Re: I know this is just one benchmark, but the improvement with HT enabled looks pretty remarkable...
Indeed it does. At least that helps to close the gap even more with respect to VIA's Isaiah design. Isaiah is single core, and perhaps the only likely roadblock towards ramping demand for Nettops and Netbooks.
I wonder if the Intel architects found through their simulations that HT has a higher ROI in terms of ILP than adding the OOO overhead
Ihink that it could be an attempt at power optimisation.HT probably dissipates less power than the OOO circuity, and HT had a better "ROI".
Intel appears to be getting better at HT since the Pentium 4 days. Nehalem's leaked benchmarks gave a dramatic improvement with HT, which was to be expected since Nehalem has more execution resoources than the Pentium 4. However I was surprised to see the extent of the improvement even with the minimal resources of the Silverthorne.