Hyper threading is a technology, using which a user can optimize the speed of his PC. How is this possible? It is possible by making the CPU of your PC, act like multiple CPUs.
How does a CPU work?
There are microprocessors present in a CPU, which carry out the computational work. However, all elements of CPU do not work at a time. For a specific task, a dedicated set of components work, and the rest of the components remain ideal. The idea behind using hyper thread is, to make use of the idle components.
Mechanism of Hyper thread
To have hyper thread in a CPU means that your CPU has two sets of circuit, which are intended to keep a track of CPU’s functions. Hyper threading works by duplicating execution processes running on the CPU, but they do not take control over the PC’s functions. If the Hyper thread processor finds any ideal execution processes then, it makes use of such processes to carry out a scheduled job.
Duplication of execution processes allows the Operating System, to view hyper thread processor as a logical processor. So, if you have two processors in a PC then, it is very much expected that multiple applications will run simultaneously. This reduces the dependencies of programs, on a single processor.
Compatibility of Operating System
One of the fundamental requirements, to use a hyper thread processor is the compatibility of OS with hyper threading. Few of the Operating Systems which support hyper threading are:
Microsoft Windows 2000, NT 4.0, Microsoft XP Professional and Unix.
CPUs that support Hyper Threading
Xeon is the one that introduced hyper threading to the users, but Intel had brought it to the market. There is an easy way to find whether your CPU supports hyper threading or not, if your CPU has a logo of “HT” on it then, it’s understood that you can have a hyper thread processor in your CPU.
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