Discussion on hyperthreading in older Xeons
Discussion on hyperthreading in older Xeons
Hello! Your setup includes 12 physical cores, which is sufficient for most gaming and productivity tasks. Hyperthreading isn’t strictly necessary unless you're running highly multi-threaded applications or demanding workloads. Since your current usage leans toward single-threaded performance, keeping hyperthreading disabled might actually help maintain stability and avoid unnecessary overhead. You're right to consider the trade-offs—some games do suffer in single-threaded scenarios, but if you're not pushing the limits, it shouldn't hurt much. Just keep an eye on performance in your specific workloads. P.S. Overclocking isn’t an option here!
I've handled PE servers the same way, but you have the option to disable HyperThreading, which might not be effective. Those older Xeons, even with many cores, are quite outdated—just a decade old and struggling to keep up.
The issue involves specter and meltdown problems that interfere with hyperthreading and preemptive multitasking. Older processors have safeguards when operating systems are kept current, though these safeguards disable certain features. I don’t have a clear idea of the performance impact on your specific setup. These challenges persist even in brand new systems, albeit to a lesser extent. Specter/meltdowns are still unresolved in amd64, only partially addressed.
The quick response is... possibly. It varies by game and operating system, depending on their HT awareness. I’d suggest giving it a try and checking if it benefits your needs.
I just ran the tests and it looks a bit unusual. For testing I used Cinebench R15, opened Task Manager in the background, and ran the same processes with HT disabled. I got 58.9 FPS in OpenGL (98% match) even though the GPU wasn’t struggling and could have reached at least double that. On the MP Radio, with HT enabled I achieved 64.23 FPS for OpenGL (still close to 98% match) and 1104 points in multi-threaded mode versus 81 in single-threaded. It seems HT makes the system treat one core as two, which might halve performance since each core handles half the work. It looks like this old build gives me only what I can get from these machines. Maybe upgrading to a newer Xeon would help. Dell says it supports the best Xeons on this board, but they’re quite pricey—especially with two CPUs you’d want.
I noticed I misunderstood the question. If you focus on single or multiple threads, Cinebench is a good indicator. What I was thinking wasn’t exactly what you asked for directly. Because you referenced games, I imagined a situation where more than one thread is used but not all CPU cores. That’s the case I was considering for HT optimization.
X5690 stands out as the top choice for sockets, likely to function well. X5675 offers better value, while X5670 is worth considering if you're comfortable with a slight speed reduction. Like Radium mentioned, these chips are nearing their peak, around eight years old now. At a stable 4.2-4.7GHz OC, they perform adequately, reaching near the benchmark scores of a high-end Ryzen 5 1600. Prior to Ryzen, they provided solid performance; however, with the introduction of Zen, they've been surpassed, making them more suited for enthusiasts. Depending on your budget, X79/X99 models and compatible motherboards could be accessible, delivering improved results while retaining HEDT or server capabilities. These processors are quite outdated, but an X5670-5690 might still serve as a solid upgrade if you're okay with older titles or lower frame rates. I managed around 30-40fps in Assassin's Creed Odyssey, but my X5670 was boosted to 4.54Ghz with RAM overclocked to 2100Mhz at Cl10.