Hyperthreading Pentium 4

L3it3r · #1 (**permalink**) 08-21-2005, 05:02 PM

Anyone else recently upgrade their machines to an HT processor? I picked up an Intel 3.0E GHz HT w/1mb L2 Cache today for $170-ish Took a minute to install due to old BIOS software, but now it's in and running.. My big question is that I really haven't noticed any increase in performance like I would have from a different class upgrade (P3 to P4) My previous processor was an intel P4 celeron @ 2.6 Ghz, I have 1GB Ram and over 500GB of hdd space all run on an Asus P4C800E deluxe which is their best socket 478 motherboard. All in all, for day to day computing, It hasn't show it to be worthe the investment, but I've still yet to try a graphics intensive game such as HL2 or Doom 3. I'll get back on this, but I guess I really want to know if there's any Hyperthreading 'power tools' available?

Sendittoryan · #2 (**permalink**) 08-21-2005, 05:33 PM

HT Technology will not benefit your gameplay. Games don't take advantage of dual processing. It's more for desktop and program multitasking.

powerslave · #3 (**permalink**) 08-21-2005, 06:29 PM

I have no idea what you said, but now I know what HT technology means.

L3it3r · #4 (**permalink**) 08-21-2005, 07:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sendittoryan

HT Technology will not benefit your gameplay. Games don't take advantage of dual processing. It's more for desktop and program multitasking.

HT does not mean dual processor. It's simply a wider and more robust architecture and allows for more things to be going on. so yeah, games can take advantage of HT. I played Half Life 2 and saw an increase of about 40 frames per second with this new processor... not too shabby.

Sendittoryan · #5 (**permalink**) 08-21-2005, 07:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by L3it3r

HT does not mean dual processor. It's simply a wider and more robust architecture and allows for more things to be going on. so yeah, games can take advantage of HT. I played Half Life 2 and saw an increase of about 40 frames per second with this new processor... not too shabby.

I know it doesn't mean dual processor, but that is what HT is mimicking. I have never heard of any game having much of any performance gains from HT, but I could be wrong.

King Luis · #6 (**permalink**) 08-21-2005, 10:40 PM

intel = multi tasking
amd = gaming

HT get used when you have photoshop open and your editing a image while playing music and using createing a website with MS word open....thats when HT gets used...something like that.

AMD has HTT (hyper transport) which is basically like the autobahn for information. AMD CPU's can handle high graphic games no problem compared to intel.

The new dual core stuff is basically like HT but without the virtual core of HT...dual core is that there is physically another core in the die and that you can run 2 programs with the full 2.8ghz of the processor for each program if needed...like having 2 cpus but not.

bluntface · #7 (**permalink**) 08-21-2005, 10:44 PM

yea its for multitasking.. i think u got the picture

L3it3r · #8 (**permalink**) 08-22-2005, 01:53 AM

right, that's what I figured, I'm more of an AMD guy, this is my first P4 machine, but this system wasn't for gaming from the get-go. I have photoshop, premiere, and about 10 other programming or editing suites. This is the computer I used to edit HyperStreet Racing: Type B. A gaming machine would deffinatley be AMD for me.

S3Series · #9 (**permalink**) 08-22-2005, 09:25 AM

HT= essentially bullshit that intel threw on so soccer moms think its cool... SOME gains are noticible, but are negligible compared to what you would experience with say.. and extra gig of PC3200 RAM.

What hyper threading does is fool the computer into thinking its got two processors... it tricks it, then runs two programs or processes simultaneously on different threads. Problem is, if your core is already slow, or you dont have the RAM to keep up, no amount of hyper-treading will allow your computer to run Suite, Photoshop, Acrobat, InDesign AND Premier.

That said, I HT supported processers and mobos don't really cost that much more... so feel free to get one, but don't think that NOT getting it will hurt you in anyway. As for upgrading, if thats the 3.0E Prescott, that IS a P4... check the link below

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116171

L3it3r · #10 (**permalink**) 08-22-2005, 05:28 PM

people on newegg are running it at 3.6Ghz.. that's pretty impressive. I'm still not 'wowed' by any increase that it may have yielded.. Half life 2 runs a *little* smoother. I guess the real test would be in Photoshop opening alot of HIgh res photos.. lemme try that..

DemolitionNine · #11 (**permalink**) 08-22-2005, 06:45 PM

It's marketing dude.

