+Rex _ I actually came to say the complete opposite! I know about and completely understand hyperthreading - the Intel explanation with their own animation explains it all perfectly.. Okay, so it starts out simple enough - the one mouth, 2 hands thing sort-of made sense. Although I don''t really think it made it simpler! Then, by the end I was totally lost.. we had moved on to two scoop ice cream cones and the dangers of eating the cone first. Then, out of nowhere, bowls of candy seem to be the ultimate method of CPU core optimisation.... wat! It's much easier to explain hyperthreading than this culinary madness!
***** Lol, that's really funny. My doorbell just rang and my Friday night delivery just arrived. I'm tping this reply with greasy fingers from all the food that just arrived. I love my food! I just don't need the eating of it described in such explicit detail in order to explain how a processor works!
Both the summary below the video and the section 2:45 to 2:58 are the answer. If you want the ideal system as well as gaming power just buy a 2 core 4 thread cpu with fast memory to feed it as most games run 3-4 threads.
"In an ideal world, lots of physical processors, each with hyperthredding, is where it's at" Fast forward to 2021 when we can get reasonably fast 8 cores 16 thread processors for 300$ I really love watching old tech vids because it feels like I'm from the future
It's especially interesting to me when I see people working on early computers from the 70s and 80s like the kind of stuff Commodore or their rivals made and see the specs compared to today.
yes this is 100% correct , and still you want to have hyper threading , to bad that my cpu is the most powerful part of my laptop and my gpu is sh*t since i have i7 4 cores 8 threads with turbo boost up to 3.2ghz and my damn gpu is a gt635m 2gb :(
darkki94 well my cpu is an amd a10-4600m with 4 cores and 4 threads turbo up to 3.2ghz and the radeon 7660g igpu. I wish it was as good as it sounds. gets really hot
The hand-mouth analogy is actually perfect for explaining the fetch-execute cycle, but having two hands has little to do with simultaneous multithreading; it's analogous to increasing the memory bandwidth, i.e. the amount of food that can be delivered to the mouth per minute.
dude. i've been watching your vids from this channel and linustechtips and ncix techtips for the past few weeks. i've always love all about computer but never really know much about them. your videos really helps me understand the basic. thank you.
The part of decrease is real. I wrote a quicksort program in c using openmp, and put an argument to limit the thread number to the value I want. Running this on a i7 dual core 4 threads was way faster on 2 threads than on 4. That's because in 2 threads, when I split the program in two cores, they execute it directly, but on 4 threads, they where always changing process, and that made them slower. Hyper-thread is good for very small, parallel tasks, and not to split heavy ones.
this was really helpful. I always assumed I needed a more "powerful" processor because I watch dvd& bluray movies (I rip my discs and watch the mkv files) and stream online. I do a bit of photo editing, but that's about it. I play no games. And I had no idea what the terms core or hyper threading meant until I watched your videos. Thanks.. you make learning about computers exciting and easy to understand. It's not such a scary world afterall..
Wow! I have a great example of this. Just last week, I took a process I have and made it into a multithreaded process. It's the building of a navigation mesh for pathfinding in video games. The process I started with was single threaded and it took 52 minutes to build for my huge level. I made it work on building two tiles at once and this brought it down to 26 minutes exactly. Then, I made it use 4 threads and, as expected, the build time dropped to 13 minutes! WOW! I know that it's only a quad core so, if I try for more than 4 threads, it's going to try to use hyper threading. What the heck, let's try! 6 threads....12 minutes!! :( 8 threads, 11.5 minutes! HA... hyper threading didn't help me much at all. More CORES freakin' rules!
I remember the advent of dual cores, it was a massive breakthrough in computing for the average consumer. At that point in time waiting for common things like browsers, media players, and folders basically went extinct. The ability of the computer to have a free processor open for you to access those things instantly meant that it didn't have to drop background processing to open the program you'd requested. Even going from a 3.8ghz single core to a 1.86ghz dual core is a big improvement just because of this fact.
Alright Toby awesome is trolling you. Basically a cache is very fast memory that the CPU has because RAM is often far too slow. The CPU keeps recently used data in the cache in case it needs to be used again.
+Toby Awesome "ram is volatile memory (deletes once you close the program) then the CPU needs a way to remember how your sites load and passwords etc" this is a description of a software cache. This has nothing to do with the "smaller, faster memory" that a CPU has inside it, this is the hardware cache. Also a cache is many orders of magnitude faster than DDR4, that is the whole point of a cache. Trust me dude, I just had to build a CPU from scratch for school, and understanding cache operation was a big part of this.
Just in case people are interested, this very good analogy more accurately describes Super-scalar processing techniques in general, of which hyper-threading is just one method. Others include things like out-of-order execution, more efficient branch prediction and register renaming, all of which try to eliminate different parts of the processing pipeline from being left redundant.
The most known hyperthreading processor is the Intel Pentium 4 HT. It was the last variant of the Pentium 4, and was featured on standard desktops, as well as on DTR/Media Center laptops.
Hey Linus, great video presentation! Perfect way to break down the topic for those who don't understand. I will be re-visiting your video to teach some friends!
But, Linus, if you add more mouths, you only have one throat for all the food to go down, and one stomach, so it would just all back up and you'd bottleneck yourself
Ferg F I did, but if he literally adds more mouths when his throat is only designed to take food from one mouth it's all going to block up there if he's taking in 2 or 3 times as much food
another way to think about it is a ramp meter on a freeway by taking 2 lanes of traffic trying to enter the freeway at the same time but by using the lights to schedule when they can enter the flow of traffic it increases speed and and the volume entering (i hope this was helpful)
If you're still confused Hyper Threading is basically when a core uses some intelligent stuff and basically makes it become 2 cores. Hyperthreading is only good if you have heavy multitasking or something else edit: it doesn't give you more cores just more efficient work
It only works when you don't have enough single cored load,, GTA4/5 for example, will load CPU so much, that for a 2core-4thread can't get any time free from work, and Windows will park half it's cores(the actual physical one, as dumb as it sounds) and try to boost frequency as high as it can to overcome the load, reducing performance in half, leading to stuttering. FC3/4 OTOH, just lightly loads all 4 threads, so there are all 4 threads always available leading to smooth gameplay, no matter how long you play.
