Hyper ThreadingTechnology

Initially Intel developed Hyper Threading Technology specifically for server stations. Intel Servers and Xeon Servers were designed with Hyper threading technology. Then afterwards, they developed for Desktop applications.

Intel developed this technology where parallel processing is done to reduce the response time. It gives lower response times. It improves the processor performance. Processing power can be increased by increasing the clock speed. In a typical clock cycle, processor is loaded for 35% of the time. It is sitting idle for balance 65% of the time. If you develop the CPU to take advantage of balance 65% of the time, you can improve the processor performance. This is exactly Intel has done with Hyper threading technology.

Hyper threading technology for optimum performance

It is simply parallel processing to take full advantage of hardware design. In hyper threading technology, processor can execute 2 tasks simultaneously. It uses the idle time of processor to give higher efficiency. Result is processor does more work in same amount of time. This latest design fully utilizes all the resources to give optimum performance.

With Hyper-Threading, some multithreaded applications have shown a performance increase of nearly 30 percent, and multitasking scenarios have achieved improvements of more than 50 percent. Currently, only the Xeon and Pentium 4 chips are Hyper-Threading capable; they can be partitioned into two logical processors, each running a software thread simultaneously.

Today's superscalar processors do an astonishing job of processing multiple instructions simultaneously within a single program thread. Now it is really getting difficult to follow X86 architecture and give additional performance boost in CPU processing simultaneously. In Hyper-Threading technology two software threads can be processed at the same time. Each thread uses replicated and partitioned CPU resources, as well as shared resources unused by the other thread.

Just imagine a Birthday party where you have to prepare juices, chocolate and cake. You have group of 3 persons. Initially first person will prepare juice and serve. Then second person will start preparing chocolate and serve. And finally third person will start preparing cake and serve it. In this case at any instance, only one person is working and other two are sitting idle. However, if all three start working in parallel, all the 3 items ( juice, chocolate and cake ) will require overall less time. The similar principle is applied in Hyper threading technology.

Advantage of the multithreading

Hyper-Threading is an extraordinary feat of Engineering that moves processor architecture to the next level and delivers a notable performance boost.

HT Technology takes advantage of the multithreading capability that's built in to Windows XP. 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.

Idea behind hyper threading technology

The idea of hyper threading actually comes from the server range. Generally for higher end servers computer systems have more than one processor. With two processors , it is possible to process two Threads (smallest executable part tasks) per clock cycle. As each processor can be given independent task. When scheduling threads, the operating system treats the two distinct architectural states as separate "logical" processors.

Hyper threading technology will not double the performance but increases performance by almost 30%. This technology will perform best with operating systems that have been optimized for Hyper-Threading Technology, such as Windows XP. Windows XP Home and Professional edition supports Hyper technology threading. Even Hyper threading technology works with Linux Operating system.

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