Replies to post #21138 on Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[wbmw]

HM, Re: I think a 4 way HT core would be too complex for too little gain. I doubt we'll see this from either Intel or AMD. AMD seems to even say they are not going to do a HT core at all in favor of multiple cores. It may be for AMD's microarchitecture the benefits of HT are very small. Higher IPC cores will be able to utilize HT less. Long pipeline cores with lower IPC like P4, however, have more waste in the execution units that the 2nd thread can use.

I think you're exactly right. Hyperthreading is well suited for the Pentium 4; Athlon will do better by going to dual cores. The best gains, however, may come from doing both, but we'll have to see if software will support that many threads by the time these dual core CPUs come out.