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Originally Posted by nomadicus
If you have Windows XP, you can leave HT on but for each % on the second virtual processor means that prime95 runs that much slower (the reported 20-30% boost with hyper threading enabled does not apply to prime95 due to its optimized assembly code).
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That is true if you exclusively use the system with prime95. If you also use the system for 'normal' work or simultanously participate in other DC-projects with that box, using HT gains up to 60% 'free' performance (for both projects combined) with Win XP.
How much performance you gain depends on the kind of workload the programms have. One more extreme example (close to that 60% gain) is mixing the not-bandwidth-limited prime95 TF workload above 2^64 (Integer SSE2) with the memory-bandwidth-limited NFSNET client (no SSE2).
It is also interesting that the power consumption of the CPU in the aforementioned setup does not increase.
Tau 'HT' Ceti :)