Does Hyper-Threading Matter for Gaming? — How It Works

hello and welcome to tech deals is hyper-threading really needed to play games does it really offer a benefit or is it just more hype today we're gonna find out I have to AMD CPUs here that are both for core processors one of which has SMT otherwise known more popularly as hyper threading however ambi can't call it that because hyper threading is actually an Intel trademarked term however whether you call it SMT or hyper threading it is the same technology AMD's rise in three 1300 X and rise in five 1500 X both first generation Zen cores both with for true processing cores but the 1500 X has SMT which I'm going to call hyper threading from this point on because it just sounds cooler but otherwise these are very similar in most respects they both run at 3.6 gigahertz on all the cores as you'll see in the benchmarks in just a minute so they're very very similar processors so what is hyper threading you ask great question the full answer is long and complex so I'll give you the short short version it allows you to assign to different tasks to each CPU core essentially increasing your thread count to eight it's pre-emptive multitasking but at the thread level within your CPU it increases the amount of jobs that can be assigned but not actually the amount that can be done at any given moment because you've not increased the number of true processing cores within the chip hyper threading helps by hiding memory latency and allowing the prefetch buffers and other elements within the pipeline of the CPU stay full by alternating the tasks that they're working on to make sure all the various execution units within the CPU basically stay busy at any given point in time hyper threading does not generally make your CPU a lot faster but what it does do is make it smoother and more responsive and help clean out the hitches and stutters that happen when you run out of processing threads it is important to note there is one other difference between the 1300 X and the 1500 X the 1300 X has eight megabytes of level three cache and the 1500 X has sixteen megabytes of level three cache while it is true that you can take a 1500 X disabled hyper-threading SMT in the BIOS and get pretty close it's not really the same results because you can't adjust the level three cache size and that is why I have both real CPUs and these tests you're about to see were actually done on the real chips one question that I am sure is bound to come up is why these two CPUs why not use something faster like say a I 570 600 K versus say a I 770 700 K 4 cores 4 threads 4 cores 8 threads and the simple answer to that is we're not looking for absolute performance numbers here because there are so many CPUs covered by the does hyper-threading matter question instead we're trying to figure out is there a difference in performance is there a difference in smoothness and frame pacing delivery between 4 core 4 thread and 4 core 8 thread CPUs and we can do that whether we use mid-range rise in first gen chips or the best that Intel ever made before moving to 6 core processors likewise we could have used an i-5 2500 K or an i7 2,600 mm 11 and it would have accomplished the same goal much lower total frame rates but there'd still be a difference between them between a four core four thread and a fork or a thread CPU I picked the rise ins for a couple of reasons number one I have them number two they are an amazing value for the money right now you can pick up a rise in five 1500 X for like 60 to 70 dollars on eBay but he used i seven seventy seven hundred k it's like two hundred and fifty dollars it's faster but not so much faster to justify that price point and furthermore the rise in CPUs can be upgraded to an eight or sixteen core CPU on the same motherboard take that Intel for our test bench today we're using the asou sreob strix x4 70 - eff motherboard with 16 gigabytes of ddr4 32 hundred megahertz CL 16 Ram installed we have a gigabyte rx 5700 XT gaming overclocked card it's a little bit overpowered for these CPUs but it lets us see how well the CPUs perform rather than being graphics card limited yes it's a CPU test and yes in theory using the best of elbow graphics card would make sense but let's be real here everybody would just roll their eyes if I stuck an RTX 2080 TI on here that removes all graphic card limitations but it's kind of a silly choice for four core versus four core a thread so I went with something somewhat reasonable in the 5700 XT MSI Afterburner provided the real-time performance numbers and benchmarks you're about to see the video was recorded on a second computer on a hardware capture card the test bench did not even know it was being recorded so no performance was lost from that links in the video description below to Amazon Newegg and eBay for all of these items and a couple of suggested items if you can swing the budget to be completely honest if you are buying now I would skip both of these CPUs and simply get yourself arisin v 1600 and enjoy the power and performance of a six core twelfth red chip it really isn't that much more than a 1500 X even used on eBay I will have some more thoughts for these CPUs after the benchmarks so please stick around for those but you guys have waited long enough so for now let's get