I have an Intel Xeon 3 gig CPU and have hyperthreading turned on in the BIOS. I've been trying to work out what the advantages and disadvantages of this are.
The CPU appears as two CPUs to the machine, which means that non-threaded apps don't appear to use the whole CPU. Is this a correct assumption? For example, using Devede to convert video, the transcode process only uses 50% of CPU in top. If I run another CPU-intensive process, the CPU usage in top goes close to 100%. So would I be correct in assuming that hyperthreading is useful for keeping the system responsive under load, but if running single-threaded CPU-intensive processes, it'll run faster without hyperthreading? This machine can actually take another CPU, but finding a suitable one and the matching fan and shroud (Dell) doesn't seem to be easy. -- Rev Simon Rumble <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> www.rumble.net The Tourist Engineer Just because you're on holiday, doesn't mean you're not a geek. http://engineer.openguides.org/ "When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me." - Emo Philips -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
