Stacey wrote:
Fixing to do a clean install of XP on an intel northwood HT P4 2.8 system with 2 gigs of ram. Last install was a while ago and had hyperthreading disabled in the bios (no support at the time of the install). Now with SP2 and support for HT, should I enable it so this HAL is used and does CS2 like HT being enabled? I’m not interested in a breath of performance traded for stability. Been editing some large medium format scans so looking for performance if it doesn’t affect stability.
I just got rid of a P4 3.2 GHz Prescott with HT. It wasn’t that I didn’t like it, but it started going crazy on me. (OK, it may have been the motherboard.) However, my CS and CS2 loved the HT.
XP represents HT to applications as a 2nd processor. So, CS2 thinks there is a 2nd processor in place. Since CS2 is dual processor aware, it will use the processors that XP tells it are there. Of course, HT isn’t really another processor. It is more like using the overhead processing power that is going unused. So, you won’t get extra speed in all cases.
Last year there was this big debate on this subject in some of these newsgroups. (Isn’t there always?) Naturally a lot of people threw their opinions around with great gusto. Alas, I couldn’t find any hard numbers on HT. So, I ran my own test. Here is where I presented my results:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.graphics.apps.photoshop/ browse_thread/thread/8d124abb36fbfe48/1d170effd7cd9c43?lnk=s t&q=%22hyperthreading%22+clyde&rnum=8&hl=en#1d17 0effd7cd9c43 In short, I found Photoshop CS to run faster with HT turned on. The improvement was greatest when I was running other apps at the same time. Of course, you are welcome to run your own tests.
BTW, my new AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ is a true dual core processor that REALLY flies with CS2! This is the way to do Photoshop!
Thanks,
Clyde
