Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 10:28:48 03/14/02
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On March 14, 2002 at 11:39:42, Vincent Diepeveen wrote: >On March 14, 2002 at 09:59:49, K. Burcham wrote: > >with all respect for intel, but hyperthreading for now is >a big hype which is going to speed us up 0.0000000000000 for computerchess. > >Even if you especially program for it. Processors are not complex enough >yet to take advantage of it. there is simply no room left for a second >thread which can use holes in the pipelines to fill itself. > >More interesting than hyper threading is when the McKinley is released. >Despite running on only 1 Ghz this is an interesting processor (if you >can use a big number of them with shared memory). Price i already >don't dare to ask for the McKinley, will be thousands of dollars >a thing. > >McKinley on paper probably is going to hyperthread too :) The "concept" of hyper-threading is quite sound. Just as the concept of multiple processes on a single cpu is sound, based on the idea that the cpu is far faster than the attached I/O devices, so that while one process is waiting on I/O, another can execute and keep the processor busy. Hyper-threading is just an extension of that based on the fact that memory speeds have not changed much in 25 years while processor speeds have been increasing like mad. The idea of one "thread" waiting on a memory read, allowing another thread (hopefully cache-resident) to execute makes sense in that context. in practice, at present, it doesn't particularly work that well. But as time goes on, with memory speeds staying constant and processor speeds getting faster each year, the idea will eventually pay off in a reasonable way. > >> >> >>(taken from Tom's site) >>"A few final thoughts on Intel's Hyperthreading technology, which virtually >>doubles the number of processors: when using typical applications that are >>optimized for dual processing, Hyperthreading brings no advantages with it. >>Rather, the overhead on data slows down the application. Only software that is >>specially adapted for Hyperthreading enables an increase in performance. In >>addition, when Hyperthreading is activated, the memory performance decreases >>drastically, which is partially reflected by the memory benchmark." >> >>Notice the four windows in the task manager with Hyper-Threading enabled in a >>dual processor system. Shows four processors. >> >>http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/02q1/0203131/dual-03.html >> >>makes you wonder what this will do with a chess smp program. >>kburcham
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