And it seems Windows tries to throw a single thread load between the two 'threads' in that core, then latency increases and stutter/fps drops occur haha
Think of it more this way...HyperThreading uses pieces of the processor which are not otherwise in use. For example, if an instruction for a floating point multiply of one floating register with another is followed by a memory fetch to an integer register, while the FPU is computing the product, the memory fetch circuitry would be otherwise unused/idle. So instead of waiting for the FPU to finish, the memory fetch goes straight to the ALU, thus executing a floating multiply and the memory fetch at the same time. Obviously, this can only be scheduled thusly if there are no conflicts, for example the floating multiply cannot reference the same memory area as output which is being fetched in the next instruction (which is why above I specified the FPU was working with registers).
Watching your videos actually helps me be able to explain these kinds of things better, rather than to simply understand what they are in technical terms, and not be able to explain them at all. I used to be so terrible with analogies, and your videos help. I've been wanting to do a tech channel for the longest time. Unlike you and others, however, I don't have the resources and/or tech to do such things, despite pursuing a potential career.
Very helpful video, thanks. I would love to see a video about why voice recognition software still sucks. I struggled with Dragon for months before finally giving up and uninstalling it. I have had similar results with Google Docs voice typing.
lol don't confuse yourselves. Hyper threading is simply multi-tasking. If you have a dual core(2-core) processor, hyper threading splits those 2 cores into virtual ones--now you have 4 cores. (2 virtual and 2 physical). Windows sees cores as 4 cores, but in reality...it's physically 2 cores. If windows sees it as 4 cores, that means you can do more in windows ..like multi-task : D
i think not really (the part hyper threading is multi-tasking). Gary Explain channel explains that multitasking, multiprocessor, and multi thread are not the same thing. but i do agree with hyper threading can let us use mulitple programs at once (multi task) :D
I do remember reading an Intel paper a while ago (and it was not the one I was looking for) that also described a process by which hyper threading can order instructions before branches that rely on separate data and use different components to be simultaneously executed. I think this was a haswell paper.
+Kenny Hempson Hey, I've just done a build for my friend that has been planning to build a PC. These are the parts (maybe it helps you!): CPU: i5 4690k Motherboard: Gigabyte H97 Gaming 3 GPU: Asus Strix 960 4GB RAM: 2x Kingston DDR3 4GB 1333Mhz HDD: Western Digital 2TB Green PSU: XFX 650W SSD: Samsung 850 Evo 128GBs It's not a really high end PC, it's a mid high one I'd say. I made it with components that I found in my country (Argentina), so I think that maybe u can change the PSU and the MoBo. If you're planning on building a +$2000 PC, I have one and I can give you the list of components :). GL!
@TechQuickie July 2018 - I have been playing Counter-Strike GO with hardware monitor running in the background. I have an I3 7350k Kaby Lake cpu which is a 2 core with hyperthreading. I do notice the two hyper-threading cores are quite busy while I'm playing so I definitely think there is a benefit to having those extra hyper threading cores while playing games. Of course it is not as good or faster as a more expensive chip with more throughput and more cores.
yeah for just gaming its a tad silly, as even an Pentium/i3 can play modern games without any bottleneck, however.. you can buy the xeons are basically higher grade i7s, so.. if you bought one of the cheaper ones it would be a better deal than buying an i5 for about the same price.
Here are a few reasons: cheaper, more reliable (they're for servers), no wasteful integrated gpu, lower tdp, almost identical perfomance to some i7 cpu, cool names Some games do take advantage of better cpu such as Starcraft 2, skyrim, guild wars 2, rome 2 and many other
Ha Do well the xeons are nice because they can give you hyperthreading quad cores cpu's for the price of a quad core not hyper threaded i5.. sure.. but what if you want to overclock it? :) the xeons are awesome cpu' but i would only buy it for a budget workstation.. as said before.. even i3's can easily handle modern game titles :) so if gaming is all that is on your mind.. you might be good with a OC'ed i5?
MrHearthofSIN To each their own i guess. I don't like to oc and don't feel comfortable oc. I don't have the good mobo to oc anyway. It's true that i3 can game easily given how gpu bound most games are nowadays but i like to have a little future proof with my cpu and low tdp as well.
I have to side with DarkFox on this one. The target audience isn't a bunch of grannies trying to figure out how to check their email. We're slightly more advanced than that :P
***** If only I could save this as a quote somewhere.. You worded it perfectly, I'd say. I deal with a lot of retirees at work and they seem to break things in the most unexplainable ways because of their ignorance and lack of wanting to learn them.. It truly frustrates me trying to explain the simple things, like turning on, click this, enter this password and SN this way.. Then trying to explain how to operate CCTV systems to said person, and it just goes on and on and on in that endless cycle of never getting anywhere. It's both endlessly frustrating for me, yet probably just as frustrating for them not being able to understand the basic stuff.. On topic of OP, I both liked the analogy yet thought it was simplified too much. I fully understand him doing it though, because I find myself doing the same thing most every day.
sooo basically AMD has the upper hand over Intel CPUs in games that dont support hyperthreading at all which is most of them despite the "lying benchmarks and other digital data generated by corporate registered programs" says? interesting, now i understand why they opted for more cores and better clockspeed rather than less cores and hyperthreading of some sort and why my A10-7850K outperforms an i5 in ArmA 3 >.>
forums.tomshardware.com/threads/intel-did-not-invent-hyperthreading.302829/ Says it was not AMD just some engineer working for Intel discovers it d patient is not quite the same.
That's why the current server program I'm developing now not only uses threads, it creates a pool for incoming connections, when those connections out number the amount of threads I have assigned for the server. By using this approach, I don't have to worry about having more data to process than my cores can handle and I don't have to actually use all cores for the server itself (which would strain the server). My server program also calculates the average amount of time it takes to finish one thread processing job. This feedback allows me to calculate just how many players to place on the server, all while keeping a certain average thread processing time. My program can also act as an entry server or normal server. This setup allows me to easily add on more game worlds just by simply adding a new server and passing that info to the entry level server. The entry level server will then detect the new server and start filling it up with new players once the current server is filled. It will function the same even if I add multiple new servers at one time. I always felt, if you're going to develop a server side, make it as easy as possible to maintain on that side of things.
