If I disable hyperthreading on an i7, will it behave like an i5?

[Myth[Alex]]

First of all: I'm planning to buy a new PC (mainly for gaming). I wanted first an i5 4670, but then I changed my mind to an i7 4770. Why? Because games will start using 8 threads (with Watch_Dogs which is coming in 2 months; check its recommended CPU on Steam store). Also, new consoles have 8 cores (yeah, weak) So game devs will work & build games with 8 cores in mind (for consoles and PC).

Then I looked at CPU comparison - i5 vs i7 - and in single-threaded applications (and games), the i7 has negative performance (also, less FPS on some games).

And I searched if hyperthreading can be disabled. IT CAN (from the bios; it's simple).

And here we return to my main question[/u]: If I disable hyperthreading on i7, will it behave like an i5? (performance for single-threaded applications and games = the same as the i5 can give)

How I plan using the i7 if disabling hyperthreading makes it behave like an i5: I'll keep HT (hyperthreading) disabled all the time, except for the (future) games which will require 8 threads :-) Like Watch_Dogs, The Witcher 3, almost all games which will be next-gen only (PS4, Xbox One and PC).

NOTE: I don't care about ~70-80+ euros for the i7. I have the money.

Well? (Please give me an answer if you're 100% sure about it. Not speculations)

Thank you in advance.

[time goblin]

at the same clocks it would perform better than the i5, it has a larger cache.

[Azza ☠]

Yes, it's entirely possible and some people do this due to considering some games have better performance with it disabled. However, honestly you won't see that much difference now and it's best to keep it enabled for the OS backend work. Even the old WinXP is aware of hyperthreading and would put it to some good use with multi-tasking.

Only a very few older games have shown higher performance when HT is off, usually however when HT is off you also get a drop in temperatures by a few degress, which is ideal for overclockers, however useless compared to a drop of 10 degrees by just replacing the standard CPU grease with Arctic Silver 5, etc.

These days there is little or no reason to disable it. Unless you are having overclock or heat issues, leave it on, much more applications and the OS will benefit from it vs a few games losing out on just a very tiny performance increase.

[Myth[Alex]]

Originally posted by time goblin:

at the same clocks it would perform better than the i5, it has a larger cache.

Well, I didn't specify any overclock. So yeah, the stock models :-) Thank you

Originally posted by Azza ☠:

Yes, it's entirely possible and some people do this due to considering some games work better with it disabled. However, honestly you won't see that much difference and it's best to keep it enabled for the OS backend work. Even the old WinXP is aware of hyperthreading and would put it to some good use with multi-tasking.

Only a very few older games have shown higher performance when HT is off, usually however when HT is off you also get a drop in temperatures by a few degress, which is ideal for overclockers, however useless compared to a drop of 10 degrees by just replacing the standard CPU grease with Arctic Silver 5, etc.

These days there is little or no reason to disable it. Unless you are having overclock or heat issues, leave it on, much more applications and the OS will benifit from it vs a few games losing out on just a very tiny performance increase.

Thank you :D

I see. Also, I don't plan overclocking it (I'll get the 4770 model, not 4770k one). I don't think games really need OC CPUs, especially if you have a high-end one, like i7 (on which all games should have superior fps). Am I right? Also, I don't need more than 60 fps, at 1920*1080 :-)

I forgot about multi-tasking, yeah. HT technology is really good for it. Then I'll keep HT enabled almost all the time, except for games older than 2013 :-)

[time goblin]

its up to you overclocking is actually pretty fun, and does nothing bad for the cpu in the long run ( if you can cool it properly). it also depends on your gpu too, if you were to use more than 2 decent gpus like 780/290 then overclocking would be needed.

[Azza ☠]

Overclocking next gen PCs (3rd Gen Ivy Bridge or better) is a waste of cash and time, it's just for power users who want to show off or have fun with it. If you wish to overclock use a Sandy Bridge which can handle higher temperatures and therefore overclock more than an Ivy. Belong that CPUs have been greatly reduced in size, compressed with smaller technology, lower voltage, and therefore you see less in overclocking performance. You are actually more just increasing heat and shortening lifespan, compared to getting a few noticable FPS. However, it's not even required.

