Glenn_11
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How Hyper-Threading Works
Faster clock speeds are an important way to deliver more computing power, and Intel has led the way with industry-leading processor frequency. But clock speed is only half the story. The other route to higher performance is to accomplish more work on each clock cycle, and that's where Hyper-Threading Technology comes in. A single processor supporting Hyper-Threading Technology presents itself to modern operating systems and applications as two virtual processors. The processor can work on two sets of tasks simultaneously, use resources that otherwise would sit idle, and get more work done in the same amount of time.
In desktop and laptop PCs and entry-level workstations, HT Technology takes advantage of the multithreading capability that's built in to Windows* XP and many advanced applications. Multithreaded software divides its workloads into processes and threads that can be independently scheduled and dispatched. In a multiprocessor system, those threads execute on different processors. HT Technology allows a single Pentium 4 processor to function as two virtual or logical processors. There's still just one physical Pentium 4 processor in your PC — but the processor can execute two threads simultaneously.
In servers and high-performance workstations, Hyper-Threading Technology enables thread-level parallelism (TLP) by duplicating the architectural state on each processor while sharing one set of processor execution resources. When scheduling threads, the operating system treats the two distinct architectural states as separate "logical" processors, which allows multiprocessor capable software to run unmodified on twice as many logical processors. Although Hyper-Threading Technology will not provide the level of performance scaling achieved by adding a second processor, benchmark tests show some server applications can experience a 30 percent gain in performance. While this technology can boost applications running on Microsoft Windows* 2000 Advanced Server, it will perform best with operating systems that have been optimized for Hyper-Threading Technology, including Microsoft .NET* Server, Windows XP*, and certain versions of Linux*.
timopictures
Hyper-threading, officially called Hyper-Threading Technology (HTT), is Intel's trademark for their implementation of the simultaneous multithreading technology on the Pentium 4 microarchitecture. It is basically a more advanced form of Super-threading that first debuted on the Intel Xeon processors and was later added to Pentium 4 processors. The technology improves processor performance under certain workloads by providing useful work for execution units that would otherwise be idle, for example during a cache miss.
scottwilkins
It's not truely two processors. But rather it's two paths for general instruction sets to run. Many features still only have one path in a P4, so it's not a hugh performance gain. To get true dual procs you needa Pentium D chip.
Japan Ring
Its 2 procewssors power in one