Food for thought on hyper threading and using more cores.

[xan_user]

Im not a power user, or big gamer, but i found this video by linus interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GgDZKG ... -yeJA0Tunw

I see many SPCR's say "you dont need that many cores, your app/game wont make use of them"... but maybe we should ask what type of user they are first? are they running 45 programs in the background , or is their system tuned/stripped down for the main use they intend?

Any thoughts?

[CA_Steve]

My standard question is: What applications are you using/do any make use of hyperthreading?

[edh]

The video still doesn't make much of an argument. The whole 'in the real world people have cluttered up systems' argument is silly. For someone to be spending that level of money you would expect they would have the skills and time to be able to clean out their system tray.

So it will take a little bit longer for someone doing some crazy live streaming thing while gaming? Irrelevant. Get over yourself if you really think you're important enough that someone cares to watch you play computer games!

High end consumer hardware is a perfect example of selling people something that they don't need but satisfies their need for a bigger ego.

[washu]

A typical "cluttered" system with 20+ icons in the system tray is going to be far more likely to be I/O bound than CPU limited. The common heavy hitters, AV and Malware scanners are going to be almost completely I/O limited unless the user has an SSD. Assuming enough RAM, an SSD is far more likely to improve the average system than a 6+ core CPU.

[cerbie]

So it will take a little bit longer for someone doing some crazy live streaming thing while gaming? Irrelevant. Get over yourself if you really think you're important enough that someone cares to watch you play computer games!

That's an example scenario to test, by someone that is making videos people watch, so also probably an easy one to set up and verify. Maybe you want to play something while background rendering is going on, or a massive compile job (like hacking on Android ROMs tends to cause), or something else. There are many different scenarios. Putting empirical measurements on PC multitasking has never been easy. Even back with a Core 2 Duo, I would use my PC like normal, while video transcoding was going on in the background, for hours. I couldn't play fast-paced games, though, because of stuttering it could cause. HT is a good remedy for this sort of thing, if the real cores can be made use of (if not, additional logical and physical cores will act the same). It's hard to capture measurements for it, though.

A typical "cluttered" system with 20+ icons in the system tray is going to be far more likely to be I/O bound than CPU limited. The common heavy hitters, AV and Malware scanners are going to be almost completely I/O limited unless the user has an SSD. Assuming enough RAM, an SSD is far more likely to improve the average system than a 6+ core CPU.

An SSD should already be assumed to be in use, or at least planned for a build. It would be ridiculous not to buy one as part of any high-end PC, and most mid-range PCs. The average system is far below anything tested, and will receive the same gains, if any, from a Core i3 or A8/A10 over a Pentium that the video shows for a Core i7 over a Core i5, or 8-core over 6-core, assuming it's been made, or upgraded, with an SSD.

Compare the graphs to the costs. Roughly, in USD, at 8GB RAM, for motherboard, CPU, and RAM, not going with the cheapest boards, it's $400 v. $500 v. $700 v. $1500.
The i7-5820K is an overclocker's chip, but will temp some prosumers with horizontally scaling software. Being slower than cheaper LGA1150 CPUs at stock for basically everything but DC, video encoding, and 3D rendering, makes it not worth it for most.
The i7-5960X is as much as a pretty nice PC all by itself. It very well aught to perform the best, for those that want bragging rights.
The i7-4790K isn't too much more than the i5-4690/i5-4690K, looking at the total system cost, and compares fairly well against the i7-5820K, stock v. stock.
If lower per-core performance is fine, the E3-1231V3 is even less of a premium over the i5 than the i7 is, and will give the same advantages from having HT, just slightly lower average scores.
If an i3 will handle your multitasking needs, even an i5 would be just for the performance of some program(s), if anything, and be another $50-125 cheaper.

If you can use up four cores, logical or physical, and want or really can make good use of, more, spend the extra to double the logical count. Spending the extra to go to the workstation/server socket drags you into greatly diminishing returns, and quickly. But, you need to be able to use those four cores and then some, or it will be a waste to even get HT at four cores. 6 and 8 only make sense if your income comes from the ability to crunch on data ever faster than before, and that can be done well with more cores.

High end consumer hardware is a perfect example of selling people something that they don't need but satisfies their need for a bigger ego.

Luckily for AMD, Intel, Asus, Corsair, etc., it works.

[wayner]

What about video transcoding? Don't tools like Handbrake use up all cores/threads that you have?

[cerbie]

What about video transcoding? Don't tools like Handbrake use up all cores/threads that you have?

Yes, and they tend to get returns from HT.

But, you need to have expectations of use in mind. I can think of only a handful of times where cutting down video encoding time by 10x would have made any real difference, back when I was running a Core 2 Duo, that could take hours to do a high-quality job. That my Xeon E3-1230V3 is never even so slow as 10x the old rig is nice and all, but would not be worth a single penny over a CPU with fewer logical or physical cores, on account of slower encoding time. Once it takes more than a few minutes, it's taking long enough to go do something else, and check back later. As a home user that's just interested in easier consumption, faster encoding, now that it doesn't take hours and hours and hours, does not add value. The same will be true for people just doing home movies. Serious amateurs, the prosumers, and professionals, will see that very differently, though.

[washu]

What about video transcoding? Don't tools like Handbrake use up all cores/threads that you have?

Video transcoding is certainly something that can use more cores. But is it worth the extra cost? In handbrake at stock speeds, a 5960X is not double the speed of a 4790K despite being well over twice the cost. If transcoding is a major component of your workload then it may be worth it, but for the average user they can probably wait a few extra min.

[Abula]

What about video transcoding? Don't tools like Handbrake use up all cores/threads that you have?

Video transcoding is certainly something that can use more cores. But is it worth the extra cost? In handbrake at stock speeds, a 5960X is not double the speed of a 4790K despite being well over twice the cost. If Encoding / transcoding is a major component of your workload then it may be worth it, but for the average user they can probably wait a few extra min.

Everything in hardware going into the top end is incredible more expensive for a small gain in performance, happens on CPUs and GPUs among other hardware. For the average user, i dont think its worth the premium, but for example a twitch streamer / youtube video uploader, it might be worth it, lower transcoding means he will be online more, having more peopel watching him, and more time for him and twitch to send more publicity, more time for users to subscribe, to catch a donation, etc. I feel spending into a $1k cpu is worth it under those circumstances, probably not for a beginer, but for people that make a living out of it, and are good at it.

[ggumdol]

It is one of those Youtube channels explicitly supported by high-end markets, e.g., Corsair. It must be profitable for them to advocate many core processors even if they pretend to be neutral. SPCR is one of rare places where you can seek out genuinely neutral advice. For average users, four core Intel CPUs suffice their needs. However, I don't think you have to be reasonable in purchasing PC components, which is essentially a capitalistic hobby.

Im not a power user, or big gamer, but i found this video by linus interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GgDZKG ... -yeJA0Tunw