Hyperthreading on the i7 2600K. Should I disable it?

Question

Most of my applications are single threaded, like Runescape, Minecraft and Minecraft Servers. I frequently check my Windows Task Manager to see how the CPU Usage is doing and under heavy loads I'm always at 100% on one of the threads.
Seeing how it's a quad-core CPU and it shows up with 8 threads in Windows Task Manager 1/7 maxxed out, would I be better off disabling hyperthreading to get 4 (possibly faster) threads?

Keep in mind this is strictly for SINGLE THREADED Applications, I don't want to hear about how it may reduce the performance of multithreaded apps because I do not have one on my computer that uses more than 2.

Answer 1

if you're right and the picture of the task manager shows the 2 threads of each core just side by side you could force the usage of the 2nd core by disabling hyperthreading. this also has another advantage that the heat is distributed in two different regions of the chip.



disable once the hyperthreading in BIOS and take again a picture of the task manager and put it in your question. i'm curious how it looks.



"So, one core is capable of running two different threads at a combined total of 6.8GHz?"

no, it doesn't work this way. hyperthreading just allows the execution of a 2nd thread on one core, the speed of the execution is not affected (in your case with the i7-2600K it remains on 3.4Ghz).

Answer 2

Disabling hyperthreading won't do anything... at all.



If a program is single threaded, it's going to use only one core/thread even if you have a multicore CPU. If you disable half of the cores in a multicore CPU, it's still going to use only one core. It won't make any difference. The CPU isn't splitting the frequency between all four core (8 threads), each core/thread can run at a maximum of 3.4GHz (not taking into account turbo boost here). You can disable three cores and seven threads, that single core/thread is going to run at a maximum of 3.4GHz. It won't "speed up" because it's the only enabled core.



You should have gone with the i5-2500. The i5-2500 would have better suited you.



You really have two options here.

1) Overclock it. Since you purchased a 2600K instead of a 2600, you should at least use that 'K'. The 'K' denotes an unlocked multiplier. Only the 2500K and 2600K have unlocked multipliers. If you had no plans of overclocking, you shouldn't have spent extra for the unlocked multiplier.



2) Sell it. You're not utilizing even a fraction of this fantastic processor's power. Sell it and get an i5-2500 or a higher-end i3. I'd say go with the i3, as it is hyper threaded, but is only dual core.



You said it yourself, you don't have any applications that will utilize more than two cores. Having a quad core is senseless.

Answer 3

Disabling HT won't "improve" performance in single-threaded applications. It isn't hindering performance. Hyperthreading is just 4 extra virtual cores. If it's a single-threaded application, you're only using 1 core anyway, so disabling your processor's 4 virtual cores (Hyperthreading) won't give you a boost in performance. The virtual cores naturally aren't being utilized in single-threaded apps anyway, so it's as if they're disabled already. If you wanted to keep Hyperthreading disabled, should've went with the i5 2500K.