DX12 utilizes multicores and multithreads. The smoothspot is at 8cores and 8 threads, as shown in a video I saw. Any more cores doesn't give much more FPS. So for gaming an Intel i7 5960X is the smoothspot, but is very costy.
one other thing really helps to increase CPU workload and that is on chip memory, the more you got, the faster it can access it and process the work load you have!! Usually there is levels, 1 and 2 on many processors, and also a level 3 on many newer processors as well.. which the level 2 on the older processors had the highest amount of on chip memory, the newer chips with Level 3 memory on chip has the most memory.. if I am not mistaken it helps to feed all the cores and threads continuously
Quick tip High grade processor beats 2 lower grade processors. Processes that dont allow multithreading are constrained to the total speed of 1 processor.
Like he mentioned, HT has it's own use for certain application. For gaming, I find it absolutely useful since they are highly demanding with it comes to cpu/gpu, you never know until you execute the application.
This is why AMD has always had superior multithreading performance. Their FX-8350 trashes many i7s in multithreading, and even some i7Es were left in the dust. Bear in mind that this is not a processor made to compete against anything more than i5s. It holds it's own pretty well.
TopTenOnEverything I don't have a link for you, but what I do know is a lot of AMD CPUs excel in multi-core performance, as most of their CPUs contain 8 cores, whilst Intel is focused on less cores (they usually use 4) and more performance per single core. I use the i7-4770k, and it is a powerhouse, but it is up to you to decide which is better, but in all honesty I would just stick with Intel.
JFTGames Yah I have the 4770k too and I know the AMD-8350 is a good CPU and may beat i7s in stuff like virtual machines, but I'm pretty sure most multithreaded things like video editing favors intel.
JFTGames Yah wouldn't multicore be virtual machines and screen recording while multithreaded would be like video editing? Because "kemoka77" said the 8350 "trashes many i7s in multithreading" and I don't believe that.
PLEASE DO NOT BUY AN I5 IF YOU HAVE THE MONEY FOR AN I7! I bought a new 2000+ euro gaming PC last year. I got GTX970 SLI. Based on the info in this video and others like this, I decided to go with the i5 4690k, believeing that the i7 4790k wouldn't make any difference in most games, as clearly stated by Linus. Turns out this is totally not true. The i5 is bottlenecking my system horribly. Both my GPU's basically never get over 60% usage while CPU is at constant 100%. My framerates are outright disappointing when I play CPU heavy games like Guild Wars 2 or Total War: Rome II, which regularly dip below 40 fps. This is in normal playing conditions (no particularly large battles or zergs going on or anything of the kind). This pissed me off, so I did extensive research into this problem. Turns out that getting the i7 could have boosted my framerates by up to 40% in these particular cases... Also, I found that most benchmarks comparing the non-hyperthreading cpu's with the high end i7's are just inaccurate and false, because in most benchmarks the GPU is the bottlneck, thus not showing any difference in performance where there actually is a very big one. I hope someone reads this whole comment and please take my advise: if you want to build a decent gaming PC (1500 $ or more), NEVER buy an i5. Always the i7. Whatever they tell you... Don't make the same mistake as me... It is very sad to realize afterwards that you could have had up to 40% higher framerates if you had spent 5-10% more on your PC...
+DaLordt It's really not nearly as dire as you are making it out to be. Yes games do exist like the ones you mentioned that are more cpu intensive and will actually max out a cpu like i5s occasionally before the gpus but they are pretty far and few in between. I have a 4670k with a light overclock of 4.2ghz and have played a lot of Guild wars 2 and some Total War Rome 2 and have observed that unless there are a lot of players in the area in Guild Wars 2 or a huge battle happening in Total War I hit the gpu cap first (this is mostly with the two 7950s I owned for 3ish years, but I've even observed pretty similar results with the two 980tis I just upgraded to when all settings are ultra). Even then I haven't ever gone below 60 due to the cpu in Total war Rome 2 and the only time my cpu is the cause in GW2 is again in giant groups of people which btw makes my buddy running an i7 4790k drop below 60 due to cpu load as well. So at the end of the day yes an i7 is better in very rare instances but I honestly haven't observed it to be very dramatic at all even in those rare situations.
Yeah, but aren't some I5's comparative to some i7's? In some instances the i5 being superior? Obviously with modern or last gen i5s being superior to the first and 2nd gen i7s but I'm talking about modern gen.
Keep in mind to others reading this that the video is from 2013... Advice isn't unchanging. Even 2 years after the video (DaLordt's post) this advice was not quite correct as a lot more multi-threaded games and applications were out. Fast forward to now (another 2 years), and this advice is even more incorrect. Granted, his explanation of hyper-threading was fully correct and actually one of the better dumbed down explanations I've heard, the end where he stated that most games don't use more than a couple threads is outdated. However, that should be obvious to anyone watching videos from the past, that the advice is spoken from the state of affairs at the time the video was made. It is also obvious that as more advanced GPU's come out, the faster the processor needs to be to keep up. You're either CPU limited or GPU limited. So the advice can also shift as new, more powerful, GPU's and paired workloads come out. In short, DaLordt, that was a stupid move and no one to blame but yourself ;-)
Since the initial Core i series (back with 3-digit model numbers), the i7 is the HyperThreaded counterpart to the i5. Example: Core i7 2600K V. i5 2500K, both have 4 physical cores and can be overclocked, but the i7 has HT on it whilst the i5 does not. In your case, the bigger questions are: GPU power & V-RAM, System RAM & Storage Space. GPU & V-RAM are gonna be taxed by the game, Sys-RAM is gonna be used by everything running, drive space is gonna be consumed by FRAPS recording.
Charcha411 are you sure ? because i dont think so why should taskmanager shold be wrong on win 7 , 8 , 8.1 , 10 beta , 10 ? and jes i have been runnig all of them
I have an AMD-FX 6120 in one of my computers. Task manager says it has 3 cores and 6 threads. Hyper-threading is an intel technology, no AMD processors have it. Download CPU-Z, it will say your CPU has 6 cores and 6 threads. Task manager is wrong, probably built to read intel CPUs.
For those with a bit more interest, a single-core CPU with Hyper-Threading has a single processing core, or "1 mouth" as per the analogy, but it has a duplicated set of registers. This added set of registers is the "2nd hand" in the analogy.