Yes, you are correct in the fact that you will already can be easily running at 60fps+ minimum with ultra settings on a resolutions at 1920x1080 (1080p) using a GTX 680 or better graphics card. The overclocking won't show any noticable performance gain, only higher benchmark results.

Optimal memory for gaming performance to cost is just at 1600MHz CL9 timing DDR3 RAM. You can only gain 1% performance increase above this point, so 1866MHz CL9 or 1600MHz CL8 is the maximum noticable result. The motherboard will take care of the rest, with direct access inbetween CPU and memory processing as well as CPU and graphics processing. Getting extremely overclocked memory such as 2400MHz, normally also results in higher CL12 timing, meaning your actually slowing the system down.

Rather than overclock, it's best to check and reduce all system bottlenecks instead, resulting in an all around noticable performance increase and stability.

[T3CHSK4T3R]

xeon e3 1230 v3 ftw!

[SilentHorizon]

It should behave like an i5, but it will be a tad faster, due to the high cache and also higher stock clock speeds.

But why disable hyper-threading?

[Bad 💀 Motha]

For gaming purposes...

Disable Hyper-Threading, SpeedStep, and Turbo in the BIOS.
You not gonna need HT for games really. If you have i7 then u will have plenty of CPU power, even with HT left off all the time. And you won't need Turbo mode, just OC to at least what the Turbo speed is for your CPU. However if u want to go beyond the rated Turbo speed, I suggest ditching the stock Intel cooler and install a 3rd party one. A very decent and effective cooler that is low priced would be ones like Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO or Hyper T4. Both are very good at under $35 USD.

If you use Win7 still, then disable core parking in the registry (no need to do this in Win8/8.1). This can slightly boost overall performance for the entire system. Another small but helpful performance factor is keeping your Intel Chipset Drivers up to date. Everything has to pass through the motherboard chipset, from USB, SATA, PCI, PCIE, etc... So this does help too.

And be sure to set the Windows Power Profile to High Performance.
NVIDIA CP and AMD Catalyst GPU software should have a similar power management setting of their own as well. Make sure it is set to Max Performance.

If you use a gaming laptop w/ Intel CPU, you can apply the same. However if u sometimes like to run off battery, u might want to switch the power profiles back to Balanced or Power Saver, as a means to help lengthen your available battery runtime. But on AC Power, especially for gaming purposes, it really helps to have everything setup for Max Performance. If your laptop's Intel CPU only has 2 cores/4 threads, leave HT enabled.

SSDs are more affordable now and u don't need a large one.
Use an SSD as the primary OS drive. Even with games installed to a secondary HDD, everything will still have faster load times and the OS will be very snappy and responsive.

SSDs such as Samsung 840 EVO can be had for around; $90 for 120GB; $140 for 250GB

If you buy a gaming laptop and on a tigher budget, get the SSD afterwards, swap out for the HDD it came with, clean install OS to the SSD. Leave the OS on the HDD for a backup purpose (as u could boot to that if u run into problems). Then get an external USB 3.0 enclosure made for 2.5" drives and install the laptop's original HDD into that. Run the OS and frequent apps off the SSD. For things like Games, install those to the HDD.

[76561198001357399]

Many wrong statements.

A good 80% of games run off two cores these days, let alone 4/8. They're not just going to buff games up so they only run on 8 cores in >year. Look at BF4, the game everyone thinks needs a hexacore to run, yet it sees no FPS drop when 4 cores are disabled...

If you are going by your logic that the devs are going to optimise games for 8 cores, why are you getting a quad core and not a 4960x? Cores are not threads, threads effective simulate more cores or give you "fake" cores.

