Is hyper-threading worth it?

Technology and Gaming
#1

Simple question: is hyper-threading worth the additional $100-150 cost? I’m mainly talking about i5 and i7 here.

Both have 4 cores, but the difference is that the i7 allows hyper-threading to (sort of) emulate additional cores by assigning tasks to unused threads for optimal performance.

While this all sounds nice and will probably result in extra performance, the benchmarks seem to indicate only a 6-7% performance difference between the i5 and i7, and that doesn’t seem to justify the extra cost, or does it?

It’s also to my understanding that hyper-threading is pretty much obsolete for the majority of applications because they haven’t been optimized yet.

#2

Well I have an i7 and most games and applications dont use more than 4 cores, but there are a few games coming out now that are starting to take advantage of more than 4 core so id say get an i7 for future proofing purposes when it becomes more mainstream.

Hyperthreading works by allowing each core to take two threads instead of one so if you have a 4 core cpu, windows will read it as an 8 core cpu and so on.

#3

No. In most games, it actually decreases performance. If you get an i7, I recommend you disable it. With that said, there are a few reasons to go i7 over i5. One is triple channel memory, which essentially gives you slightly more memory bandwidth, and the other is more PCIe lanes. P55 (i5, i3, and the 800 series i7s) only have 16 PCIe lanes, which severely limits performance if you’re using 3+ PCIe cards, which you probably aren’t.

Basically Triple channel memory doesn’t have a large impact on performance, hyperthreading isn’t important, and more PCIe lanes are unimportant unless you’re using a lot of PCIe lanes. If any of those are important to you, get a i7 900-series (read: 920). The 800-series have all of the same drawbacks of the i5s except for hyperthreading.

#4

When hyper-threading becomes more mainstream, processors that support it will become a lot cheaper. If I were you, I would wait a bit before buying, after all, what if hyperthreading NEVER goes mainstream?

#5

Plus when multithreading becomes more mainstream, processors are going to get more and more cores. Physical cores will always be better than hyperthreading.

#6

So in short: get the i5?

#7

Yes.

#8

I have an Intel Core i5-750, and iirc, I’ve seen tests where it outperformed the i7-820 on a P55-UD5 motherboard…

#9

but bolteh is a macfag

#10

Who says I wasn’t talking about Macs?

#11

Wont you need a soldering iron, a dam steady hand and a hacked OS to change your CPU in a Mac… well unless you took out a 2nd mortgage and bought Pro :facepalm:

#12

I was looking at switching out my 27" iMac i7 with 4GB RAM for a 27" iMac i5 with 8GB RAM.

Because of this thread, I’ll be swapping the i7 for the i5 at the end of the month (if all goes well).

#13

Think I’d probably buy an extra 4Gb of RAM for the i7 - cant see that your’d see much difference without benchmarking in the real world… but the world of Apple is one long fashion show… darling! :smiley:

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