to the benchmarks a quick update before I show you the benchmarks themselves I really wish I had gone and done an RT X 2060 super or something similar because the clock speed and the boost issues at 1080p on the 5700 XT is still broken it's not stable and it does affect a couple of the benchmarks you're about to see I do call them out so you can be aware of it and I primarily want you to focus on the CPU usage and the lows rather than the averages because that's really what we're looking at here but since I've already done all the benchmarks and I'm not gonna go back and redo this many tests we kind of have to live with it for the moment just be aware that whenever I call the 5700 XT fussy this is a good example of what I mean it's a good card the drivers just need some more work giving MB six months and that fine wine technology will have it all sorted out but for now here's the benchmarks our first benchmark today is Assassin's Creed Odyssey I know I know it's everybody's favorite benchmark /s and what's interesting here is the rise and three 1300 X on the top is absolutely pegged at 100% CPU usage the rise in five 1500 X on the bottom is running about 60 to 70 percent usage but remember it has 4 cores 8 threads and so if we're over 50% on it that we're using more than 4 cores but wait you say the frame rates higher on the 1300 X what in the world is going on well I probably should not have broken my own rule in using the rx 5700 X T because it probably means I need to go back and redo these using an NVIDIA GPU take a look at the frame rate relative to the clock speed on the video card these things throttle hard and really mess up the benchmarks and unfortunately this is kind of an Rx 5700 XT thing 56 frames per second on the 1300 X 51 on the 1,500 X yeah now there's a bunch more benchmarks coming so don't don't bail on me yet but this is ridiculous because the 1500 X is clearly gonna be better in Assassin's Creed Odyssey than on 1300 x this game once more than four cores this game will absolutely use more than four cords that we use the hyper threading for smoothness but the performance there and this is why charts aren't everything you've got to see the footage the performance there is due to the fact that the RX 5700 xt was throttling more on that because it just won't stay at a certain speed and the drivers and everything are just now Assassin's Creed Odyssey is the video cards fault this one is my fault but don't run off I promise it's the last benchmark here that has any kind of squirrelly stuff the rest are fine these aren't on the same map and it was a complete oversight on my part I accept full responsibility so while the framerate numbers are gonna be kind of weird here that's not why this game is included take a look at the CPU usage in terms of percentage right in the middle of MSI Afterburner notice that the 1300 X is basically pegged to a hundred percent all of the time and notice that the 1500 X is not but the 1500 X does go above 50% at times because it's using all four cores and it goes into the hyper threading at times now many of these games don't like to use the hyper threads they want more real cores and when I come back around and test this on a 6-quart chip and compare four to six cores you'll see that a little bit more clearly but because these aren't on the same map honestly the framerate numbers aren't directly comparable when I do the four versus six-course I promise you they will be on the same map I won't do this again that just was carelessness on my part so my apologies 94 frames per second on the 1300 x and seventy-nine frames per second on the 1500 X if anybody just watches the first two benchmarks you might come away from this going hyper threading is stupid why in the world would you ever one hyper threading turned on well okay patience patience were coming to a better benchmark I promise Counter Strike global Offensive and these were on the same map whoo and these are also tested using basically the same play the same combat over the course of ten minutes so this is a much much better comparison than the last one take a look at the CPU usage now the 1300 X is not pegged out to a hundred percent this is a fairly lightweight game it doesn't require very many demanding resources but it is using a majority of the CPU the 1500 X is using half because of course it's twice as many threads 174 to 183 the actual average frame rate doesn't change by much and the hyper-threading does not generally make games faster it makes them smoother look at the one percent end point one percent low given that this is a replay of a professional tournament by professional teams on the same map this is much more comparable it's much better benchmark I need to do this for call of duty black ops for 58 to 100 on the one percent low and eight to thirty one on the 0.1 percent low now remember the 1300 X was not 100% utilized it was only using like three of the four cores so there's no reason whatsoever to have a hyper threading ever except that's wrong it's little micro stutters that don't show up in averages and that don't show up in just viewing footage but that exists within the game far cry nude on the full price DLC - far cry 5 this is a really good example of where you have to take benchmarks with a grain of salt some benchmarks stress