From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Oct 27 00:24:52 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BF63B16A4CE for ; Wed, 27 Oct 2004 00:24:52 +0000 (GMT) Received: from obsecurity.dyndns.org (CPE0050040655c8-CM00111ae02aac.cpe.net.cable.rogers.com [69.194.102.143]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 974E743D3F for ; Wed, 27 Oct 2004 00:24:52 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from kris@obsecurity.org) Received: by obsecurity.dyndns.org (Postfix, from userid 1000) id B7DD351221; Tue, 26 Oct 2004 17:25:49 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 17:25:49 -0700 From: Kris Kennaway To: Alex de Kruijff Message-ID: <20041027002549.GA11355@xor.obsecurity.org> References: <755cb9fc041026135416b35f88@mail.gmail.com> <20041026210129.GA76812@xor.obsecurity.org> <20041027001748.GA858@alex.lan> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="YiEDa0DAkWCtVeE4" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20041027001748.GA858@alex.lan> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.1i cc: Alexandre Vieira cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org cc: Kris Kennaway Subject: Re: HT kernel X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 00:24:52 -0000 --YiEDa0DAkWCtVeE4 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Wed, Oct 27, 2004 at 02:17:48AM +0200, Alex de Kruijff wrote: > On Tue, Oct 26, 2004 at 02:01:30PM -0700, Kris Kennaway wrote: > > On Tue, Oct 26, 2004 at 09:54:45PM +0100, Alexandre Vieira wrote: > > > Hello, > > >=20 > > > I have a machine with an Intel p4 3.2ghz FSB800 w/ 1MB L2 cache and > > > I wanted to know your opinion about some kernel options that would > > > boost the performance of this kind of processor. > >=20 > > Note that for a lot of workloads HT decreases performance. >=20 > In what way? Does HT/SMP kernel or option do worse then a normal kernel > or default options? Depends on the workload. Remember that hyperthreading isn't "a secret extra CPU hiding inside the same chip"; if you try and execute an instruction on the second virtual CPU that cannot be executed on the silicon because the first virtual CPU is using that part of the silicon (or other reasons), the virtual CPU will block. If you're spending most of your time blocked in this way because of the computational workload you're running, performance is going to be worse than the !HT case due to OS overheads. Kris --YiEDa0DAkWCtVeE4 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.6 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQFBfusNWry0BWjoQKURAqN7AJ9kjMIFJ/7Sqhf6bwlgr93IxPNwWACfe7O/ xjzbaiHU10E3H009vxnmSLQ= =QgT+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --YiEDa0DAkWCtVeE4--