With the newly released 8th Generation CPUs from Intel, one feature has gone missing from the Core i3 models: Hyper-Threading (HT). For example, the new Intel i3-8100 features 4 physical cores and 4 threads, whereas the previous generation’s i3-7100 featured 2 physical cores and 4 threads.
What is the difference between having a 2-core Hyper-Threaded CPU or a 4-core CPU without Hyper-Threading?
What’s the difference between Hyper-Threading and Simultaneous MultiThreading? Essentially, nothing! Both terms describe the same technology, which doubles parts of the CPU core to help speed up multi-threaded tasks. Hyper-Threading is Intel’s brand name for the technology, while simultaneous multi-threading is the more general term.
HT/SMT is not as good as having more physical cores. It is, however, a great feature that speeds up CPUs while keeping manufacturing costs down.
Any task you do on your PC, like checking your email, requires your CPU to process a set of instructions.
A normal single CPU core can process one instruction at a time. Even when a CPU can process millions of instructions per second, this takes time.
But the instructions aren’t all the same. different instructions are processed by different parts of the CPU core.
This is where Hyper-Threading and Simultaneous MultiThreading come into play. With HT and SMT, Windows sees two CPU cores. These are virtual cores, designed to be seen by the operating system individually like physical cores. This allows various operations to be broken down into smaller parts and have those processes carried out more efficiently by the CPU core. As long as the core is not using the same data for each task, that information can be split up, queued and then processed quickly by using HT/SMT technology. Code optimized for SMT can run up to twice as fast as on a normal CPU core. Un-optimized code may not be any faster, and can even be slightly slower.
In fact, that’s the analogy Intel uses in this simple overview of the potential benefits for Hyper-Threading: (from Intel’s article here)
Yes. However, software has to be properly optimized to take advantage of HT/SMT. At a fundamental level, HT/SMT is not as powerful as having more physical cores, because only part of the core is duplicated. Since only part of the core is duplicated, SMT is cheaper than adding the equivalent number of CPU cores, allowing lower prices. For example, assuming per-core speeds are the same, A 4 core CPU with SMT (8 threads) can perform equal to 4 core CPU without SMT, or up to about 90% of the speed of an 8 core CPU without SMT.
Right now, only the new i7 chips come with Hyper-Threading. The new i7-8700K has upgraded to 6 physical cores, each with two logical CPUs for a total of 12 threads. The previous i7-7700K had only 4 cores and 8 threads.
The i5 chips have upgraded from 4 to 6 physical cores and have a total of 6 threads (one per core) because they lack Hyper-Threading. Previous i5 chips had 4 cores, but also lacked Hyper-Threading.
AMD’s new Zen architecture is AMD’s first to feature Simultaneous MultiThreading, which is featured in their Ryzen 5, Ryzen 7 and Threadripper CPUs. The appropriately named Threadripper 1950X features a staggering 16 physical cores and 32 threads.
AMD’s entry-level A-Series and new generation Athlon CPUs are based on older architecture and do not feature SMT.
HT/SMT is great, but having more physical cores is better than having HT/SMT. So, if choosing between two CPUs of similar price, pick the one with more physical cores. If it happens to have HT/SMT, that’s a nice bonus.
Guides to the best PC builds for any budget at logicalincrements.com. Have a question or want to share your build? Email us: contact@logicalincrements.com
I hope you did not miss nVidia’s conference yesterday! Lots of tech/game demos were shown, and lots and LOTS of fancy words (two hours worth) were used to tell us that nVidia is launching the new RTX series of cards.
nVidia is adding higher ray-tracing capabilities in its new cards. And what is ray-tracing? It is a rendering technique that allows for more realistic lighting, reflections, and shadows. Unfortunately, while nVidia did show us a lot of cool ray-tracing demos, we do not know how much of a performance impact ray-tracing has.
Remember PhysX and HairWorks? They both looked cool, but the performance drop can be unacceptable. nVidia also did not compare normal performance of the new cards vs the old cards, and opted instead to only compare “ray-tracing performance”.
Pre-orders for the new cards are available now, but you may want to wait for proper third party reviews first. The new cards are expected to launch on the 20th of September, with the RTX 2070 delayed to October.
