9

Now we're into post 15 of the "Top Question" of Super User in the Super User blog. Please post and vote for your favorite question for this week.

Please post any question that you feel is of worth and the reason why. Try not to promote your own questions or answers for publicity sake. We are looking for questions that are of similar par to those selected in the Super User Contest. If you like a posted question then vote it up. Each week we are going to try to post about the question and it's contents.

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
8

My vote is for How much speedup does a hyper thread give? (in theory).

I have always been interested in how much preformance hyper threading actually gives. In fact I often turn off hyper threading since increases the cache that is available for single threaded applications. It seems like Konrad has done alot of testing with hyper-threading and is very knowledgeable on the subject. Possibly we can talk to him about elaborating further on the subject or at the very least do some tests to see how hyper threading affects things your average user does (Photoshop, games etc..). Either way in it's current state the information within the answers is excellent.

4
  • Would you like to blog about it yourself or should we ask Konrad?
    – Ivo Flipse Mod
    Commented May 12, 2011 at 13:45
  • I would @ivo however I would not consider myself and expert on hyper-threading, Konrad may have alot more to offer here. I only started using Intel processors in my personal builds (actually my I5 2500k isn't even hyper threading) within the last 2 years. The only test PC I could use for this would be my Alienware with the I7 ULV and I don't think that processor would do it justice.
    – Supercereal
    Commented May 12, 2011 at 13:57
  • that's what's so great about blogging. You learn along the way :P
    – James Mertz
    Commented May 12, 2011 at 18:25
  • Unfortunately I don’t see a good way of testing in isolation the effect of hyperthreading on common applications. As far as I know this would require a pretty elaborate setup. Importantly, most programs don’t let you control whether multiple threads are used, and disabling hyperthreading needs to be done in the BIOS, which I don’t have access to on the machines that I could test on.
    – Konrad Rudolph
    Commented May 13, 2011 at 10:35
4

Restoring performance and estimating life of a used SSD drive?

Follow-up for Maximizing the lifetime of your SSD.

2

How does a hard drive compare to Flash memory working as a hard drive in terms of speed?

I think it is an interesting topic considering the fact that many computers now ship with Flash Memory, like the MacBook Air. But will it be the thing that kills the hard drive?

1

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .