Challenge to DST4ME

Ok DST4ME, it's time you do some explaining for those of us who are not as computer literate as thee. I was just reading the configuration section where you were telling someone to go with an an I7 instead of an I5. If you'll recall you told me the same thing. In both cases you said the I7 has a hyperthread and the I5 doesn't. So I'm thinking I need one of those hyperthreads so I changed my order and got me one.

Hyperthreading - Having the OS feed double the things to process to the processor. Basically, it makes the processor a little more efficiently and some intensive, multithreaded programs work better with this. All intel processors since the last P55/X58 generation have had this, as well as some before (i.e. Pentium 4 HT).

If I understand it right, basically what it does is when a processor is waiting on something to happen to be allowed to process some code, HyperThreading gives the processor another piece of code that needs work, making it more efficient.

Here's how I visualize it..
Say there's a bunch of guys working at a packing factory. They all pack the stuff going down the line into boxes, and the line that they work on advances a piece every time they take one and puts it in the box (the line doesn't just keep moving past them, it waits...).
[The guys working are processor cores, the line is a stream of tasks the cores need to do].

Without HyperThreading:
Each guy is paired with one line
  -(One core gets one bunch of tasks).
When one line malfunctions, the guy in that line just sits there and goofs off on his iPhone while waiting for the line to be fixed.
  -(Say an error came up in a processor task, the core just sits there waiting.).
That guy wastes time. Now imagine in a processor world where errors occur like crazy in programs.

With HyperThreading.
Each guy is paired with two lines of stuff to pack
  -(Each core gets 2 bunches of tasks).
When one line malfunctions, the guy in that line defaults to the second line and packs stuff from there.
  -(Cores get something else needing processing when a task gets stuck).
Efficiency is conserved.

That's my understanding. Correct me if I'm wrong, heh.


Edited by ablahblah - 27 Mar 2011 at 2:22am

HT is a very good thing to have! Lets say you have a processors thats a quad core "4 cores" if you don't have hyperthreading you only have 4 cores, and each core has its own thread, but with hyperthreading it allows you to run more than 1 thread on a core, so 2 threads on 4 cores would give you a total of 8 threads. The more threads you have the more you can do without compromising system performance!



Edited by Divine - 27 Mar 2011 at 3:50am

Our pleasure

DS takes good care of us so we try and take good care of them