Even games won't utilize 2 or even 4 processors at all times even with (or without} threading.. If you understand the point he is making. A game is an essentially an application, and it still spends time waiting for the next move before it can process the next thread. It can (and does) try to predict what the next move will be, but it can't process the next frame until it knows what it is going to be. So obviously the game is not using all 4 cores all the time. Because there aren't threads waiting in line, as the man said. Then when the next frame is known it can use however many processors it wants to to display the next frame or action. That's why it helps to run extra GPUs to add the speed boost necessary for fast seamless action.
1:05 I think you're describing superscalar processors more than hyper-threaded ones (Intels are superscalar since P4 architecture (and I don't mean Pentium IV)). HT uses concepts of superscalarity, but for improving performance of different tasks on a processor. It would be better to describe HT as doing two different things at a time: eating and writing a blogpost maybe? And sharing resources not needed by the other task (left hand for eating, right hand for typing).
it actaully has 8 physical cores. it has 4 modules with 8 Integer cores (x86/x86-64) and it has 8 128bit FPU's. It only has 1 set of decoders per module and it has to combine both 128bit FPUs for AVX instructions (which aren't used too often anyway). But other than that it is capable of processing 8 threads at the same time on 8 separate cores.
I was wondering to myself what hyper-threading was and thought "Wait, Techquickie probably has a video about that." Glad to see I was right haha. Thanks.
The cores aren't actually weaker, it's that Intel cores are better suited for single threaded applications. For example, in a single threaded, or a low thread count program/game (Example, Kerbal space program uses 1 thread, and Sony Vegas uses a max of 4) you will see better performance on a intel cpu. Although, in heavy multi-threaded applications (6+ cores usually) a FX-8320 can actually out perform a i7 for close to half the i7's cost.
Your food analogy really made this so easy to understand. Thanks Linus! Now I'm going to get some pizza.
+Rex _
use two hands, gotta keep that mouth busy
+Rex _ it was a really good choice to get some breakfast before my little "Oh snap, I wanna know more about CPUs and Motherboard" marathon :D
+Rex _ I actually came to say the complete opposite! I know about and completely understand hyperthreading - the Intel explanation with their own animation explains it all perfectly.. Okay, so it starts out simple enough - the one mouth, 2 hands thing sort-of made sense. Although I don''t really think it made it simpler! Then, by the end I was totally lost.. we had moved on to two scoop ice cream cones and the dangers of eating the cone first. Then, out of nowhere, bowls of candy seem to be the ultimate method of CPU core optimisation.... wat!
It's much easier to explain hyperthreading than this culinary madness!
Tom Walter You just don't love food enough lol
***** Lol, that's really funny. My doorbell just rang and my Friday night delivery just arrived. I'm tping this reply with greasy fingers from all the food that just arrived. I love my food! I just don't need the eating of it described in such explicit detail in order to explain how a processor works!
First I was just confused. Now I'm confused and hungry. Thanks.
Raptor302 lol. Right
hilarious
Lmao
Cant stop laughing 🤣🤣🤣
Both the summary below the video and the section 2:45 to 2:58 are the answer. If you want the ideal system as well as gaming power just buy a 2 core 4 thread cpu with fast memory to feed it as most games run 3-4 threads.
"In an ideal world, lots of physical processors, each with hyperthredding, is where it's at"
Fast forward to 2021 when we can get reasonably fast 8 cores 16 thread processors for 300$
I really love watching old tech vids because it feels like I'm from the future
But also in 2021 they are out of stock
@@nczioox1116 they aren't though lol
It's especially interesting to me when I see people working on early computers from the 70s and 80s like the kind of stuff Commodore or their rivals made and see the specs compared to today.
@been guy who gives a shit about ryzen, there's other options to buy
CPUs has never been out of stock
I mean, you are from the future
I hyper threaded 2 slices of cheese pizza for dinner today.
oh god
I really laugh at this XD
This is always how I eat. That's why I am big and strong like ox!
But can it run crysis
Lol
so: 4 cores with 4 threads > 2 cores and 4 threads?
Any day.
yes, because you have 2 more cores for processes if I understood correctly
yes this is 100% correct , and still you want to have hyper threading , to bad that my cpu is the most powerful part of my laptop and my gpu is sh*t since i have i7 4 cores 8 threads with turbo boost up to 3.2ghz and my damn gpu is a gt635m 2gb :(
darkki94 well my cpu is an amd a10-4600m with 4 cores and 4 threads turbo up to 3.2ghz and the radeon 7660g igpu. I wish it was as good as it sounds. gets really hot
LaymanExpert AMD have heat issues a lot from what I hear
The hand-mouth analogy is actually perfect for explaining the fetch-execute cycle, but having two hands has little to do with simultaneous multithreading; it's analogous to increasing the memory bandwidth, i.e. the amount of food that can be delivered to the mouth per minute.
dude. i've been watching your vids from this channel and linustechtips and ncix techtips for the past few weeks. i've always love all about computer but never really know much about them. your videos really helps me understand the basic. thank you.
In an Ideal world lots of physical processors each with hyperthreading, is were its at.
AMD : YES.
AMD: Hey guys that sounds like a good idea lets do that.
with some sketchy marketing during the FX period.-
so lets review: what is hyperthreading? "Sewing really fast"
+TechMania ManiaHD hahaha
+TackStash779 lol
+Elite Ninja I got 'chewing' really fast from this video!
But what is sewing? :ooooo
Alexis Diaz lol
Linus: OK speaking of...
Me : ok time to go
so hyper threading has to do with food?
Very much so.
xD
Are you fucking kidding me, bro?
***** I KNEW IT! I BEEN HYPER THREADING SINCE I WAS A LITTLE BOY
And helicopter piloting
The part of decrease is real. I wrote a quicksort program in c using openmp, and put an argument to limit the thread number to the value I want. Running this on a i7 dual core 4 threads was way faster on 2 threads than on 4. That's because in 2 threads, when I split the program in two cores, they execute it directly, but on 4 threads, they where always changing process, and that made them slower.
Hyper-thread is good for very small, parallel tasks, and not to split heavy ones.
A Shell sort could run faster on 4 cores (if written right), because you can simultaneously sort independent sets of elements.
@@kilroy1964 The problem here is that 2 phisical cores are faster than 2 + 2 logical ones
This was really informative and easily understood, thanks Linus! I still haven't stopped learning from you yet, even after almost three years.