They slap more words & phrases on about their processors...

why? So the average joe thinks he has something bad ass "under the gray box" ... when in all reality AMD has been kicking intel through the shitter for over a year now.

AMD 64 = the way to go

Intel = Soccer moms, I-really-dont-know-much-about-computers-but-it-sounded-cool-so-I-bought-into-the-hype.

Oh well.

At least it's decently fast.

-Fer_Rari- · #12 (**permalink**) 08-22-2005, 09:24 PM

40 fps increase with HT? right...

Games don't take advantage of multithreading. If you want games to run smoothly you buy a good GPU with a beefy one even the processor isn't that important.

Newer intel CPUs support 64bit processing (they don't advertise it as much since they don't want to admit that AMD beat their Itanium bet...).

RAM does help performance by limiting I/Os to the HD (which is significantly slower than RAM) however if you don't run many programs simultaneously there's no difference. The FSB and memory speeds are more important.

You can have a 10 Terabyte disk, that doesn't have anything to do with performance, it's the disk access time that counts, so the # of RPMs, cache size, bus (SCSI vs ATA), even RAIDs can be used to increase ~10% perf.

Sound cards with a dedicated processor (talking about games here) help with performance since you're taking load off the CPU.

Intel is trailing right now but it won't be for long, also depends what you're using the CPU for, haven't heard of any datacenters running AMD64s...

Since we've reached physics limits processors can't get faster (without consuming too much power and generating way too much heat) so in the next few years we'll see more multi-core architectures which will be a real challenge for software manufacturers to really take advantage of.

Asus/Abit are preferred brands since they're affordable and tweakable but their drivers' suck (windows)... they're not certified by MS and are amongst the leading cause for hangs/blue screens... Overclocking is one of the other leading causes...

King Luis · #13 (**permalink**) 08-22-2005, 10:44 PM

ya....i got a 64bit amd and love it...just waiting until there is more support of xp64 and i'll be on there....game wise a processor does help but a good video card and ram helps a lot....also having your OS free of junk and processes to free up memory helps.

L3it3r · #14 (**permalink**) 08-23-2005, 01:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by -Fer_Rari-

40 fps increase with HT? right...

Games don't take advantage of multithreading. If you want games to run smoothly you buy a good GPU with a beefy one even the processor isn't that important.

Newer intel CPUs support 64bit processing (they don't advertise it as much since they don't want to admit that AMD beat their Itanium bet...).

RAM does help performance by limiting I/Os to the HD (which is significantly slower than RAM) however if you don't run many programs simultaneously there's no difference. The FSB and memory speeds are more important.

You can have a 10 Terabyte disk, that doesn't have anything to do with performance, it's the disk access time that counts, so the # of RPMs, cache size, bus (SCSI vs ATA), even RAIDs can be used to increase ~10% perf.

Sound cards with a dedicated processor (talking about games here) help with performance since you're taking load off the CPU.

Intel is trailing right now but it won't be for long, also depends what you're using the CPU for, haven't heard of any datacenters running AMD64s...

Since we've reached physics limits processors can't get faster (without consuming too much power and generating way too much heat) so in the next few years we'll see more multi-core architectures which will be a real challenge for software manufacturers to really take advantage of.

Asus/Abit are preferred brands since they're affordable and tweakable but their drivers' suck (windows)... they're not certified by MS and are amongst the leading cause for hangs/blue screens... Overclocking is one of the other leading causes...

40fps from a 2.6 celeron to the 3.0 P4 w/1mb cache.. it's a huge difference in power. like I said before, I'm an AMD guy, and this is my 'work' machine. My game machine that I had before was AMD and the one before it. I just got out of the whole 'race' for hardware because it's too damn expensive to have a 'bad ass' machine anymore. I mean, Motherboard, memory, processor, harddrives, optical drives, and various accessories.. the shit piles up to Thousands of $$ to do damn near the same thing that a console will do for $300 or less. So Instead of rebuilding a gaming machine so damn often, I'm going to stick with this pile o shit for now. (on a side note, I've never BOUGHT a pc, I've built every one that I've ever had, and I've had computers for 17 years of my life)

Sound cards are about to get pretty good on the performance gains. The new Creative Live Xfi has a 64MB cahce that can be used to load sound data to the card, and will be able to share processing tasks OTHER than sound with the CPU.. that should be interesting.

bluntface · #15 (**permalink**) 08-23-2005, 01:16 PM

Yea go AMD

screw intel