Is HT useful to you?

[ChineseDemocracyGNR]

I hate how slow my computer gets when running prime95 (hehe), I was wondering if HT makes any difference in real-word usage?

I'm not much of a gamer so I don't really care for the performance advantage AMD has in that area for my next upgrade.

 

[MDE]

It helps my Folding@Home stats because I can run two instances of it, other than that, I can't really tell much of a difference between my P4 @ 3.6 from my old XP 2500+ @ 2.2 in general usage. You may want to try lowering the priority on Prime95 (look in Task Manager, Processes tab and right click P95's process).

 

[RadiclDreamer]

yes, HT makes a HUGE difference with things that were meant to run on dual CPU's and on multitasking. Windows is leaps and bounds faster with HT on as opposed to it being off. Check out the THG video showing a P4 with and then without HT, the one with stomps the one without

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: RadiclDreamer
yes, HT makes a HUGE difference with things that were meant to run on dual CPU's and on multitasking. Windows is leaps and bounds faster with HT on as opposed to it being off. Check out the THG video showing a P4 with and then without HT, the one with stomps the one without

Actually, the Athlon 64 systems I've used felt much faster to me than my P4. Granted, the one I used with a halfway decent hard drive wasn't in my possession long enough to do any extensive testing, but Windows just felt twice as snappy as my system.

 

[slash196]

I thought we were talking about Hyper Transport until someone said that Intel is leaps and bounds faster.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: MDE

Originally posted by: RadiclDreamer
yes, HT makes a HUGE difference with things that were meant to run on dual CPU's and on multitasking. Windows is leaps and bounds faster with HT on as opposed to it being off. Check out the THG video showing a P4 with and then without HT, the one with stomps the one without

Actually, the Athlon 64 systems I've used felt much faster to me than my P4. Granted, the one I used with a halfway decent hard drive wasn't in my possession long enough to do any extensive testing, but Windows just felt twice as snappy as my system.

I agree completely, the A64 3000+ system I've worked on felt much more responsive than my P4 3.2 laptop at my old job. On top of that, multitasking on the P4 was atrocious; I'm guessing more RAM was necessary for what I was doing (AutoCAD and Adobe PDF creation at the same time), but even so I found that hyperthreading did absolutely nothing.

As for the Tom's Hardware video, I'd be interested to see them throw an A64 into the fray. Programs seem to load up much faster because of hypertransport; maybe it's my imagination.

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: ChineseDemocracyGNR
I hate how slow my computer gets when running prime95 (hehe), I was wondering if HT makes any difference in real-word usage?

I'm not much of a gamer so I don't really care for the performance advantage AMD has in that area for my next upgrade.

Significant difference. I can have SETI@HOME running 2 threads, and extract 590MB (Office 2003 Zipped) to Desktop folder faster than my friend can with his P4 2.66 no HT + 74 gig RAptor HDD (while doing nothing but that one task) and I have 80GB 8mb 7200rpm only. Also mysteriously my system does this task faster than my other buddy's A64 3000+ and 36gb Raptor. Hmm...strange considering WinRAR favours A64 architecture.

Decompression using Winrar 3.40 - 590MB file
3.06ghz w HT, no SETI running - 1 min 32 seconds
3.06ghz w/o HT, 1 instance of SETI running - 1 min 49 seconds
3.06ghz w HT, 2 instances of SETI running - 1 min 52 seconds

I can also play games with SETI and I never turn it off. Average time to finish 2 instances of SETI is 3 hours and 11 minutes. *** I run 2 instances of SETI on Low

Also:

SuperPI 2m places:

3.06ghz w/HT, no SETI running - 1 min 46 seconds
3.06ghz w/o HT, 1 instance of SETI running - 1 min 54 seconds
3.06ghz w HT, 2 instances of SETI running - 2 min 19 seconds - significant slowdown, but remember it's running 2 instances now

I think besides distributed computing, A64 can handle tasks very well, unless the system is really overloaded.

 

[Sylvanas]

"i hate how slow my computer gets when running prime95" well every computer will run slow when using prime 95. prime 95 uses nearly 100% of your ram so thats why it would be so laggy.

 

[AnImuS]

I noticed a difference going from a p4 to a64. Windows ran better to me under the intel system. Especially when unraring large files or installing games+doing other tasks.
Both systems had 1GB of memory.

 

[n7]

I've been doing some video encoding lately, & i have to admit to wondering if having a P4 with HT would help me out, as my A64 tends to be unusable during the encoding.

