11-15-2002, 04:23 AM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Hyperthreaded Desktop CPU Delivers Mixed Results
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,106898,tk,dn111402X,00.asp
Gosh - and here I was hoping that hyperthreading would lure me into buying a faster Intel CPU...but I can't say that I'm really surprised. Intel has a habit of releasing a new CPU and having the performance truly suck. After further refinement, the performance will come. Shades of Xscale anyone? The problem with that is that while I can swap out a P4 on my desktop, you can't do that on your Pocket PC.
"Tests on three of the first systems to use the new chip indicate that hyperthreading's benefits are largely application- or even task-specific. For example, on the office applications most people use, such as Microsoft's Word and Excel, hyperthreading's impact was neutral or slightly negative. Even on specialized tests designed to highlight the benefits of hyperthreading, most improvements are negligible. Exceptions are select filters in Photoshop, some aspects of video and photo programs like Premiere and VideoWave, and certain multitasking tests.
PC World's results also show that a PC equipped with AMD's Athlon XP 2800+ CPU, which runs at 2.25 GHz, more than held its own against these 3-GHz systems running 800 MHz faster. Hyperthreading is still new, however, and Intel says you should see improvements as developers modify their applications to take better advantage of the technology."
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11-15-2002, 04:48 AM
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Pontificator
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 1,023
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Putting the whole hyperthreading thing aside for a moment, it's no surprise the 2800+ can hold it's own. AMD has been saying for years now it's not just the clock speed that matters. I love AMD, they're cheap and they're fast. If only they made Pocket PC processors.
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11-15-2002, 05:24 AM
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Sage
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 725
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You can usually tell how useless a technology is by how much Intel hypes it...
As for this article, welllllllll, as someone who used to spend a lot of time comparing this sort of thing I can say that you can get a processor test to say whatever it wants if you don't list your methodology. Especially when your devising your own "new tests". This article was bunk.
Not that I think the result is necessarily incorrect, I don't see multi-threading causing that much of a speed jump right now, I just tend to get offended when I can tell an article is skewing results.
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11-15-2002, 05:39 AM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Back in the sub-500 mhz Celeron days, I had a dual 466 mhz Celeron rig on a BP6, and man, that thing smoked! Dual processors are the way to go, no question about it. It drives me :!:BONKERS:!: that more mainstream computers aren't offered in dual-proc models. Paired with an OS like Windows XP, the overall speed boost would be quite tangible. And not in raw benchmarks - overall system performance would just be much snappier, and all for a couple of hundred bucks for an extra CPU and mobo to support it.
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11-15-2002, 05:56 AM
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Pontificator
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 1,466
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Jason Dunn
It drives me :!:BONKERS:!: that more mainstream computers aren't offered in dual-proc models.
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Yeah, I know what you mean. My current system is a "willamette" P4 1.7GHZ Dell 8100. I'm in the process of upgrading the RAM to 768mb. It gets the job done, but next time around I'm probably going to build my own box. A nice dually loaded to the hilt.
In hindsight, I should have waited to purchase a "Northwood" system instead. :?
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11-15-2002, 06:01 AM
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5000+ Posts? I Should OWN This Site!
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 5,133
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Unfortunately, I'm not all that clear on how hyperthreading actually works. Is it a superscalar processor that gets divided between the tasks? It's not *actually* dual processor... I should probably spend less time working one my own particular project, and more time reading about current processor technology. 
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11-15-2002, 06:06 AM
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Pontificator
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 1,466
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by kati42
Is it a superscalar processor that gets divided between the tasks? It's not *actually* dual processor...
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Basically, it's two processor cores on one board, instead of dual processors.
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11-15-2002, 06:15 AM
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Sage
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 725
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Jason Dunn
Back in the sub-500 mhz Celeron days, I had a dual 466 mhz Celeron rig on a BP6, and man, that thing smoked! Dual processors are the way to go, no question about it. It drives me :!:BONKERS:!: that more mainstream computers aren't offered in dual-proc models. Paired with an OS like Windows XP, the overall speed boost would be quite tangible. And not in raw benchmarks - overall system performance would just be much snappier, and all for a couple of hundred bucks for an extra CPU and mobo to support it.
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Actually, it's funny you would make that comment after the article praised AMD since AMD is famous for almost completely ignoring the dual processor market more often than not. I still think that their attitude regarding that hurt the Athlon (e.g. it was powerful enough to be a server processor but no one would use it).
As for the reason you don't see it more in the mainstream It think it's two fold:
1 - It would cause consumer confusion because many of your average consumers just wouldn't get the concept (of a CPU much less two of them)
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2 - Dual processors have always been Intel's little secret. Take back in the Celeron 500mhz days, Cel. 500's were $178 a piece where a P3 1Ghz was $600 and back in those days everyone was figuring out that there wasn't that big a performance advantage to the P3. I think that is why you didn't see it as an option (if you recall you could only use dual processor celerons on Abit boards because they had a lock on them).
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11-15-2002, 07:08 AM
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5000+ Posts? I Should OWN This Site!
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 5,133
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Foo Fighter
Quote:
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Originally Posted by kati42
Is it a superscalar processor that gets divided between the tasks? It's not *actually* dual processor...
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Basically, it's two processor cores on one board, instead of dual processors. |
I can see how that could help running two completely separate tasks, then, which I see as the main benefit of a dual-proc machine.
I just get bad flashbacks to parallel programming class when I think about trying to get a single program to run multi-processor. In our assignments the general consensus was that the parallel version generally ran *slower* than the serial version due to communications overhead. I think it was only partly inexperience on the part of the programmers, and mostly the projects didn't have enough inherent parallelism or large enough data sets to make the overhead worthwhile...
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11-15-2002, 07:43 AM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Sep 2002
Posts: 137
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Before you discount it competely
Take a look at a video made between (albiet) two Intel chips; the 3.06GHz with HT on and the 3.6GHz without HyperThread enabled.
http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/02q4..._306ht-22.html
It's quite amazing to see the speed differences of HT especially in mulit-tasking. As stated in the article, single task tests are no longer a real measure of how well a processor performs. No one works on one program one time these days.
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