hyperthreading on dual xeon machine

[Matthew]

I have a dual xeon 2.8 GHz machine running Windows XP& Visual
Studio/web browsing. Am I likely to see

(a) speedup
(b) slowdown
(c) no noticeable difference

using hyperthreading. It's cool to see four processors in task
manager, but I wonder if it is making any difference to my day-to-day
work.

Your feedback would be appreciated.

 

[Never anonymous Bud]

Having skipped an E.L.F. meeting to be here, (e-mail address removed) (Matthew)
scribbled:

I have a dual xeon 2.8 GHz machine running Windows XP& Visual
Studio/web browsing. Am I likely to see

(a) speedup
(b) slowdown
(c) no noticeable difference

using hyperthreading. It's cool to see four processors in task
manager, but I wonder if it is making any difference to my day-to-day
work.

Your feedback would be appreciated.

C, no difference. WinXP won't allow 4 CPUs.






To reply by email, remove the XYZ.

Lumber Cartel (tinlc) #2063. Spam this account at your own risk.

It's your SIG, say what you want to say....

 

[masterprometheus]

Having skipped an E.L.F. meeting to be here, (e-mail address removed) (Matthew)

C, no difference. WinXP won't allow 4 CPUs.

It does with 4 logical CPUs.

Regards
MP

 

[masterprometheus]

I have a dual xeon 2.8 GHz machine running Windows XP& Visual
Studio/web browsing. Am I likely to see

(a) speedup
(b) slowdown
(c) no noticeable difference

using hyperthreading. It's cool to see four processors in task
manager, but I wonder if it is making any difference to my day-to-day
work.

Your feedback would be appreciated.

Maybe it will maybe it won't make a difference but XP Pro can utilize 2 HT
processors without problem so yes, enable HT.

Regards
MP

 

[daytripper]

Having skipped an E.L.F. meeting to be here, (e-mail address removed) (Matthew)
scribbled:


C, no difference. WinXP won't allow 4 CPUs.

The Pro version certainly does...

/daytripper (driving dual Prestonias with XP Pro)

 

[Tony Hill]

I have a dual xeon 2.8 GHz machine running Windows XP& Visual
Studio/web browsing. Am I likely to see

(a) speedup
(b) slowdown
(c) no noticeable difference

using hyperthreading. It's cool to see four processors in task
manager, but I wonder if it is making any difference to my day-to-day
work.

Considering you already have a dual-processor system, and therefore
have a spare processor sitting around to handle background tasks while
you work on something else, my guess is that you won't notice much of
a difference.

That being said, the odd application may take advantage of it, and
it's highly unlikely that you'll notice any slowdowns, so on the whole
I would guess that it would be beneficial, just probably not as
beneficial for you as it might be in some other situations (ie
single-processor workstations or servers running many threads).

 

[Colon Terminus]

Hi Matthew,

XP, Home or Pro, can utilize only two processors ... logical or physical, still only two. I suspect that you'd see no difference, or
possibly even a slowdown with HTT enabled. Disable HTT. Then you can be confident that XP is using each physical processor and not
some physical/logical processor combination.

People who tell you that XP can handle more than two physical/logical processors just simply don't have the faintest idea of what
they're talking about.

 

[Triffid]

Hi Matthew,

XP, Home or Pro, can utilize only two processors ... logical or physical, still only two. I suspect that you'd see no difference, or
possibly even a slowdown with HTT enabled. Disable HTT. Then you can be confident that XP is using each physical processor and not
some physical/logical processor combination.

People who tell you that XP can handle more than two physical/logical processors just simply don't have the faintest idea of what
they're talking about.

I see. So the OP was hallucinating when he saw four processors in task
manager?

 

[Evgenij Barsukov]

Hi Matthew,

XP, Home or Pro, can utilize only two processors ... logical or physical, still only two. I suspect that you'd see no difference, or
possibly even a slowdown with HTT enabled. Disable HTT. Then you can be confident that XP is using each physical processor and not
some physical/logical processor combination.

People who tell you that XP can handle more than two physical/logical processors just simply don't have the faintest idea of what
they're talking about.

Well, it is in accordance with MS datasheets. Certainly, people who wrote them have not idea
what they are talking about.

XP Home can handle 1 physical processors or 1 hyper-threaded processors (2 logical)
XP Pro can handle 2 physical processors ar 2 hyper-threaded (4 logical)
XP Server can handle 4 physical processors...

Regards,
Evgenij

--

__________________________________________________
*science&fiction*free programs*fine art*phylosophy:
http://sudy_zhenja.tripod.com
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[masterprometheus]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Colon Terminus" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.win2000.hardware,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003 6:07 AM
Subject: Re: hyperthreading on dual xeon machine

Hi Matthew,

XP, Home or Pro, can utilize only two processors ... logical or
physical,still only two.

No XP Home cannot use two physical processors. But it supports HT
technologyso it can differentiate between a physical and a logical CPU. So
it will see them when there are two logical CPUs.

XP Pro support dual processor systems and also support HTT. So in case you
have 2 CPUs in the system (with HTT), it will be seeing 4 logical CPUs.

I suspect that you'd see no difference, or
possibly even a slowdown with HTT enabled.

No it won't be slower. But as the OP has a dual-CPU system i don't expect
too much from HT.

Disable HTT. Then you can be confident that XP is using each >physical processor and not
some physical/logical processor combination.

No need to disable it. As he saw 4 processors he has XP PRO.

People who tell you that XP can handle more than two
physical/logicalprocessors just simply don't have the faintest idea >of

what they're talkingabout.

Ah, those guys from MS and Intel, they don't know what they are talking
about.


Regards
MP

 

[daytripper]

Colon Terminus gifted one and all with a demonstration of his superior knowledge and insight by writing:

Hi Matthew,

XP, Home or Pro, can utilize only two processors ... logical or physical, still only two. I suspect that you'd see no difference, or
possibly even a slowdown with HTT enabled. Disable HTT. Then you can be confident that XP is using each physical processor and not
some physical/logical processor combination.

People who tell you that XP can handle more than two physical/logical processors just simply don't have the faintest idea of what
they're talking about.

[..../]
Irony Meter

 

[Douglas Bollinger]

On Fri, 14 Nov 2003 21:32:43 +0200, masterprometheus wrote:

No it won't be slower. But as the OP has a dual-CPU system i don't expect
too much from HT.

It depends. For the distributed computing project folding at home, one of
my teammates uses a dual-Xenon and he reports a 15-20% increase in his
points with HT enabled. So with this cpu-intensive task HT helps a good
bit.

 

[masterprometheus]

On Fri, 14 Nov 2003 21:32:43 +0200, masterprometheus wrote:



It depends. For the distributed computing project folding at home, one of
my teammates uses a dual-Xenon and he reports a 15-20% increase in his
points with HT enabled. So with this cpu-intensive task HT helps a good
bit.

Possible and thanks for feedback. So enabling it seems a good idea.

Regards
MP

 

[Gary Smith]

I have a dual xeon 2.8 GHz machine running Windows XP& Visual
Studio/web browsing. Am I likely to see

(a) speedup
(b) slowdown
(c) no noticeable difference

using hyperthreading. It's cool to see four processors in task
manager, but I wonder if it is making any difference to my day-to-day
work.

Your feedback would be appreciated.

Visual Studio... If you ever do threading then you might... We use
some threading on a VB.Net probject and the performance was literally
trippled by adding a second processor (giving time back to the sys).
Splitting it up a little more might help as many tasks wait for
processor time. 4 slower processors can and will outperform two
processors. It just depends what the app is that's running.

Otherwise it's just a computer.

Not sure if it helps but...

Gary