Enable or Disable Hyper-Threading on a 4770k?

[Steven Clowry]

I only use my i7 4770k for gaming and overclocking, what should I do?

 

[MagicPants]

I'd leave it on, in most cases yes it will reduce framerate by 1%(or less). BUT when it does help, it helps a whole lot.

 

[jitpublisher]

In many games it will be slightly faster with hyperthreading turned off. But, not saying its going to be like slow with hyperthreading on. Its a very fast processor and you wont likely notice any difference at all, but for gaming you dont need it.

 

[Gam3r01]

Like above, leave it on.

When you need it, it will be there, and you will notice it. If not, it will slow, but nowhere near noticeable. Plus its an extremely strong CPU, so it wont be hampered at all.

 

[Steven Clowry]

Can you guys tell me what exactly it does and how can it help me for what I want? Like lets say if I only use it for gaming and browsing the web and I overclock, where down the line can leaving it on help me if you get me? With it off it has lowered mt temps by 10c too...

 

[Gam3r01]

The simple way to put it is this:
AMD has 8 physical cores in the 8320 for example.
In yours, the 4770, it has 4 physical cores with 8 threads. Threads are typically weaker than cores, but in intels case they are still extremely powerful.

Most applications cant use more than 4 threads (physical or not) so they arent used. But those that can take huge advantages. Turning them off turns off ~half your cpu (metaphorically speaking) hence the drops in temp.

 

[Steven Clowry]

The simple way to put it is this:
AMD has 8 physical cores in the 8320 for example.
In yours, the 4770, it has 4 physical cores with 8 threads. Threads are typically weaker than cores, but in intels case they are still extremely powerful.

Most applications cant use more than 4 threads (physical or not) so they arent used. But those that can take huge advantages. Turning them off turns off ~half your cpu (metaphorically speaking) hence the drops in temp.

Is there a list of applications and games that do take advantage?

 

[MagicPants]

Can you guys tell me what exactly it does and how can it help me for what I want? Like lets say if I only use it for gaming and browsing the web and I overclock, where down the line can leaving it on help me if you get me? With it off it has lowered mt temps by 10c too...

Let's see, every core has more hardware in then is needed. Sometimes a core is used for math, sometimes to copy memory, etc... (this is an oversimplification)

Hyperthreading lets a single core handle multiple tasks at the same time, with the assumption that there won't be a lot of contention for specific hardware. Basically splitting a single complete core into two incomplete cores. Any individual thread run on a split core will be slower, but it can run twice as many threads at once.

So the better an application is setup for multithreading, the better hyperthreading is for it. When it first came out very few games ran on multiple threads, so it got kind of a bad reputation, but these days most games take advantage of multithreading very well.

More or less any game made in the last five years using a highend (unreal, id tech, crytech, frostbyte) engine will make good use of it.