If the new cards are good (and they should be), and if cryptominers allow it, we will be adding these new cards once they become available for purchase.
Time for a quick update on the progress towards full and real ‘open data’ in public services and in businesses.
We did get some correspondence from a reader who thought that we ought to be more precise grammatically about data. It is a plural word, so we should say, ‘data are more accessible than ever …’ and ‘data are exploding with total global volume predicted to reach 6.6 zettabytes (that’s apparently 10 to the power of 21 bytes) by the end of this decade.
We discussed open data as opposed to big data in February, Open Data Is Bigger Than Big Data Once It’s Released.
In that blog we reported that Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the free world wide web, was suggesting that companies, governments, organisations and individuals should open up their data. Machines can run ever more complex data on both sides of any interaction, business, logistical or personal. ‘Machines will do it far more efficiently than humans.’
It was and is, the internet of things, ‘where inanimate objects are online communicating with each other and performing tasks that humans consider too mundane.’ He believes there is a battle of mindsets in people, but once they have got the open data bug they realise the benefits of ‘performing a service to the country.’
So, no more concerns about privacy, confidentiality and commercial angles for a greater good, both altruistic and commercial.
Sophie Curtis debated the issue in the Daily Telegraph (June 2014) and cited the Department for Education publishing open data about schools’ performance which allows ‘companies to create league tables and citizens can find the best-performing schools in their catchment area.’
There have been league tables and copious quantities of data in the past and since Ofsted arrived, they have made public loads of it. The point is now that people can draw their own conclusions from public data, that information can now be tailored without losing credibility.
She said that since January 2010, some 14,500 UK government data sets have been released. These have ‘created new opportunities for organisations to build innovative digital services’.
Sir Nigel Shadbolt of the ODI told Curtis, ‘the whole move in the 21st century to a data-driven economy means that countries need a data infrastructure that is fit for purpose and a good part of that infrastructure is going to be open data.’
Just one project as an example – the use of branded statins over cheaper generic versions – is thought to have saved the NHS £200m a year. And that is just a start.
Obviously this is not about compromising the privacy of people’s personal data that could lead to crime against them or unacceptable loss of privacy, but it is about harnessing better the plethora of data to benefit us all.
Start up companies dealing in high-tech carbon metering/monitoring and in energy consumption are areas ripe to analyse data and come up with eye-watering savings.
In every area which is regarded as ‘public’, there are potential savings and opportunities for private sector businesses to take advantage, crunch the stats themselves and generate new revenue.
In short, there are no areas of service delivery which cannot be improved from basic timetables, instructions, monitoring right up to complex systems involving millions (of pounds and lives).
If any government can crack this and prove it is really open for open business the potential is massive in tax gains, jobs, expansion and quality of life.
What’s the Chatter About E-Government and Progress Towards Real Effectiveness and Efficiency in Public Services? 16 October 2013
Signup for a MailBigFile Pro account today and we will donate 100% of your fee to the Royal British Legion Poppy Ap… https://t.co/jA9yjvXuvT, Nov 9
Operations are all the systems and process that help you deliver your product or service; this might be how you manufacture and deliver goods, how you organise work flow, how you run projects from start to completion, or how you process invoices. They are all the things you do on a repeat basis that make your business run.
To work at their best they need to be efficient and effective - ensuring your product is delivered to the best of your ability using the fewest resources.
A system is efficient when it takes the least time, using the least resources i.e. money, man-hours, raw materials. This means it should be as simple and streamlined as possible. Unnecessary parts or actions should be left out, reducing clutter and taking the fastest route to the end result, freeing time for other work.
A system is effective when it achieves the right end result - there is no purpose being efficient producing something that misses the mark. This is like speeding along in the wrong direction. It needs to be an amazing journey - but in the right direction.
It also needs to be achieved consistently and with least risk. Correcting errors is a costly exercise in any business. And we clearly need to consider and mitigate any serious risks.
If we were to travel from London to Edinburgh, we first need to consider "Why Edinburgh - will it really give us what we want?" If we want a sunny beach holiday this is clearly the wrong place!
Having established it's the right destination, i.e. effective in us getting what we want, we now need to consider how to get there. What method of travel will be most efficient? If we then decided to travel by car, we must be efficient in our route, hours travelled and fuel used.