Win 2000 and P-IV HTT

[Mark Micallef]

I'm running Windows 2000 Pro SP4 on a 3.0 GHz Intel Pentium IV based
machine with HTT (Hyper-Threading Technology). This causes Windows to
treat my single CPU machine as a dual CPU machine.

So far so good, and the machine runs well, but I noticed on Intel's
website (http://www.intel.com/support/platform/ht/os.htm) that they
recommend DISABLING HTT when running on Windows 2000.

Does anyone know if this information is up to date?
What problems are associated with running 2000 SP4 in a HTT environment?
Will performance increase or decrease if I disable HTT in the BIOS?
What potential problems could occur if I now disable HTT on an already
installed OS?

Hope some wise person in here can point me in the right direction!

Cheers,
Mark

 

[Elijah Landreth [MSFT]]

Hyper-Threading Technology

Hyper-Threading Technology enables multi-threaded software applications to
execute threads in parallel. This level of threading technology has never
been seen before in a general-purpose microprocessor. Internet, e-Business,
and enterprise software applications continue to put higher demands on
processors. To improve performance in the past, threading was enabled in the
software by splitting instructions into multiple streams so that multiple
processors could act upon them. Today with Hyper-Threading Technology,
processor-level threading can be utilized which offers more efficient use of
processor resources for greater parallelism and improved performance on
today's multi-threaded software.

Hyper-Threading Technology provides thread-level-parallelism (TLP) on each
processor resulting in increased utilization of processor execution
resources. As a result, resource utilization yields higher processing
throughput. Hyper-Threading Technology is a form of simultaneous
multi-threading technology (SMT) where multiple threads of software
applications can be run simultaneously on one processor. This is achieved by
duplicating the architectural state on each processor, while sharing one set
of processor execution resources. Hyper-Threading Technology also delivers
faster response times for multi-tasking workload environments. By allowing
the processor to use on-die resources that would otherwise have been idle,
Hyper-Threading Technology provides a performance boost on multi-threading
and multi-tasking operations for the Intel NetBurst® microarchitecture.

This technology is largely invisible to the platform. In fact, many
applications are already multi-threaded and will automatically benefit from
this technology. However, multi-threaded applications take full advantage of
the increased performance that Hyper-Threading Technology has to offer,
allowing users will see immediate performance gains when multitasking.
Today's multi-processing aware software is also compatible with
Hyper-Threading Technology enabled platforms, but further performance gains
can be realized by specifically tuning software for Hyper-Threading
Technology. This technology complements traditional multi-processing by
providing additional headroom for future software optimizations and business
growth.

In Essence, it is recommended by Intel to disable hyper threading on these
OS's because the OS is not optimized for Hyperthreading like XP is.

--
Elijah Landreth [MSFT]
Enterprise Platform Support


This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Guest]

Hello

Firstly, does Microsoft have any plans to update the Windows 2000 Professional operating system to support these new Intel Hyper-Threading Processors for what they are (i.e 1 HT Processor instead of 2 physical processors) or do you need to upgrade to Windows XP to accomplish this?

Secondly, are there any issues related to the compatability and performance of Windows 2000 Professional when run on Intel's new Prescott Processors?

Thank you in advance.