the graphics card some stress the CPU and some stress both in this particular case what you're looking at in this benchmark is not really caring about the CPU as much it's using more CPU notice on the 1300 X it's using basically all four cores and on the 1500 exits using four cores but if you look really really closely you'll notice the frame rates are about the same and you'll notice that the one percent and one point one percent low numbers aren't that far off either however this is an open-world game and if I played it then I would be playing it and showing that to you of course a that takes time and B that requires you get a certain distance in the game to find a place that is effective I played Far Cry 5 and I played it for about five hours or so before I honestly got bored with it and it makes more of a difference in that Ghost Recon break point the division two are good examples of where that has a greater effect 74 and 74 on the average 55 and 55 on the one percent low and 44 and 52 on the point one percent low you might think the hyper-threading doesn't matter but there's no open world exploration or map generation in this benchmark this is more of a graphics card test but I include it because it's here and I put it all of my videos but take this one with a little grain of salt for tonight everybody's favorite battle royale game this is tested in team Rumble this does a couple of things first of all it lets me get a full benchmark in because you respawn in the normal standard game you would die and then you go back to the main menu and I don't ever live long enough or do enough battle to ever actually get anything going so here we've got two full battles benchmarked and recorded 1080p high detail so it's running at 100% rendered resolution which is the default in the game and it's remarkably good performance even on the four core fourth red chip take a look at that it is using all of them notice it's using 90% 94% 88% of the four core fourth red chip down on the 1500 X it's bouncing around 50% there's 59% there's 65% there are moments in the game where it needs more average frame rate wise the hyper threading means nothing to performance if you're looking for faster overall averages hyper threading is not it you need six cores and I'll show you a fortnight again when I do the four core versus six core comparison but if you want a smoother experience if you want a game that hitches less often in general there are interestingly enough a couple of odd exceptions where actually the reverse is true it hits just less with hyper-threading turned off but those are the exceptions not the rule in fortnight you very much want your hyper threading turned on if you don't want the game hitching all over the place in terms of average frame rates 163 to 149 keep in mind live gameplay different things are happening on many different parts of the map I'm engaged in combat different amounts of times and these benchmarks are of the whole game it's a tie that's that's effectively a tie given the battle orientation given the nature of fortnight look at the 1% low and the 0.1% low that's not a tie the 1% low is nearly three times higher on the 1500 X when you saw the CPU usage jump to like 58 percent 59 60 % it's the computers into the hyper threads on the 1300 X every one of those is a hitch every time it wants to use more than four threads and that includes the whole computer not just the game windows anything running in the background your web browser your drivers anything your van a virus wants to scan something while you're playing all of that needs a thread and so the 1300 X has nothing to give or if the 1500 X does if you want to play fort 9 it's fine on a fork or 4 thread chip it's better on a fork or eight thread chip Ghost Recon breakpoint whoa this is an interesting one take a look at the CPU usage take a look at the CPU usage on the 1,500 X notice it's pegging out in the 90% range at times not there as I'm speaking but it did a couple of times not only does this game absolutely not run smoothly on a fork or a four thread chip it's not even great on a fork or eight thread chip this really wants 6 cores 12 threads at a minimum I mean it will play it does play I did play for a while but yeesh it was um yeah it was rough it was better on the 1,500 X but it was still not great 69 frames per second average on the 1500 X versus 49 on the 1300 X but that belies the problems on the 1300 X where there were complete pauses and freezes in the game 29 to 48 on the one percent low and 20 to 239 on the point one percent load those numbers are accurate was actually playing the game I would not want to play this game on a fork or fourth red chip and I'm not excited about playing it on a fork or a thread chip either I've got almost 40 hours in this game at this point I'm playing it almost every day not for very long because I'm busy making videos but it is fun it genuinely is fun at least for me and it really needs more than four cores regardless of whether you have hyper threading or not overwatch however is a completely different story overwatch will play just fine on four cores and four threads it is smoother on a four core eight thread chip the hyper threading does smooth out portions of it if you're a competitive player you would not want to be on a 1300 X or