Thursday, November 14, 2002
Hyperthreaded Desktop CPU Delivers Mixed Results
Posted by Jason Dunn in "OFF-TOPIC" @ 08:23 PM
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,106898,tk,dn111402X,00.asp
Gosh - and here I was hoping that hyperthreading would lure me into buying a faster Intel CPU...but I can't say that I'm really surprised. Intel has a habit of releasing a new CPU and having the performance truly suck. After further refinement, the performance will come. Shades of Xscale anyone? The problem with that is that while I can swap out a P4 on my desktop, you can't do that on your Pocket PC.
"Tests on three of the first systems to use the new chip indicate that hyperthreading's benefits are largely application- or even task-specific. For example, on the office applications most people use, such as Microsoft's Word and Excel, hyperthreading's impact was neutral or slightly negative. Even on specialized tests designed to highlight the benefits of hyperthreading, most improvements are negligible. Exceptions are select filters in Photoshop, some aspects of video and photo programs like Premiere and VideoWave, and certain multitasking tests.
PC World's results also show that a PC equipped with AMD's Athlon XP 2800+ CPU, which runs at 2.25 GHz, more than held its own against these 3-GHz systems running 800 MHz faster. Hyperthreading is still new, however, and Intel says you should see improvements as developers modify their applications to take better advantage of the technology."
Gosh - and here I was hoping that hyperthreading would lure me into buying a faster Intel CPU...but I can't say that I'm really surprised. Intel has a habit of releasing a new CPU and having the performance truly suck. After further refinement, the performance will come. Shades of Xscale anyone? The problem with that is that while I can swap out a P4 on my desktop, you can't do that on your Pocket PC.
"Tests on three of the first systems to use the new chip indicate that hyperthreading's benefits are largely application- or even task-specific. For example, on the office applications most people use, such as Microsoft's Word and Excel, hyperthreading's impact was neutral or slightly negative. Even on specialized tests designed to highlight the benefits of hyperthreading, most improvements are negligible. Exceptions are select filters in Photoshop, some aspects of video and photo programs like Premiere and VideoWave, and certain multitasking tests.
PC World's results also show that a PC equipped with AMD's Athlon XP 2800+ CPU, which runs at 2.25 GHz, more than held its own against these 3-GHz systems running 800 MHz faster. Hyperthreading is still new, however, and Intel says you should see improvements as developers modify their applications to take better advantage of the technology."