So is HT useful to me?
Well, i don't have a P4, but it would be useful

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: MDE

Originally posted by: RadiclDreamer
yes, HT makes a HUGE difference with things that were meant to run on dual CPU's and on multitasking. Windows is leaps and bounds faster with HT on as opposed to it being off. Check out the THG video showing a P4 with and then without HT, the one with stomps the one without

Actually, the Athlon 64 systems I've used felt much faster to me than my P4. Granted, the one I used with a halfway decent hard drive wasn't in my possession long enough to do any extensive testing, but Windows just felt twice as snappy as my system.

I agree completely, the A64 3000+ system I've worked on felt much more responsive than my P4 3.2 laptop at my old job. On top of that, multitasking on the P4 was atrocious; I'm guessing more RAM was necessary for what I was doing (AutoCAD and Adobe PDF creation at the same time), but even so I found that hyperthreading did absolutely nothing.

As for the Tom's Hardware video, I'd be interested to see them throw an A64 into the fray. Programs seem to load up much faster because of hypertransport; maybe it's my imagination.

Actually I dont agree with this as of yet...My athlon 64 1.8ghz@2.6ghz feels no snappier on the desktop then my 2.4@3.5...

Also while I have not done a lot of testing on this athlon yet I can tell you HT was used alot for me....

I used it in Autocad with rendering increasing 22%, I used it in dvdshrink where HT had a 10+% decrease in time when using deep analysis, I used it in FH cause I do 1 instance 24/7 for 4 months straight while having the freedom to do many other things...I know..I know, ppl will say I can do that with my athlon...However the cycles you run on (FH that is), the other items will directly steal from (FH which is generally at low priority). If you run a 100% intensive app like some gaming and other computations fh for all intensive purposes is idling waiting for some free clock cycle...NOt true with HT. If you AMD ppl want to argue that you are either a liar or know no better, cause I have tested it. While an athlon can do it pysically (operate...IE no lag to the system) with the P4 I was still crunching and got far more done in terms of percentage then the athlon...This is a well documented fact with HT and FH as well as SETI...HT and running 2 instance of FH can increase by as much as 40% over 2 instances with HT off or just 1 instance...

I also used HT in my conversion of my old Divx files to DVDs...I used TMPGenc and it has a22% increase with multi-threaded picked....

MOst amd users around these part are gaming oriented, and I have yet to see a game HT optimized so I can see why most ppl with those uses will see little benefit....


For me now I still need to test how fast the athlon64 is at cadd and encoding task as regular speed to see if the HT 3.5 is faster but the multitasking is better in terms of completion not system responsiveness alone.

 

[stevty2889]

I do a lot of multitasking, and I find it helps with that. I also have 2 monitors, so I can have lots of things going at once lol. I can play half life 2 at the same time Prime 95 is running without a slowdown, as long as I limit the ram it uses to 512mb. On my PVR PC, I find that it is helpful too, because I can keep doing other things, while encoding video, as long as they aren't sucking up too much ram.

EDIT: P.S. I haven't used an A64 system yet, so I can't really compare it.

 

[uOpt]

My collected measurements are here:

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...8&threadid=1426699

 

[MysticX23]

HT is noticable. I'm comparing a P4 2.4C @ 3.1 and a AMD Athlon 2400+ @ 3000+. Doing video encoding, WINRAR zip/unzip, movies, burning...the P4 does it faster and much more smoother. I can perform these threads w/o lag on the P4 where on the AMD it is noticable laggier.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Intel should make an infomercial for Hyperthreading in the spirit of those cheesy 60's instructional videos entitled "Hyperthreading and You" so they can explain how to use it and what gains from HT.

 

[Sc4freak]

Hyperthreading is really usefull to me, since I do quite a bit of encoding. When encoding a movie, Hyperthreading really helps out (Is it just me, or do Prescotts handle Hyperthreading better than Northwoods?). I was encoding a short video and I tested without HT, 970sec. I tested the exact same video, same settings but with HT, 679sec. Thats a nice 30% faster.

 

[ntrights]

(Is it just me, or do Prescotts handle Hyperthreading better than Northwoods?)

HT is definitely improved with Prescott. Comparing the system in my sig and my 2.4c @ 3.6 300fsb The 3.2E@4.0 handles multitasking noticeable faster and smoother (granted it has a higher clock then my northy but still the northy had 15 fsb higher.)

 

[carlosd]

Hyper Threading is USELESS!!

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: jiffylube1024
Intel should make an infomercial for Hyperthreading in the spirit of those cheesy 60's instructional videos entitled "Hyperthreading and You" so they can explain how to use it and what gains from HT.

Or "Netburst Madness"... an informative illustrations on the evils of Netburst, and how they lead to worse things... like constantly needing more and more Mhz to feel the same thrill, eventually leading to hitting the thermal wall.. and then you enter the cycle of recovery, stepping back, seeing where you went wrong in your path...

 

[ChineseDemocracyGNR]

Thanks everyone for the feedback - you've been really helpful!