least slightly excited about it. What about everyone else?"

Comments

Everyone misses

[psavo]

The point in 2+ CPU systems. It's not about getting multithreaded apps gettin faster, it's about getting more programs run together better.
When using 2 cpus (or HT), when one process takes all the juice there's still some left for everything else, and system will appear more responsive.
So, there You go, You can encode some divx, and still browse comfortably net, or listen to mp3's, or watch some divx. (Of course I don't know how effective HT is, but my 2xAthlon lets me do just that).

Re:Everyone misses

[ConceptJunkie]

But since NT/2000/XP has all disk I/O in critical regions, your system still grinds to a standstill.

The day Microsoft OS's are not ridiculously I/O-bound, this will make a much bigger difference... for Microsoft users.

Of course, I guess there's a point to helping your filesystem remain intact when Granny or the baby flips the Big Red Switch without shutting down...

The moral: Use lots and lots and lots of RAM with Microsoft

who will benefit? intel of course

[Splork]

they've just invented a feature that their marketing department can say without lying that their chip has that others don't.

the fact that it doesn't do anything useful for most uses at the moment makes no difference.

Re:I have dual p3 1ghz already

[ctr2sprt]

Are you including time that the machines are idle and you're not using them? That's the only way I can make sense of your claim. Even if you're not a hardcore developer (where MP is a big bonus) or gamer (where the faster CPU make all the difference, and it doesn't matter how many of them you have), the difference is still going to be visible for ordinary desktop tasks, like ripping a CD and surfing the web at the same time.

And while we're comparing experience, I have a 2-way PPro-200 system, a 2-way P3-450 system, and a 1-way P4-1.6 system. Both of the MP machines are far more responsive for, well, every task that I throw at them: the only reason I don't have only MP boxes is the cost.

Not Me

[Konster]

I read several reviews, most notable among them are here and here. Although the technology seems compelling when looking forward a few years, its infancy just doesn't sell me the product, especially when I consider that a dual Athlon MP 2000 (1.6Ghz) is respectably close to the $700 PIV 3.06GHz with HT, and costs a LOT less.

3.06GHz PIV + motherboard + 512MB DDR RAM = $1025
2 Athlon MP 2000 + motherboard + 512MB DDR RAM = $695....for 80-90% of the performance of the HT PIV?

Sorry, but I can get the basics for an SMP system for $5 less than Intel wants for its new flagship CPU.

Now, if I could get 2 PIV 2.4 GHz CPUS with HT, that might be a different story...