Hyperthread, Hypertransport, Dual Core??

[leebo]

Can someone explain (or direct me to info) these terms as relates to real world performance?

I realize there are a few programs (very few) that can take advantage of some of these technologies, and that most programs cannot. By that I mean you will not see a performence improvement with most programs by changing to a dual core.

However, I have a HTPC that is constantly doing it's "own thing", making me wait for it to finish b4 carrying out my commands. The HDD light goes crazy for several minutes if I don't do anything for a while, and when I try to launch a program or navigate to a folder I find myself constantly having to wait.

With all the crap we have to run in the background these days (anti-virus, anti-spam, etc.) no wonder.

Task Mgr. shows "system Idle Process" using most of the cpu cycles.

I'm wondering if a dual core will allow my computer to do it's thing, leaving the extra core to do mine???

[SingSing]

Is your PC virus infected ?

[leebo]

Well, I have Norton AV running all the time, Zone Alarm, Diskeeper, etc.

Other than that it exhibits no unusual symptoms suggesting a virus.

Still wondering about my original question.

[jagabo]

Hypertransport is an interconnect technology from AMD. It's the bus over which the processor talks to I/O devices and other processors in multi CPU systems. It's a roughly the equivalent of Intel's Front Side Bus except that the AMD processors have a dedicated bus for memory, whereas Intel's FSB is for memory, I/O, and CPU-CPU communications in multiprocessor setups.

Hyperthreading is Intel's original attempt to utilize unused CPU resources by running two threads at the same time on one CPU. For example, one thread can be executing floating point instruction while another is executing integer instructions. Or while one thread is waiting for a memory read the other can continue executing code. Hyperthreading typically gets you 10 to 15 percent more performance with multithreaded software. But there are times when it can reduce overall system performance by a few percent. Typically when two different programs start cache thrashing.

Dual Core refers to the latest (for AMD and Intel anyway) practice of putting two (nearly) complete processors on a single chip. Software that is multithreaded can use both cores. Or two different programs can be run at the same time. Performance usually isn't doubled (over a single core at the same clock speed) but often comes close with multithreaded code, or when running two different programs.

Regarding your problem: is that on your 3.2 GHz A64 with 1 GB of DRAM? The situation you describe is typical of systems with insufficient memory, but I wouldn't expect that on a system with 1 GB of DRAM.

[leebo]

Regarding your problem: is that on your 3.2 GHz A64 with 1 GB of DRAM? The situation you describe is typical of systems with insufficient memory, but I wouldn't expect that on a system with 1 GB of DRAM.

Sorry I was so vague. No, it's on my HTPC, an AMD 2ghz with 512megs and an old ATI AIW something or other with only 16megs.

If I don't touch it for a while (like 20 mins or so), the HDD light goes crazy and it's obviously doing something (housekeeping?). When I try to do something after that, it takes up to one to minute (maybe more) to return control back to me.

[rallynavvie]

Actually dual-cores in a HTPC setting are rather handy. I used my old SMP rig for an HTPC for a while and it did rather well. Though the PVR didn't draw any system resources when recording directly to MPEG2 the drive accessing and other MCE functions did, and it was nice to have the OS and MCE app running on different CPUs, or other background tasks being moved around to a free processor. Dual-core isn't quite exactly the same but it does free up some system resources by giving access to another CPU.

[rallynavvie]

Oops, in regards to your last post there your resource hog may be that AIW card. Get rid of it, use a simple video output card, and get a dedicated PVR for your HTPC.

[jagabo]

Regarding your problem: is that on your 3.2 GHz A64 with 1 GB of DRAM? The situation you describe is typical of systems with insufficient memory, but I wouldn't expect that on a system with 1 GB of DRAM.

Sorry I was so vague. No, it's on my HTPC, an AMD 2ghz with 512megs and an old ATI AIW something or other with only 16megs.

If I don't touch it for a while (like 20 mins or so), the HDD light goes crazy and it's obviously doing something (housekeeping?). When I try to do something after that, it takes up to one to minute (maybe more) to return control back to me.

Is the disk drive running a lot during that minute that you're waiting to gain control? That would indicate that Explorer and other parts of Windows got swapped out to virtual memory while the system was "idle". Bring up Task Manager (alt+ctrl+del) and look at the processes tab. Is any program using an inordinate amount of memory (maybe a memory leak in the program)? Switch to the Performance tab. Is the Page File usage very high?

Have you run anti-spyware software lately? Could your antivirus software be set up to run while the system is idle?