10 yrs
this was really helpful. I always assumed I needed a more "powerful" processor because I watch dvd& bluray movies (I rip my discs and watch the mkv files) and stream online. I do a bit of photo editing, but that's about it. I play no games. And I had no idea what the terms core or hyper threading meant until I watched your videos. Thanks.. you make learning about computers exciting and easy to understand. It's not such a scary world afterall..
9 years later, and this mouth/hand eating analogy is still by far the best way I've heard to explain hyper threading. :)
Wow! I have a great example of this. Just last week, I took a process I have and made it into a multithreaded process. It's the building of a navigation mesh for pathfinding in video games. The process I started with was single threaded and it took 52 minutes to build for my huge level. I made it work on building two tiles at once and this brought it down to 26 minutes exactly. Then, I made it use 4 threads and, as expected, the build time dropped to 13 minutes! WOW!
I know that it's only a quad core so, if I try for more than 4 threads, it's going to try to use hyper threading. What the heck, let's try! 6 threads....12 minutes!! :( 8 threads, 11.5 minutes! HA... hyper threading didn't help me much at all. More CORES freakin' rules!
Linus is a cpu CONFIRMED..Spread the truth
Look at his face at the beginning 😂
0.00
Lol
0:00
lol yeah thanks
A magestic linus in his natural habitat.
I remember the advent of dual cores, it was a massive breakthrough in computing for the average consumer. At that point in time waiting for common things like browsers, media players, and folders basically went extinct. The ability of the computer to have a free processor open for you to access those things instantly meant that it didn't have to drop background processing to open the program you'd requested. Even going from a 3.8ghz single core to a 1.86ghz dual core is a big improvement just because of this fact.
man your videos are so to the point
without 15 mins intro and 20 mins for godbeys
Suggestion: CPU Cache as fast as possible please!!
***** Thanks man. :)
Alright Toby awesome is trolling you. Basically a cache is very fast memory that the CPU has because RAM is often far too slow. The CPU keeps recently used data in the cache in case it needs to be used again.
+Toby Awesome "ram is volatile memory (deletes once you close the program) then the CPU needs a way to remember how your sites load and passwords etc" this is a description of a software cache.
This has nothing to do with the "smaller, faster memory" that a CPU has inside it, this is the hardware cache. Also a cache is many orders of magnitude faster than DDR4, that is the whole point of a cache.
Trust me dude, I just had to build a CPU from scratch for school, and understanding cache operation was a big part of this.
Did you just say DDR4 is not faster than DDR3? You're joking right? The difference might be negligible, but it surely is there.
hal Is software cache part of the cpu cache or inherent to the program/software itself? Like how you can click to save login info etc
Please do a video on TDP vs Power Consumption, people need to know the difference.
Just in case people are interested, this very good analogy more accurately describes Super-scalar processing techniques in general, of which hyper-threading is just one method. Others include things like out-of-order execution, more efficient branch prediction and register renaming, all of which try to eliminate different parts of the processing pipeline from being left redundant.
The most known hyperthreading processor is the Intel Pentium 4 HT. It was the last variant of the Pentium 4, and was featured on standard desktops, as well as on DTR/Media Center laptops.
Oh, I thought this was about sewing...
this comment deserves more likes
Hey Linus, great video presentation! Perfect way to break down the topic for those who don't understand. I will be re-visiting your video to teach some friends!
That was such a smooth transition , from as Fast As Possible to Ad
I love your analogies! They make your topics so much easier to understand. Awesome work!
But, Linus, if you add more mouths, you only have one throat for all the food to go down, and one stomach, so it would just all back up and you'd bottleneck yourself
Ferg F I did, but if he literally adds more mouths when his throat is only designed to take food from one mouth it's all going to block up there if he's taking in 2 or 3 times as much food
Ferg F Fair enough, let me watch this again
It's An Example Of PCI-E Lane Bottlenecking
another way to think about it is a ramp meter on a freeway by taking 2 lanes of traffic trying to enter the freeway at the same time but by using the lights to schedule when they can enter the flow of traffic it increases speed and and the volume entering (i hope this was helpful)
@@HunterS0502 lol
If you're still confused Hyper Threading is basically when a core uses some intelligent stuff and basically makes it become 2 cores. Hyperthreading is only good if you have heavy multitasking or something else
edit: it doesn't give you more cores just more efficient work
It only works when you don't have enough single cored load,,
GTA4/5 for example, will load CPU so much, that for a 2core-4thread can't get any time free from work, and Windows will park half it's cores(the actual physical one, as dumb as it sounds) and try to boost frequency as high as it can to overcome the load, reducing performance in half, leading to stuttering.
FC3/4 OTOH, just lightly loads all 4 threads, so there are all 4 threads always available leading to smooth gameplay, no matter how long you play.
And it seems Windows tries to throw a single thread load between the two 'threads' in that core, then latency increases and stutter/fps drops occur haha
Think of it more this way...HyperThreading uses pieces of the processor which are not otherwise in use. For example, if an instruction for a floating point multiply of one floating register with another is followed by a memory fetch to an integer register, while the FPU is computing the product, the memory fetch circuitry would be otherwise unused/idle. So instead of waiting for the FPU to finish, the memory fetch goes straight to the ALU, thus executing a floating multiply and the memory fetch at the same time. Obviously, this can only be scheduled thusly if there are no conflicts, for example the floating multiply cannot reference the same memory area as output which is being fetched in the next instruction (which is why above I specified the FPU was working with registers).
came back to this with Linus saying most games cant use more than a "couple threads".
One word: Cyberpunk 2077
And this is how a tech video gives me the munchies
lol
So true! I actually paused the video and hit the fridge
This is such a great explanation video. Much appreciated Linus!
1:45 Just wow, at the creativity behind your idea.
Watching your videos actually helps me be able to explain these kinds of things better, rather than to simply understand what they are in technical terms, and not be able to explain them at all. I used to be so terrible with analogies, and your videos help. I've been wanting to do a tech channel for the longest time. Unlike you and others, however, I don't have the resources and/or tech to do such things, despite pursuing a potential career.
