Could disabling hyper-threading possibly give me better performance?

My notebook contains a i7 3610QM and a GTX 660m. The 3610QM uses 4 cores and 8 hyper-threads. If I were to play a game that only utilizes 4 cores, would that mean only half of the processing power is getting utilized? If so, would disabling hyper-threading let the game scale better and therefore run better without hyper-threading?

Just curious

Technically, you could get an increase in performance for gaming. But less than 1% in nearly all cases. So.... No.

No, hyper-threading is there to give you higher preformance. Turning it off is like removing a feature that will only really help you, very rarely will it hurt you.

Hyperthreading isnt there to give you more preformance. Hyperthreading is there to give you more effecient use of your cores.

Technically, you could get an increase in performance for gaming. But less than 1% in nearly all cases. So.... No.

XaosII

This.

No, hyper-threading is there to give you higher preformance. Turning it off is like removing a feature that will only really help you, very rarely will it hurt you.

Hyperthreading isnt there to give you more preformance. Hyperthreading is there to give you more effecient use of your cores.

way2funny

[QUOTE="way2funny"]

No, hyper-threading is there to give you higher preformance. Turning it off is like removing a feature that will only really help you, very rarely will it hurt you.

Hyperthreading isnt there to give you more preformance. Hyperthreading is there to give you more effecient use of your cores.

kraken2109

Depends howwhatis implemented? The real benefit of hyperthreading is when a core has extra clock cycles waiting on one thread, so in the meantime it can execute some things on another thread with context switching that isn't as costly.

Actually, if your software has 8 threads and each thread is a large load (cpu @ ~100%) then you will see the benefits of hyperthreading moreso than any other scenario

[QUOTE="kraken2109"][QUOTE="way2funny"]

No, hyper-threading is there to give you higher preformance. Turning it off is like removing a feature that will only really help you, very rarely will it hurt you.

Hyperthreading isnt there to give you more preformance. Hyperthreading is there to give you more effecient use of your cores.

way2funny

Depends howwhatis implemented? The real benefit of hyperthreading is when a core has extra clock cycles waiting on one thread, so in the meantime it can execute some things on another thread with context switching that isn't as costly.

Actually, if your software has 8 threads and each thread is a large load (cpu @ ~100%) then you will see the benefits of hyperthreading moreso than any other scenario

It depends on how the program is threaded. A hyperthread isn't a core, it is just running on what's left of a core. So if the core is at full load whatever is being run on the hyperthread won't run properly which will cause slowdown. Pretty sure i read that on this very forum actually.kraken2109

I've seen what you are describing in large scale production apps. Usually custom software we are developing for a customer. For home use stuff like games on an i7 though you'd probably want to keep it on.

-Byshop

[QUOTE="way2funny"]

[QUOTE="kraken2109"] Depends how it's implemented. If you have 4 cores and 8 threads and the software thinks you have 8 cores it can treat the extra threads as cores and give them a large load which can cause problems since they're not actual cores.kraken2109

Depends howwhatis implemented? The real benefit of hyperthreading is when a core has extra clock cycles waiting on one thread, so in the meantime it can execute some things on another thread with context switching that isn't as costly.

Actually, if your software has 8 threads and each thread is a large load (cpu @ ~100%) then you will see the benefits of hyperthreading moreso than any other scenario

It's good.

3d programs all benefit from the HT cores nicely, same for computational programs.

Even folding at home is sped up.

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-131697.html

[QUOTE="kraken2109"][QUOTE="way2funny"]

Depends howwhatis implemented? The real benefit of hyperthreading is when a core has extra clock cycles waiting on one thread, so in the meantime it can execute some things on another thread with context switching that isn't as costly.

Actually, if your software has 8 threads and each thread is a large load (cpu @ ~100%) then you will see the benefits of hyperthreading moreso than any other scenario

JigglyWiggly_

It's good.

3d programs all benefit from the HT cores nicely, same for computational programs.

Even folding at home is sped up.

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-131697.html

Heavily threaded high load programs benefit the most from hyperthreading.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/hyperthreading-technology-explained/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is7frW9Z-rw

nah