What is Hyper-threading? How and when to enable it?

Hello guyss

Many people nowadays seems unaware of the popular technology introduced by Intel some years back. Instead having many advantages of Hyper-threading, to many it seems like a waste. Lets discuss why later in the article, firstly

• What is Hyper-threading?

Hyper-threading(or HT or HTT) is a emerging technology introduced and developed by Intel in early 21st century to make a single physical to work as a double logical cores(Logical cores are the abilities of a single core to do dual core work simultaneously) or can be said that a single core can do the work of double cores. Unlike a traditional dual core processor that have two separate physical cores this gives HT enabled processors advantage to make a single core like dual core and share the workload between a single core just like there are two cores. 

• Difference between hyper-threading and Multi-core processors

Suppose you have a Intel i3-2100 processor having 2 physical cores with Hyper-threading enabled and on the other hand you have Intel Quad-core i5 4440 with no hyper-threading available. Since your i3-2100 will have 4 logical cores(because of hyper-threading) and your quad core i5 4440 have 4 physical cores which has no support to hyper-threading. Now the difference you will notice is-      

• Instead having 4 logical cores there will not be much satisfaction of having 4 cores because load of a core is increased to 2 times. while your quad core processor has all physical 4 cores no core is forced to work twice, you will notice all the key features that a quad core should have with Quad core i5-4440, while your i3-2100 will produce lags as compared to quad core.

• Advantages of Hyper-threading

1. Hyper-threading enabled processors will provide users up to 30% enhanced performance.
2. According to Tom's hardware some P4 running at 3.0 with HT can even beat Pentium 4 processors running at 3.6 GHz without HT.
3. It improves overall latency.
4. Hyper-threading enabled processors take 5% more area than non Hyper-threading processors but result in enhancing performance of 15-30%.

• Drawbacks of Hyper-threading

1.   Enabling hyper-threading will not give user the experience of actual physical cores.
2. An OS unaware of hyper-threading will treat each logical processor the same, possibly putting demanding workloads on logical processors within the same core -- possibly resulting in poor performance for those applications -- while other cores may be underutilized. By comparison, an HT-aware OS can schedule threads on different processors and spread out the work to maximize workload performance on the system.

• When to Enable Hyper-threading

 Operations where tasks have to be done in serial, or where one operation has to take place before another can begin, generally don't benefit from Hyper-Threading. Whether you have a single core or a quad core, Hyper-Threading can optimize tasks that can be conducted in parallel so the whole operation is faster—but it's not the same as or even similar to increasing your number of processing cores. It does come with downsides (heat output and power consumption, for example), but the benefits usually outweigh them.

• How to enable Hyper-threading

Hyper-threading enabled processors can be easily enabled with HT in BIOS setting. Just you need to "ENABLE" Hyper-Threading.

Note: Some manufactures may name it as "Logical Cores" while some call it as "Hyper-threading". Both are same.

Hope this article cleared your confusion about Hyper-threading i recommend to enable Hyper-threading if you daily deal with Photo-editing or gaming. Basic functions doesn't really lag if you have hyper-threading enabled or not. Enjoy learning.
Cheers :)