"Heaven help you if you try to eat the cone first" HAHAHA, omg, i just spat everywhere! :D
Very helpful video, thanks. I would love to see a video about why voice recognition software still sucks. I struggled with Dragon for months before finally giving up and uninstalling it. I have had similar results with Google Docs voice typing.
lol don't confuse yourselves. Hyper threading is simply multi-tasking. If you have a dual core(2-core) processor, hyper threading splits those 2 cores into virtual ones--now you have 4 cores. (2 virtual and 2 physical).
Windows sees cores as 4 cores, but in reality...it's physically 2 cores.
If windows sees it as 4 cores, that means you can do more in windows ..like multi-task : D
i think not really (the part hyper threading is multi-tasking). Gary Explain channel explains that multitasking, multiprocessor, and multi thread are not the same thing. but i do agree with hyper threading can let us use mulitple programs at once (multi task) :D
I do remember reading an Intel paper a while ago (and it was not the one I was looking for) that also described a process by which hyper threading can order instructions before branches that rely on separate data and use different components to be simultaneously executed. I think this was a haswell paper.
Yay! now i can eat candy faster with my new core i3.
Only i7's can eat candy faster, Intel didn't give hyperthreading to the others, poor others.
Yeah i3:s are dual core with hyperthreading i5 is quad w/o hyperthreading and all lga 1055 / 1050 etc. i7:s are quad cores with hyperthreading
Ha, my bad!
: )
9666mikki some i5's do have HT though
thank you this is really helping me build my first computer
+Dr IllumiNAUGHTY not yet still trying to understand what main board i need :)
+Dr IllumiNAUGHTY thank you how can i tell if the main board i want ir for gaming ?
+Dr IllumiNAUGHTY thanks dude
+Kenny Hempson
Hey, I've just done a build for my friend that has been planning to build a PC. These are the parts (maybe it helps you!):
CPU: i5 4690k
Motherboard: Gigabyte H97 Gaming 3
GPU: Asus Strix 960 4GB
RAM: 2x Kingston DDR3 4GB 1333Mhz
HDD: Western Digital 2TB Green
PSU: XFX 650W
SSD: Samsung 850 Evo 128GBs
It's not a really high end PC, it's a mid high one I'd say. I made it with components that I found in my country (Argentina), so I think that maybe u can change the PSU and the MoBo.
If you're planning on building a +$2000 PC, I have one and I can give you the list of components :).
GL!
+Santi5010 thanks dude . sure send me the details :). i am switzerland so i can easily get parts
Not my college instructor referring the entire class to this video lol
Linus you rock, keep doing what you do!
Really good, clear, concise explanation. Good pedagogy, this! Looking forward to more!
One example of Single threaded workload is mastrubating
my dicks so big I have to use 2 hands... so, thats incorrect.
No matter how many hands you use, the holy liquid comes from a single channel
John Parker no? it comes out of my ears too
John Parker you can speed up the process by adding more mouths though
Elrond McBong win
Instructions unclear, hand stuck in toaster.
@TechQuickie July 2018 - I have been playing Counter-Strike GO with hardware monitor running in the background. I have an I3 7350k Kaby Lake cpu which is a 2 core with hyperthreading. I do notice the two hyper-threading cores are quite busy while I'm playing so I definitely think there is a benefit to having those extra hyper threading cores while playing games. Of course it is not as good or faster as a more expensive chip with more throughput and more cores.
Multi-threading cannot be explained so well like this video... Thumbs Up million times!!!
that's why i never understand why people some would buy Xeon for games.
yeah for just gaming its a tad silly, as even an Pentium/i3 can play modern games without any bottleneck, however.. you can buy the xeons are basically higher grade i7s, so.. if you bought one of the cheaper ones it would be a better deal than buying an i5 for about the same price.
Here are a few reasons: cheaper, more reliable (they're for servers), no wasteful integrated gpu, lower tdp, almost identical perfomance to some i7 cpu, cool names
Some games do take advantage of better cpu such as Starcraft 2, skyrim, guild wars 2, rome 2 and many other
Ha Do well the xeons are nice because they can give you hyperthreading quad cores cpu's for the price of a quad core not hyper threaded i5.. sure.. but what if you want to overclock it? :) the xeons are awesome cpu' but i would only buy it for a budget workstation.. as said before.. even i3's can easily handle modern game titles :) so if gaming is all that is on your mind.. you might be good with a OC'ed i5?
MrHearthofSIN To each their own i guess. I don't like to oc and don't feel comfortable oc. I don't have the good mobo to oc anyway. It's true that i3 can game easily given how gpu bound most games are nowadays but i like to have a little future proof with my cpu and low tdp as well.
Ha Do very valid point.
Decent video but the analogies almost dumb it down too much.
JustStat My mistake. I assumed the target audience for this video to be advanced beyond the average layman.
I have to side with DarkFox on this one. The target audience isn't a bunch of grannies trying to figure out how to check their email. We're slightly more advanced than that :P
***** If only I could save this as a quote somewhere.. You worded it perfectly, I'd say. I deal with a lot of retirees at work and they seem to break things in the most unexplainable ways because of their ignorance and lack of wanting to learn them.. It truly frustrates me trying to explain the simple things, like turning on, click this, enter this password and SN this way.. Then trying to explain how to operate CCTV systems to said person, and it just goes on and on and on in that endless cycle of never getting anywhere. It's both endlessly frustrating for me, yet probably just as frustrating for them not being able to understand the basic stuff..
On topic of OP, I both liked the analogy yet thought it was simplified too much. I fully understand him doing it though, because I find myself doing the same thing most every day.
It always brightens my day when someone uses an eating analogy.
Those ads are some effortlessly weaved in, it’s amazing! :)
"And heaven help you if you're trying to eat the cone first".😂😂😂
sooo basically AMD has the upper hand over Intel CPUs in games that dont support hyperthreading at all which is most of them despite the "lying benchmarks and other digital data generated by corporate registered programs" says? interesting, now i understand why they opted for more cores and better clockspeed rather than less cores and hyperthreading of some sort and why my A10-7850K outperforms an i5 in ArmA 3 >.>
Best simplified description of hyper threading ever. Thanks
This is what sponsors should be on your main channel today dude
How well is android optimized for hyperthreading. I have an Intel atom phone
F
U
C
H
Lol
Hyper-Threading was actually invented by AMD and they applied for a patent in 2002 but never followed through with it.
forums.tomshardware.com/threads/intel-did-not-invent-hyperthreading.302829/
Says it was not AMD just some engineer working for Intel discovers it d patient is not quite the same.