Watch Dogs specs are exaggerated, there's no way an I7 is required. It's like food go-off dates; they're always way under the actual time the food goes off, because they want to make sure no one sues the company for eating rotten food.

Core clock speeds really matter- you can gain 10 FPS sometimes from 3.6-4.8GHz. And that could indeed make a difference if you're getting a choppy 50. So yeah...

And then you're going to disable HT essentially making it an I5? Every time you want to play one of these demanding games or whatever you're going to have to go back into the BIOS and enable it...

The graphics card is the most important part of a gaming PC, 1000s of people forget that.

EDIT: And to anyone who thinks overclocking shortens the life of the CPU, it does so to the extent that a 4.8GHz overclock will still last 10+ years under adequate cooling, which by then you would've upgraded anyway...

[Myth[Alex]]

Originally posted by Azza ☠:

Overclocking next gen PCs (3rd Gen Ivy Bridge or better) is a waste of cash and time, it's just for power users who want to show off or have fun with it. If you wish to overclock use a Sandy Bridge which can handle higher temperatures and therefore overclock more than an Ivy. Belong that CPUs have been greatly reduced in size, compressed with smaller technology, lower voltage, and therefore you see less in overclocking performance. You are actually more just increasing heat and shortening lifespan, compared to getting a few noticable FPS. However, it's not even required.

Yes, you are correct in the fact that you will already can be easily running at 60fps+ minimum with ultra settings on a resolutions at 1920x1080 (1080p) using a GTX 680 or better graphics card. The overclocking won't show any noticable performance gain, only higher benchmark results.

Optimal memory for gaming performance to cost is just at 1600MHz CL9 timing DDR3 RAM. You can only gain 1% performance increase above this point, so 1866MHz CL9 or 1600MHz CL8 is the maximum noticable result. The motherboard will take care of the rest, with direct access inbetween CPU and memory processing as well as CPU and graphics processing. Getting extremely overclocked memory such as 2400MHz, normally also results in higher CL12 timing, meaning your actually slowing the system down.

Rather than overclock, it's best to check and reduce all system bottlenecks instead, resulting in an all around noticable performance increase and stability.

> I see

> yeap; I don't need overclocking

> I see

> What system bottlenecks? Can you give me some examples?

Originally posted by Bad-Motha:

For gaming purposes...

Disable Hyper-Threading, SpeedStep, and Turbo in the BIOS.
You not gonna need HT for games really. If you have i7 then u will have plenty of CPU power, even with HT left off all the time. And you won't need Turbo mode, just OC to at least what the Turbo speed is for your CPU. However if u want to go beyond the rated Turbo speed, I suggest ditching the stock Intel cooler and install a 3rd party one. A very decent and effective cooler that is low priced would be ones like Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO or Hyper T4. Both are very good at under $35 USD.

If you use Win7 still, then disable core parking in the registry (no need to do this in Win8/8.1). This can slightly boost overall performance for the entire system. Another small but helpful performance factor is keeping your Intel Chipset Drivers up to date. Everything has to pass through the motherboard chipset, from USB, SATA, PCI, PCIE, etc... So this does help too.

And be sure to set the Windows Power Profile to High Performance.
NVIDIA CP and AMD Catalyst GPU software should have a similar power management setting of their own as well. Make sure it is set to Max Performance.

If you use a gaming laptop w/ Intel CPU, you can apply the same. However if u sometimes like to run off battery, u might want to switch the power profiles back to Balanced or Power Saver, as a means to help lengthen your available battery runtime. But on AC Power, especially for gaming purposes, it really helps to have everything setup for Max Performance. If your laptop's Intel CPU only has 2 cores/4 threads, leave HT enabled.

SSDs are more affordable now and u don't need a large one.
Use an SSD as the primary OS drive. Even with games installed to a secondary HDD, everything will still have faster load times and the OS will be very snappy and responsive.

