Yah, but in reality it's 1 core working 2 threads. So in a way I guess we're both right. Multi thread was attempted about 4 years ago?, and it didn't work out too well, but it was just way ahead of its time. Now a days, we have a more effective OS and other applications that will take advantage of it. I'm hoping the new windows will take it farther.
My rig is an i7 920 on an Asus p6t with corsiar 1600mhz ram (slower lats 9 rather than 7s, 7s cost a shitton more) running in tripple channel with 2 4850s in crossfire. I play EQ which this is overkill for, and Left 4 Dead. lol
Yes, it is one core with 2 threads. Still, having 4 physical cores & 4 logical cores, will end up being better overall in a SMT setup where the OS supports it (windows xp+ for MS world). As far as it "not working out too well then", I guess we have to agree to disagree.
If the scheduler is SMP / SMT capable, and knows the difference (i.e., which cores are real, and which are logical only), then you will get a speed increase by the OS being able to schedule threads on the cores to improve performance. However, there are times (OS or claimed "multi-threading" applications), would slow down (you don't really see that any more, unless you are running some kind of legacy software). Usually it would be because the MT software, would not differentiate between physical & logical cores, which is a mistake in the design intention of HTT.
Intel did not drop the HTT off the Core 2 because of performance/design reasons in the regard mentioned. It did so, based on the core design model the Core 2 was based off of (yonah). The i7 (nehalem+) and atom architectures were built from the beginning with quite a few differences, and HTT was one of those.
Whether HTT adds performance (and how much) depends entirely on how the OS/software thread schedulers work, but if they are designed properly to take advantage of it, there will always be some kind of boost (3 to 30% typically), depending on the various factors within that software - which is also why certain types of software gain more boost than others
I'm not saying a quad core with HTT, is equivalent to a 8 core cpu... not at all. I'm just saying, where given a choice, I would prefer to have it, as not.
htw