That's why the current server program I'm developing now not only uses threads, it creates a pool for incoming connections, when those connections out number the amount of threads I have assigned for the server. By using this approach, I don't have to worry about having more data to process than my cores can handle and I don't have to actually use all cores for the server itself (which would strain the server). My server program also calculates the average amount of time it takes to finish one thread processing job. This feedback allows me to calculate just how many players to place on the server, all while keeping a certain average thread processing time. My program can also act as an entry server or normal server. This setup allows me to easily add on more game worlds just by simply adding a new server and passing that info to the entry level server. The entry level server will then detect the new server and start filling it up with new players once the current server is filled. It will function the same even if I add multiple new servers at one time. I always felt, if you're going to develop a server side, make it as easy as possible to maintain on that side of things.
Dude you're great, I'm studying for the a+ cert and your stuff helps to clarify a lot of it
1:28, thank me later
Red and Blue candy. Intel and AMD reference? Blue in his mouth mean he prefers Intel.
+Kayemache I think you are reading way to deep between the lines.
+Julian Bell
He went deeper than Adele.
+Julian Bell Maybe you just don't see it
His segue to audible was so smooth unlike today's LTT videos that I did not see it coming! XD
You mean Segway.
@@rockstar-5934 Both the words are same. 'Segue' is older than 'Segway'. The latter word became popular due to the transportation vehicle brand.
DX12 utilizes multicores and multithreads. The smoothspot is at 8cores and 8 threads, as shown in a video I saw. Any more cores doesn't give much more FPS. So for gaming an Intel i7 5960X is the smoothspot, but is very costy.
Kind of like 2 girls 1 cup.
@جراند دادي Two threads, one core
1:48 "by adding more hands and more mouths"
+Alvin Du That's how I like my weekends. ._.
Fully modular human
one other thing really helps to increase CPU workload and that is on chip memory, the more you got, the faster it can access it and process the work load you have!! Usually there is levels, 1 and 2 on many processors, and also a level 3 on many newer processors as well.. which the level 2 on the older processors had the highest amount of on chip memory, the newer chips with Level 3 memory on chip has the most memory.. if I am not mistaken it helps to feed all the cores and threads continuously
This guy is great, keep up the good detailed & creative explanation videos, you're doing a good job!
Dat hair
So people = Pentium 4 HT's?
No
No, hyper threading is eating food with multiple mouths. Don't you listen?!!?
Quick tip
High grade processor beats 2 lower grade processors.
Processes that dont allow multithreading are constrained to the total speed of 1 processor.
Like he mentioned, HT has it's own use for certain application. For gaming, I find it absolutely useful since they are highly demanding with it comes to cpu/gpu, you never know until you execute the application.
1:24 LMAO IM DYING XDDDDD I LOST MY SHIT MAN IM DONE.
+Ross Linden Go find your shit then.
***** Long gone man... :(
Ross Linden Damn it. rip shit..
***** ikr :( fml
What dat mouf do
I'm sorry, I had to.
hey you play osu?
+anime god Ye \( ^^)/
PocketLint-osu what's your username?
anime god "P0ck3tL1nt", add me fam B)
dashie?
You are seriously good. I've been planning out building my own computers and Ive been going through your videos like ...candies. You deserve my sub.
This really helped bring hyperthreading into the realm of my understanding. Thanks Linus.
Skype is not a light task!
ikr it's always like #3 on my task manager for memory usage.
If i am gaming #2 if not #1.
I wish I had 20000 mouths... SO MUCH FOOD
For clarity and enlightenment this guy takes the biscuit...thank you !
dude, you speak so clearly. i learn something new with every video. i love it. keep it up.
why an 8 core amd can't beat a 4 core Intel?
because the individual cores are so much weaker.
they sometimes have more frequency then intel and intel still destroys amd
Aoidanias Alitaa it's because games are more optimised for quad cores with hyper threading than 8 cores. It's simply a software issue
Depends on workload and cpu .. gaming needs clock speed... video rendering needs cores...
clock speed beats cores in games
This is why AMD has always had superior multithreading performance. Their FX-8350 trashes many i7s in multithreading, and even some i7Es were left in the dust.
Bear in mind that this is not a processor made to compete against anything more than i5s. It holds it's own pretty well.
send me a link proving that cus everything I've ever seen favors i7s
TopTenOnEverything I don't have a link for you, but what I do know is a lot of AMD CPUs excel in multi-core performance, as most of their CPUs contain 8 cores, whilst Intel is focused on less cores (they usually use 4) and more performance per single core. I use the i7-4770k, and it is a powerhouse, but it is up to you to decide which is better, but in all honesty I would just stick with Intel.
JFTGames Yah I have the 4770k too and I know the AMD-8350 is a good CPU and may beat i7s in stuff like virtual machines, but I'm pretty sure most multithreaded things like video editing favors intel.
Multi-core and multithreading are two different things. But you are right on that, i7 is usually superior.
JFTGames Yah wouldn't multicore be virtual machines and screen recording while multithreaded would be like video editing? Because "kemoka77" said the 8350 "trashes many i7s in multithreading" and I don't believe that.
PLEASE DO NOT BUY AN I5 IF YOU HAVE THE MONEY FOR AN I7! I bought a new 2000+ euro gaming PC last year. I got GTX970 SLI. Based on the info in this video and others like this, I decided to go with the i5 4690k, believeing that the i7 4790k wouldn't make any difference in most games, as clearly stated by Linus. Turns out this is totally not true. The i5 is bottlenecking my system horribly. Both my GPU's basically never get over 60% usage while CPU is at constant 100%. My framerates are outright disappointing when I play CPU heavy games like Guild Wars 2 or Total War: Rome II, which regularly dip below 40 fps. This is in normal playing conditions (no particularly large battles or zergs going on or anything of the kind). This pissed me off, so I did extensive research into this problem. Turns out that getting the i7 could have boosted my framerates by up to 40% in these particular cases... Also, I found that most benchmarks comparing the non-hyperthreading cpu's with the high end i7's are just inaccurate and false, because in most benchmarks the GPU is the bottlneck, thus not showing any difference in performance where there actually is a very big one. I hope someone reads this whole comment and please take my advise: if you want to build a decent gaming PC (1500 $ or more), NEVER buy an i5. Always the i7. Whatever they tell you... Don't make the same mistake as me... It is very sad to realize afterwards that you could have had up to 40% higher framerates if you had spent 5-10% more on your PC...
