i5 hyperthreading?

[mikethebigo]

I have a new base 13 MBP and I'm a little confused about whether it's actually running 4 threads or two. iStat Menus is displaying 4 processor threads, and the Apple MBP description on their site states that hyperthreading is now standard on all MBP's. However, while iStat shows 4 threads, it's really 2 identical threads x 2, and I have read that all Core i5's have hyperthreading disabled.

Does anyone know whether it actually is hyperthreading or not?

(and I know this means nothing in real world applications, especially for the minimally intensive stuff I do, I'm just curious).

Thanks!

PS Has anyone else noticed that MacBook Pros handle like well built tanks compared to the flimsy MacBook Airs? I sold my 2009 MBP for a new MBA and simply could not get into it. MBP has better build quality, better screen, better keyboard.... hell pretty much better everything except for weight.

 

[Prodo123]

The i5 has hyperthreading according to Intel ARK.

 

[dmccloud]

The Core i5 in the base MBP is a dual core processor with hyper threading, hence the 2x2 reference. I don't know where you heard that the i5s have HT disabled, but that's not true at all. If you open up the activity monitor and click on CPU at the bottom, you will see four separate boxes for CPU usage (representing the two cores with hyperthreading).

 

[stordoff]

I'm pretty sure that it is using hyper-threading. Activity Monitor shows four graphs for CPU usage, each with a unique history.

On a slightly more anecdotal note, HandBrake pushes CPU usage to ~400% (i.e. 4 cores). It runs slightly faster than on my Core 2 Quad system, which I wouldn't expect unless it was hyper-threaded.

 

[dmccloud]

Here's a screenshot of what I'm referring to - and I have the base 13" MBP as well...

 

[mikethebigo]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A5302b Safari/7534.48.3)

Cool. I was reading from here that all i5s had HT disabled:

http://www.brighthub.com/computing/hardware/articles/48391.aspx

Guess this was incorrect info. And I'm probably only seeing 2 independent graphs instead of 4 because I'm not operating any programs currently that hyperthread. In any case, it's cool to know.

 

[jayhawk11]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A5302b Safari/7534.48.3)

Cool. I was reading from here that all i5s had HT disabled:

http://www.brighthub.com/computing/hardware/articles/48391.aspx

Guess this was incorrect info. And I'm probably only seeing 2 independent graphs instead of 4 because I'm not operating any programs currently that hyperthread. In any case, it's cool to know.

Desktop Quad-i5's have Hyper-Threading disabled. See: Current iMac's. Mobile chipsets have Hyper-threading.