SSDs such as Samsung 840 EVO can be had for around; $90 for 120GB; $140 for 250GB

If you buy a gaming laptop and on a tigher budget, get the SSD afterwards, swap out for the HDD it came with, clean install OS to the SSD. Leave the OS on the HDD for a backup purpose (as u could boot to that if u run into problems). Then get an external USB 3.0 enclosure made for 2.5" drives and install the laptop's original HDD into that. Run the OS and frequent apps off the SSD. For things like Games, install those to the HDD.

Wow... slow down there. I don't have enough hardware knowledge. You have to explain me better:

> What is SpeedStep? How does it work? Why should I disable it?
> Why disabling Turbo? It doesn't work in demanding games (doesn't it raise the CPU's frequency up to 3,8-3,9) ?? You have to explain me.

> Well, yes. I still use Win 7 and I won't install 8 (Don't ask me why; Don't tell me why 8 is better; I don't need that information). But is disabling core parking safe? I heard that it can make the system unstable + temperature raised + very minor boost performance on games, lol (So I see no advantage in disabling core parking).... -_- Well? Explain me what are the exact pros and cons of this.
> How can I keep my Intel Chipset Drivers up to date? You have to explain me.
> What do you mean by this: "Everything has to pass through the motherboard chipset, from USB, SATA, PCI, PCIE" ??? I don't understand. Explain me, please. (I told you above I don't have hardware knowledge)

> Yes, I already have Windows Power options set to High Performance.
> As for the graphics' card control panel, I really don't understand how to set it. You have to explain me. At my current GPU (it's from AMD), I have Optimal performance; High performance; Balanced; High Quality; Optimal Quality. Which one gives me the best visual experience? Isn't it High Quality? :-\ You said "performance".... ugh.... :-\ Also, how are those settings at nVidia (I'll purchase an nvidia gpu)? Thank you in advance.

> I don't use / won't use a laptop. But thank you for the information.

> Yes, I know about SSDs. I plan buying a 120 GB one for the system.

> Not buying gaming laptop. But thanks for the information.

Waiting for your reply.

Originally posted by Tris125's Laptop:

Many wrong statements.

A good 80% of games run off two cores these days, let alone 4/8. They're not just going to buff games up so they only run on 8 cores in >year. Look at BF4, the game everyone thinks needs a hexacore to run, yet it sees no FPS drop when 4 cores are disabled...

If you are going by your logic that the devs are going to optimise games for 8 cores, why are you getting a quad core and not a 4960x? Cores are not threads, threads effective simulate more cores or give you "fake" cores.

Watch Dogs specs are exaggerated, there's no way an I7 is required. It's like food go-off dates; they're always way under the actual time the food goes off, because they want to make sure no one sues the company for eating rotten food.

Core clock speeds really matter- you can gain 10 FPS sometimes from 3.6-4.8GHz. And that could indeed make a difference if you're getting a choppy 50. So yeah...

And then you're going to disable HT essentially making it an I5? Every time you want to play one of these demanding games or whatever you're going to have to go back into the BIOS and enable it...

The graphics card is the most important part of a gaming PC, 1000s of people forget that.

EDIT: And to anyone who thinks overclocking shortens the life of the CPU, it does so to the extent that a 4.8GHz overclock will still last 10+ years under adequate cooling, which by then you would've upgraded anyway...

> I see. But I think games WILL START using 8 cores (or threads). The first is Watch_Dogs. So I'll get an i7.

> Not enough money for that one.

> They may be exaggerated. Still, I think a CPU with 8 threads will help in up-coming games, which are designed with 8 cores in mind (new consoles have 8 cores).

> I don't care about ~10 fps boost if the average is around ~50. Also, no money for a good cooling system if I would overclock. Also, as I said above (and another user), I don't need overclocking to play games on high settings, at 1920*1080, at 60 fps.

> Yes

> I know that. I'll purchase a GTX 770 oc.

> Nope, thank you. No overclocking. It isn't needed. I'll purchase another PC in the future.

[Azza ☠]

Basically a system bottleneck can occur when a component of your PC is limited due to another...

