Core i7 720QM Hyperthreading and Turbo Boost questions.

Just picked up an HP DV7T I7 laptop, i'm using the stock config to benchmark and stress things before I do a fresh install and i've got a question for others that have mobile i7's.

I like to multitask and do lots at once, and I like everything to happen with little or no waiting (one of the reasons I have an SSD), so here's me idea/question:

I've been using this program called Prifinnity (By edgemeal software), to set which programs (processes) use which core.

So my first question is, can you disable hyperthreading on these 720's (let's not get into the debate whether it's faster or not) reason I want to is because I won't be able to tell which are the "real" cpu cores and which ones are the hyperthreaded ones, for the purposes of assigning cores to the programs.

Next question besides wanting to have complete control over my computer, assigning cores manually will also be able to help the cpu ramp up with turbo boost. If i manually assign a program (itunes for example) or a game that is slightly older, running it at 2.8ghz seems like it should run a fair bit faster.

So am i on to something or should i just forget all of this?

 

This kind of tweaking that you're suggesting is very similar to tweaking things like SuperFetch and Pagefile settings.

Unless you test it, and test it thoroughly with the exact configuration and setup you want 'tweaked', you will probably not achieve what you want (better performance).

If in addition, you use the computer for other things than the few programs you tweak it for, then more than likely your performance will go down (compared to a default install).

I suggest to play with this if you want, but in the end, the optimizations in both the CPU and the O/S (you are running Win 7, right ) will do these optimizations for you automatically and on the fly.

Remember that a single threaded app can't use more than one core anyway (whether you assign it manually or let the CPU and/or O/S handle it) and when you're using 4 of these single threaded apps, the 'Turbo' you'll achieve is none to minimal anyway.

Like I said before; play if you want, but this is a case of the 'tweaking' taking more time and effort not for an increase in the expected performance, but actually more than likely making the computer slower, overall.

Cheers!

 

Thanks for the input, i'm just one who like to tweak things so if i happen to make something work faster then go me. I"ll post results to see if anything changes or I find anything earth shattering.

I've heard that windows 7 does very well with multicores and HT so my efforts might be in vain. It's the turbo boost idea that I have the most hope for.

 

I have not found any way to disable HT.Only Turbo,EIST and C1E.

I would like to find at least a software fix for this.A BIOS option would be alot better though.

 

this. everything in your os and your apps is designed with non-core-pinned environments, so let them exist in the environment they know of.

 

Turbo boost will usually only kick in more when you have fewer cores running, so unless you're assigning all of your programs to the same few cores, it's less likely to kick in. Also note that doing so will probably reduce your multi-tasking ability, as those few cores you've assigned everything to will be overtasked. If, instead, you're assigning everything to different cores, then turbo-boost will not kick in as frequently, because turbo-boost only overclocks cores highly when other cores are idle, to take advantage of the fact that with those other cores idle, it has the thermal and power overhead to overclock the non-idle cores. Think of it as your 4 cores sharing the same pipe of water; in order for any core(s) to get more water, you need to reduce the water going to another core (i.e. idling or shutting it down).