any fork or floor thread chip but if you're casual if you're just playing for fun if it's just something you do on the weekend then sure yeah rock on it absolutely is great but the one percent and point one percent lows are definitely better if you have hyper-threading 144 to 166 it's a little bit faster on than 1500 X but not tremendously so 1% lows yeah that's a pretty solid 25 percent boost in performance but of course if you're not a super professional player eighty to one percent of lovers are just fun the 0.1% lows when you die with four threads then it hitches when you jump back whereas it doesn't hit as much on the 1500 X it's it's really fine on either CPU shadow of the Tomb Raider yeah this needs a whole lot more CPU power look at the well the 1,300 X is of course pegged look at the 1500 X it's not pegged 100% of the time but it slams into 99 percent several times you absolutely want a minimum of eight threads if you want anything approaching smooth gameplay in this and frankly I personally would also consider six cores and twelve threads to be the minimum we'll look at that in the next video but you can get away with 4 cores eight threads especially if they're faster if you have an i7 7700 K at 4.5 to 5 gigahertz than sure it won't be as bad as it is here but yeah here's where the averages lied to you 89 to 101 so hey four cores four threads is fine right no 26 to 46 that's not quite double maybe 80% faster in the 1% lows and then more than double on the 0.1% lows and this is the built in benchmark in that live gameplay I promise when you're jumping around between terrains and obstacles and avoiding the bad guys and shooting you do not want to be on a four thread processor and shadow of the Tomb Raider steep these snowboarding hang gliding skiing simulator thingy let me know in the comments below if you want this to continue to be included in benchmarks I have not gotten a lot of feedback one way or another did people like this game do they play it it's something different it's not another first-person shooter it's not another eSports game so I thought well let's include this and see what people think but if you guys don't want to see it well I'll find something else suggestions for games are always welcome down in the comment section below this runs remarkably well on both of these CPUs 92 frames per second on the 1300 x vs 101 on the 1500 X in 51 and 49 and 34 and 33 so it really didn't care at least in the built-in benchmark about hyper-threading the division to the sequel and follow-up to the very cool open-world game division one which I actually beat and quite enjoyed a bunch I'm having fun in this one as well it's a little on the bland side because it kind of basically feels like an extended DLC to the first one there's a couple of new features but it kind of pretty much is basically the same game now that's not a bad thing but in terms of performance does it run on a fork or four thread chip it does it's not great it's hichy and stuttery in places the performance is definitely slower than you'd like but unlike Ghost Recon breakpoint which is not in my opinion playable on four cores four threads this is it's just lousy so even if you've got a fast chip if you've got an i5 6600 K overclocked to 4.5 gigahertz and you go yeah but I have gigahertz man yeah but you've only got four threads and it's still not gonna be a great experience it's not unplayable but yeah the the extra threads the hyper threading makes a difference frankly in my opinion this game like so all the others we've talked about desperately once six cores and twelve threads take a look at the 1500 X we're bouncing there's 80% 75% at times it's up to 90% either 79 and 76% 86% it wants more and keeping adjust I cannot pound this hard enough hyper threading is not real course when it goes over 50% it smoothes the game out but it's not magic it helps but real cores help more 76 to 115 that's a huge difference in one of the few places where you're gonna see a real difference with the extra cores and threads 1% low of 51 and 75 and the point one percent love was wonky probably had it I don't know why an explosion or something happened something overwhelm the 1500 X in that particular battle because this is not a benchmark even though the division 2 has a built-in benchmark I'm using live gameplay something hitched and stuttered and that's just going to happen so go get yourself a 6 core 8 core processor total war three kingdoms now this is the game's built-in benchmark and it's great for testing the graphics card I'm not entirely convinced this is very good for testing the CPU I'm interested in your feedback I don't play this game I have never launched this game in terms of actually playing it and so the lack of experience there does not help if I would there were more hours in the day I would in fact I do live gameplay testing on everything if there was more hours in the day something tells me that when you fill the screen up with endless enemies in a huge battle and you get into it then it's going to become very very demanding in this particular benchmark here we are using basically four cores we're using all the cores of the 1300 X and we're using all the cores and occasionally dipping at a hyper threading of the 1500 X but the performance is pretty similar all things considered is this reflective of the game I leave that for you to decide if this is your cup of tea 63 versus 72 on the average 30 verse thirty-six on the one percent low in 26 versus 30 on the point one percent low thank you all so much for watching all of those benchmarks if you did so without fast-forwarding then two gold stars for you it is greatly appreciative these videos take days to put together between the benchmarks and constructing and filming and editing and so your support simply by watching the video first of all is appreciated hit that like button leave a comment for engagement for the YouTube bots down below and if possible support us using the links in the description below the affiliate links directly support the channel at no extra cost to you regardless of what you buy even if you hit that amazon link and buy a jar of peanut butter for example it actually still counts so we appreciate it if you're able to go beyond that and directly support the channel using either patreon or floatplane there are some benefits to doing so those links are down there as well and we use that support to make more of these videos and make them more often thank you so what do I really think of these CPUs well it all depends upon your expectations a fork or four thread chip will absolutely still play lots of games want to play overwatch no problem want to play Ghost Recon breakpoint ya know it's a terrible experience it is entirely down to game choice and what kind of performance that you're expecting out of it so while some of you are gonna say I'm just gonna hang on to my current four core forthright chip for a while others may be going holy smokes it is way past time to upgrade did I mention the rise in five 1600 is an amazing value for the money it really is additional clock speed does help an i7 7700 K at 5 gigahertz will of course have a much higher average frame rate than a risin 5 1500 X because of the higher clock speed but it's not necessarily smoother because if you run out of cores and threads you're still going to get micro stutters and dips in the frame pace and they're gonna bring those 1% and point one percent low numbers down and just create a less ideal experience and a rise in 5 1600 at 3.7 gigahertz fixed which is a mild overclock will not play games as fast as a 7700 K of 5 gigahertz the average frame rate will absolutely be lower but it might be smooth and so the question is do you want the highest possible maximum frame rate or do you want the smoothest best overall frame pacing and frame delivery without a bunch of micro stutters in your gameplay slower clock speed slower frame rate but better experience with more cores and more threads another question I've been asked recently is why not just buy an eight or a twelve core CPU and turn off hyper-threading and get the best of both worlds lots of threads and all true cores why why would you want to hobble yourself like that it is true than a very limited number of games programs and applications do react poorly to hyper threading and perform a little bit slower by like two or three percent but by far the vast majority of programs and applications and windows itself react positively to hyper threading so turning it off is like trying to find a corner case where it's a benefit and ignoring the hundred other times where it's a benefit so yeah don't turn off hyper threading it's a good thing like ninety-eight percent of the time hyper threading is here to stay and it's expanding expect four threads per core to come to an AMD CPU near you in the next couple of years maybe two to three years from now four threads per core so that would be an eight core thirty-two thread processor or a 16 core 64 thread processor it's not a new technology iBM is headed for years in their workstation and server lines but it's now consuming to the consumer end so hyper threading isn't going anywhere thank you all for watching this very long discussion of hyper threading like this video if you liked it share it with your friends if you love it remember subscribe to my channel with a big huge red button directly below remember to hit the bell notification icon next to the subscribe button to actually be notified when new videos come out links in the video description below as I mentioned before comments down in the comment section below and as always thank you for watching and I will see all of you next time [Music]

Channel: Tech Deals

Views: 77,347

Rating: 4.7957611 out of 5

Keywords: hyperthreading gaming, does Hyper-Threading Matter for Gaming? — How It Works, hyperthreading vs no hyperthreading, hyperthreading cpu, How Hyperthreading Works, Hyperthreading, hyperthreading on vs off, What is hyperthreading?, hyperthreading vs cores, 1300x vs 1500x, Ryzen 3 vs Ryzen 5, i5 vs i7, i7 vs i9, i5-7600k vs i7-7700k, i5-8600k vs i7-8700k, i9-9700k vs i9-9900k, Cores vs Threads, SMT, What is SMT?, how SMT Works, Tech deals, pc build

Id: xg_l-RWjAh8

Length: 28min 9sec (1689 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 10 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/logibutt]

They run benchmarks at detail levels too high for the GPU to handle properly even with the 3 gen old garbage CPUs they picked, and then fail to reach any consistant conclusion through a 30 minutes long video. Good stuff.