This is what Intel did correctly and AMD failed at...

AMD spend all their time on the CPU, more powerful, more cores, more juice, etc!!! Multiple core applications and graphical calculations run great.

However, Intel went another direction, they saw that the CPU was already at max peak and therefore redesigned the motherboard for 2nd, 3rd and 4th Gen Intel PCs. This did mean you had to get a new motherboard with the CPU, but they now work more together. Direct CPU to memory processing as well as CPU to graphics processing. They reduced the bottlenecks of the motherboard which in turn slowed down the CPU no matter how overclocked and powerful it was. Therefore they gained 60-80% overall performance increase which is actually useful all a huge range of applications and games - not just a selected few. You also don't need the extremely overclocked memory for example as the motherboard takes care of the rest, etc.

So when building a PC, look for a even flow of components which work well with each other. You end up with a fast and more stable platform. It might not even hit the benchmark results like an overclocked system, but in a side-by-side compare you won't notice, except underneath it will be producing less heat, be more stable and have a longer lifespan.

For a i7 4770 CPU (Haswell).. get a quality gaming (Haswell) motherboard, such as from the G1 Sniper series or ASUS ROG (Republic of Gamers). This will give you a better layout, higher quality components and future upgrade possiblilities.

For DDR3, I would suggest sticking with 1.5 voltage at CL9 timing or lower. For example, Crucial Ballistix Elite 1866MHz CL9-9-9-24 1.5V would max out the system and remain very stable.

For the PSU, get a Seasonic X series, fully modular ATX 80PLUS Gold, with detactable cables.

You might notice I'm purchasing some overclocking components, as they are normally much higher quality (if you can get for a good price), but simply not overclocking them if I don't have to.

Then depending on what resolution you desired (1080p or higher?) you would pick the graphics card. GTX680 is ideal for ultra gaming at 1080p (GTX 770 would kill it!), GTX780 would however be more use for multi-monitors or 1440p resolutions and highers - else it's just a waste. Get a quality monitor to complement that graphics card is a better idea, <5ms response time rate, >60Hz refresh rate, focusing on the resolution you want with smoother results.

Now the bottleneck is the hard drive, for this suggest a Western Digital Black Edition with 64MB cache, on top of that have a small ~120GB SSD (Solid State Drive) as Intel Smart Response caching on the HDD or just for placing the Operating System and boot.

Basically all I'm saying is keep it balanced, you might not have the budget for all of that, but keep it in mind for future upgrades or simply going a bit lighter on one area of purchasing to even out another and making sure they are using their full potental.

[Myth[Alex]]

Bad-Motha, please respond to my reply! :-\

Originally posted by Azza ☠:

-snip-

Thank you very much.

I really don't know which components to get. I have a friend who knows how to build a PC & he will choose the components based on what I tell him (the cpu; gpu). I'll give him your suggestions.

Well, I'm looking for a 1080p monitor. I really don't know if there's a monitor with good, rich colors, good contrast, good visibility angles, and a small response time rate (under 5ms), at a cheaper price (~300 euros; maxim, 330) :-\ If you have any suggestions, please, tell me.

What do you mean by: "have a small ~120B SSD as Intel Smart Response caching on the HDD"? An SSD with that technology? or what? I planned getting a 2 TB HDD (for my files: movies; games, photos, all) and 120 GB SSD (just for the system).

[_I_]

intel smart responce caching will only work use upto a 64g ssd (beyond that will be unused)
it works by basically copying commonly used files to the ssd, for faster responce

getting a dedicated 120+240g ssd would be better since all common files used will be on the ssd, instead of just frequently used selected ones

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Originally posted by ☆MythAlex ツ:

Bad-Motha, PLEASE respond to my reply in my topic!!!

I friend u on my Steam. If want to ask questions, ask me in PM please.

[フリーレン]

Instead of turning Hyperthreading (HT) off, you may look into using Process Lasso to set CPU affinities such that game threads are set only to real cores.