+DaLordt It's really not nearly as dire as you are making it out to be. Yes games do exist like the ones you mentioned that are more cpu intensive and will actually max out a cpu like i5s occasionally before the gpus but they are pretty far and few in between. I have a 4670k with a light overclock of 4.2ghz and have played a lot of Guild wars 2 and some Total War Rome 2 and have observed that unless there are a lot of players in the area in Guild Wars 2 or a huge battle happening in Total War I hit the gpu cap first (this is mostly with the two 7950s I owned for 3ish years, but I've even observed pretty similar results with the two 980tis I just upgraded to when all settings are ultra). Even then I haven't ever gone below 60 due to the cpu in Total war Rome 2 and the only time my cpu is the cause in GW2 is again in giant groups of people which btw makes my buddy running an i7 4790k drop below 60 due to cpu load as well. So at the end of the day yes an i7 is better in very rare instances but I honestly haven't observed it to be very dramatic at all even in those rare situations.
No fucking thank you.
Yeah, but aren't some I5's comparative to some i7's? In some instances the i5 being superior? Obviously with modern or last gen i5s being superior to the first and 2nd gen i7s but I'm talking about modern gen.
Keep in mind to others reading this that the video is from 2013... Advice isn't unchanging. Even 2 years after the video (DaLordt's post) this advice was not quite correct as a lot more multi-threaded games and applications were out. Fast forward to now (another 2 years), and this advice is even more incorrect. Granted, his explanation of hyper-threading was fully correct and actually one of the better dumbed down explanations I've heard, the end where he stated that most games don't use more than a couple threads is outdated. However, that should be obvious to anyone watching videos from the past, that the advice is spoken from the state of affairs at the time the video was made.
It is also obvious that as more advanced GPU's come out, the faster the processor needs to be to keep up. You're either CPU limited or GPU limited. So the advice can also shift as new, more powerful, GPU's and paired workloads come out.
In short, DaLordt, that was a stupid move and no one to blame but yourself ;-)
Since the initial Core i series (back with 3-digit model numbers), the i7 is the HyperThreaded counterpart to the i5.
Example: Core i7 2600K V. i5 2500K, both have 4 physical cores and can be overclocked, but the i7 has HT on it whilst the i5 does not.
In your case, the bigger questions are: GPU power & V-RAM, System RAM & Storage Space. GPU & V-RAM are gonna be taxed by the game, Sys-RAM is gonna be used by everything running, drive space is gonna be consumed by FRAPS recording.
So that means therads arent cores ... So my AMD FX 6300 6core is an actual 3 core ? ... BG AMD BG
*****
taskmanager says 3 cores 6 threads 0.o
***** Task manager is wrong.
Charcha411
are you sure ? because i dont think so why should taskmanager shold be wrong on win 7 , 8 , 8.1 , 10 beta , 10 ? and jes i have been runnig all of them
I have an AMD-FX 6120 in one of my computers. Task manager says it has 3 cores and 6 threads. Hyper-threading is an intel technology, no AMD processors have it. Download CPU-Z, it will say your CPU has 6 cores and 6 threads. Task manager is wrong, probably built to read intel CPUs.
+SIME_LP 3 cores w/ 2 integer modules per core. so yeah, not a true hexacore proc
i eat the cone first
My god. You deranged lunatic o.o
Brandon Dean Lol
This is probbably the best analogy that has ever been used for anything ever.
For those with a bit more interest, a single-core CPU with Hyper-Threading has a single processing core, or "1 mouth" as per the analogy, but it has a duplicated set of registers. This added set of registers is the "2nd hand" in the analogy.
skype lol
who use this thing nawadeiz
nice tech stuff .....................besides this i hv a little gay crush on this guy ............ dont know why ..........
+ricky rann and good collection
..oke
Suhkma Dheek
hey i delete what ?? sorry i dont remember ... did i said anything wrong ?? ..(and its ricky this side btw i just change my name )
Suhkma Dheek
ok
If I recall correctly the optime performance boost hyper threading can give is +30%, according to PC mag
Even games won't utilize 2 or even 4 processors at all times even with (or without} threading.. If you understand the point he is making. A game is an essentially an application, and it still spends time waiting for the next move before it can process the next thread. It can (and does) try to predict what the next move will be, but it can't process the next frame until it knows what it is going to be. So obviously the game is not using all 4 cores all the time. Because there aren't threads waiting in line, as the man said. Then when the next frame is known it can use however many processors it wants to to display the next frame or action. That's why it helps to run extra GPUs to add the speed boost necessary for fast seamless action.
The examples this guy uses are extremely understandable
Wow can't imagine a better explanation. Respect.
1:05 I think you're describing superscalar processors more than hyper-threaded ones (Intels are superscalar since P4 architecture (and I don't mean Pentium IV)). HT uses concepts of superscalarity, but for improving performance of different tasks on a processor. It would be better to describe HT as doing two different things at a time: eating and writing a blogpost maybe? And sharing resources not needed by the other task (left hand for eating, right hand for typing).
Superb description! Great food analogy too! Thx!
it actaully has 8 physical cores. it has 4 modules with 8 Integer cores (x86/x86-64) and it has 8 128bit FPU's. It only has 1 set of decoders per module and it has to combine both 128bit FPUs for AVX instructions (which aren't used too often anyway). But other than that it is capable of processing 8 threads at the same time on 8 separate cores.
Suggestions for new videos:
1) PC cooling (how many fans you should have how should they be placed)
2) AMD Mantle
I was wondering to myself what hyper-threading was and thought "Wait, Techquickie probably has a video about that."
Glad to see I was right haha. Thanks.
The cores aren't actually weaker, it's that Intel cores are better suited for single threaded applications.
For example, in a single threaded, or a low thread count program/game (Example, Kerbal space program uses 1 thread, and Sony Vegas uses a max of 4) you will see better performance on a intel cpu. Although, in heavy multi-threaded applications (6+ cores usually) a FX-8320 can actually out perform a i7 for close to half the i7's cost.