Running Lots Of threads without Hyper Threading

[GabrielT]

So I wanted to know how well a quad core without Hyper Threading would do running many threads and how it would affect processor performance. The only software I know that measures operations per second and allows you to choose more threads than your processor has cores is Intel Burn Test. I test 4 through 32 threads and I also ran a control of two instances at once running 4 threads each which had some very interesting results that I will get to later.

 

My quick unscientific research concluded that unless the number of threads is more than double the amount of threads the processor is designed to run the processor still retains most of its processing ability but gradually loses it as threads start to overwhelm it.

The problem might be in Intel Burn Test itself. I started noticing much lower maximum temperatures while testing as I bumped up the ammount of threads tested. I am tempted to try 8 different tests at once running 256MB of memory each.

Very suprisingly to me the processor retains nearly 60% of its original performance when running even 32 threads.

 

My testing methodology may be flawed though. When I ran two different Tests both testing four cores I got similar performance and the single test with 8 threads but I ran into instability on one of the tests. But I have not been able to replicate the instability. Running three different tests at once gave very nice results as well.

My results are below.

Please tell me what you think

These were all are individually.

 

 

These two test were ran at the same time. 8 threads around 45Gflops

 

 

These three tests were also run simultaneously. 12threads around 42Gflops

Edited October 28, 2010 by gabrieltessin

[SpeedCrazy]

I think you need to finish your sentences and use spell checker.

My quick unscientific research concluded that unless the number of threads is more than double the amount of threads the processor is designed to run.??

Bery suprisingly to me the processor retains nearly 60% of its original performance when running even 32 threads.

 

Other than that it sounds quite interesting.

Edited October 28, 2010 by SpeedCrazy

[GabrielT]

I think you need to finish your sentences and use spell checker.

 

 

Other than that it sounds quite interesting.

I get bored with my sentences...

BTW running 8 different Intel Burn Tests that are each running four is the fastest way to lock your computer up.

Edited now for clarity.

Edited October 28, 2010 by gabrieltessin

[Drdeath]

So happy this forum has an auto spell and grammer check.

[Waco]

BTW running 8 different Intel Burn Tests that are each running four is the fastest way to lock your computer up.

I hope you mean "lock up" as in make it run slow not "lock up" as in crash. If you're crashing you're not stable.

[GabrielT]

I hope you mean "lock up" as in make it run slow not "lock up" as in crash. If you're crashing you're not stable.

No man it crashed, I have never had it crash under any other circumstances. Never, prime 95 four twelve hours. The problem I believe is in Intel Burn Test. The more instances you have on the screen the lower the score per instance even if the others are not running. It might have been just running slow but I just shut it off.

 

There is no real reason for doing this, I just wanted to see what would happen.

 

It locks up solid with that many tests going at once with stock settings.

Edited October 29, 2010 by gabrieltessin