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Untitled Document
Hyper-Threading
Hyper-Threading is Intel's latest performance technology, and it is intended
to simulate a dual processor system to give better multitasking performance.
But does it have any benefits? This is a good question, and since the D865PERL
motherboard has an option to disable Hyper-Threading, we can find out. I used
SiSoft Sandra 2003 for some raw CPU benchmarks. With Hyper-Threading turned
off, Sandra got very confused, and recognised the CPU as a dual CPU system.
The results it gave were a fraction of the results achieved with Hyper-Threading,
and the Multimedia benchmark ran without displaying the fractal patterns on
the screen as it normally does. This must be a bug in Sandra, and so I have
not included the results in this review. 3dmark however, shows a noticeable
improvement in performance with Hyper-Threading turned off. SYSmark, which runs
several processes at once, shows a drop in performance when Hyper-Threading
is turned off.
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SYSmark 2002 P4 3.2ghz
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Internet Content Creation
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Office Productivity
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HT on
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423
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173
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HT off
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397
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166
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3d Mark 2001se P4 3.2ghz Radeon 8500
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1024x768
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1280x1024
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HT on
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10479
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7726
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HT off
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10601
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7943
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So it seems that Hyper-Threading does make the system behave
like a dual processor system, with better multitasking at the cost of single
processes running slower. Obviously, this is not a good thing for the gamer,
or anyone who uses just one CPU hogging application all the time, but does
have a benefit for office and workstation use, as the Sysmark results show.
If all motherboards have the option to turn it on and off, then it is definitely
a good thing. It is a pity that it cant be automatically turned on and off
as necessary on the fly. Perhaps the next generation of Pentium 4 motherboards
will be able to do this? We shall have to wait and see.
Overclocking
Since I am testing this chip on an Intel built board, my overclocking options are limited to say the least. All I have is multiplier adjustments, and some burn in mode options to up the FSB by 1%, 2%, 3% and 4%. The next multiplier up would give 3.4ghz. needless to say, it didn't boot. It only lasted a few seconds before crashing with the +4% burn in option enabled, which gives a 3328mhz clock. It ran quite happily with the burn in option set to +3%, which gives a 3296mhz clock. It is quite normal for a top of the range chip to be a bad overclocker, as they are already the best chips out of the batch. A stable 3.4 might be achievable on a motherboard with voltage options.
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