I decided to do a little research on this Hyperthreading thingie on my Intel Atom processor. At first, I was surprised to see four CPUs in task manager. Of course, I know my Intel Atom is a dual core with hyperthreading (2 cores x 2 = 4 cores) making two physical cores and two virtual cores.
According to one source, hyperthreading CPUs require more power and produces too much heat. If that is the case on my notebook PC, I must disable hyperthreading (I like to maximize my battery life and I don’t like the fact that my notebook runs too hot). But before I do so, I decided to create a little test to see if I could benefit from hyperthreading.
I created a typical Sony Vegas video project and I will render the project with hyperthreading enabled and with hyperthreading disabled. Here are the results:
Render Time (HT enabled): 8 minutes and 38 seconds.
Render Time (HT disabled): 6 minutes and 4 seconds.
Since then, I have HT disabled. But I occassionally turn it on when I’m running on AC power and heating isn’t a problem.
