Does Hyperthreading help any in gaming?

[Deadboy90]

Just like the tilte says: does hyperthreading help gaming performance any?

 

[jay_nar2012]

It won't help if you have more than 4 cores as most games use 2 cores or 4 cores, it will help dual cores a bit but not a lot, it can sometimes even hurt gaming performance.

 

[jaguarskx]

Nope. Past benchmarks have shown that HT decreases performance by about 2% on average. However, I recall someone posting a benchmark for a game which performance dropped by over 15%, but I don't recall the name of the game, and that much of a decrease is not the norm.

 

[geofelt]

Just like the tilte says: does hyperthreading help gaming performance any?

Short answer... no.

Longer answer:
Games rarely use more than 2-3 cores, so the extra hyperthreads are largely irrelevant.
A hyperthread uses residual cycles of the main cores to allow another thread to do useful work.
The effective capability of a hyperthread is perhaps 1/4 of a full core.
This is of advantage in an app that can dispatch many threads. Video rendering might be an example.
But, a game usually depends on faster threads. That is one reason that the faster intel threads are better for gaming than the more numerous but slower AMD threads.
If a game can direct the os to dispatch it's critical work on a main thread, that is good.
If a game is ignorant about the presence of hyperthreading, important work may get directed to a slower hyperthread.

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

Here is a nice article on testing of hyper-threading in a gaming environment. http://www.overclock.net/t/671977/hyperthreading-in-games

Like most of the others have said in most cases there isn't an advantage for hyper-threading on most systems today. If you have at least 4 cores the value of hyper-threading is very limited on a gaming system. If you are using a processor like the Intel® Core™ i3-3220 which is a dual core processor with hyper-threading you might get a little performance from it.

 

[cabudinen]

Yes it does!!! But in only one game!!! Crysis 3!!! I just got an i7 3770k switching from a i5 2310, My performance in FPS went up a lot, from 24 Frames a min. to an average of 40-60!!! and its because, the game uses the processors extra cores,for the physics effects which you see a lot in the game!

PD. Running a GTX 670 and i7 3770k (stock) @ 1080p Highest settings 2x Smaa

 

[juliagezm1]

I just want to know what I am doing.

 

[timil]

Yes it does!!! But in only one game!!! Crysis 3!!! I just got an i7 3770k switching from a i5 2310, My performance in FPS went up a lot, from 24 Frames a min. to an average of 40-60!!! and its because, the game uses the processors extra cores,for the physics effects which you see a lot in the game!

PD. Running a GTX 670 and i7 3770k (stock) @ 1080p Highest settings 2x Smaa

Uh, I'd say those performance gains you experienced were from the higher clock speed and IPC of the 3770k over the sandy i5.

 

[AlbusDlx]

Old thread, valid theme. I have the same question as the OP. And I will elaborate a bit on it as well. New gen, next gen games or whatever you want to call them. They are in many cases made for multi threading machines a.k.a PS4 and Xbone. Would not HT be benificial in this near future? (when real next gen games actually gets released, any game that gets released on both old and new gen is concidered a hybrid imho)
Watchdogs for example is said to use all 8 cores on an amd fx chip. Their "modules" is pretty much a HT core, sooo...

I use an OC´ed FX8320 atm but am planning an Intel build, my first actually and are mining forums for information. =))

 

[geofelt]

The answer may depend on how many threads the game is tuned for, and how well the OS can manage those threads.
The intel hyperthreads, and to a lesser extent the companion threads of the FX chips are slower than the main core.
If the game or the os dispatches critical tasks on the slower thread, game performance will suffer.
Here is an interesting set of benchmarks for BF4 multiplayer.
Note that windows 8.1 vs. W7 for whatever reason can have an impact in games, particularly the FX chips.
http://www.hardwarepal.com/battlefield-4-benchmark-mp-cpu-gpu-w7-vs-w8-1/

 

[vmN]

Both threads a having equally priority, in the CPU.

You would have to be way more specific.

 

[AlbusDlx]

Both threads a having equally priority, in the CPU.

You would have to be way more specific.

So, say an i7 4770k prioritizes both threads the same way on each core? And if so, when games tha can utilize 8 cores hit the shelf, will a HT 4770k act as an 8 core and do the job well or do I have to get the Haswell-E 8 core when it launches? Kind of hoping I can keep up for at least 2 years before I build a new pc and the 4770k Haswell seem like a valid option. Willing to try my luck in the silicone lottery and hope for the best together with the GA UD4. Mb/Cpu not way overpriced like the Ivy-E

 

[Pinhedd]

The answer may depend on how many threads the game is tuned for, and how well the OS can manage those threads.
The intel hyperthreads, and to a lesser extent the companion threads of the FX chips are slower than the main core.
If the game or the os dispatches critical tasks on the slower thread, game performance will suffer.
Here is an interesting set of benchmarks for BF4 multiplayer.
Note that windows 8.1 vs. W7 for whatever reason can have an impact in games, particularly the FX chips.
http://www.hardwarepal.com/battlefield-4-benchmark-mp-cpu-gpu-w7-vs-w8-1/

On Intel microprocessors that support Hyperthreading, each of the x86 ISA cores is exposed as a pair of logical processors. When Hyperthreading is not present each core is exposed as only a single logical processor.

From the perspective of the user, each logical processor is identical and indistinguishable from all other logical processors. One is not weaker or slower than another. There is no "main core" and "hyper thread", there are two equal logical processors that dynamically share the CPU backend. It is the job of the operating system and application software to adequately schedule threads on the logical processors to meet desired real time and throughput constraints. Real time constraints are best met when one of the front ends on each core is idled as this allows the complementary front end to monopolize the backend. Throughput is maximized when both front ends are assigned disjoint workloads as instruction throughput from the reservation station to the execution ports will be maximized.

Most games tend to lean towards real time constraints as these are needed to meet performance targets, which are typically measured in frames per second and inter-frame jitter. As a result, most smart game designers design around the backend rather than the frontend.

 

[Nicolae Andrei]

Actually this provides a more in depth look at the matter.

http://in2gpu.com/2014/12/05/hyper-threading-games/

 

[Pinhedd]

Actually this provides a more in depth look at the matter.

http://in2gpu.com/2014/12/05/hyper-threading-games/

No it doesn't.

All that blog manages to accomplish is to trash the constant misunderstanding of SMT in the broader enthusiast community followed by demonstrating a complete misunderstanding SMT.

 

[ThatGuyWhoTwirlsHisPen]

Actually this provides a more in depth look at the matter.

http://in2gpu.com/2014/12/05/hyper-threading-games/

No it doesn't.

All that blog manages to accomplish is to trash the constant misunderstanding of SMT in the broader enthusiast community followed by demonstrating a complete misunderstanding SMT.

Did you read the username and the article's writer? Shameless self promotion.