Phenom x6 question

[west2112]

So, i7 has 4 physical cores...with hyperthreading, it's 8?

What about phenom ii x6? 6 physical? hyperthreading?

Thanks in advance

 

[Emperus]

Hyperthreading is an Intel only feature.. If you encounter HT term with AMD it possibly means hyper-transport.. The AMD CPU's have no virtual cores and/or threads..

 

[west2112]

ahh ok, any advantage of having 6 physical cores over 4 with hyperthreading?

or assuming clock speeds are the same...is the i7 the better buy?

 

[Emperus]

i7 CPU's are built on a more efficient architecture as compared to the Phenom II.. As such, in most cases, an i7 will have a faster performance as compared to the Phenom II for the same clock speed..

As for physical vs physical + virtual, it'll be easier if we discuss this on a thread prospect.. The i7 930 can process 8 threads with hyper-threading.. The Phenom II X6 1055T can compute 6 threads.. Thus, an application which can bank on all the thread count available will usually run faster on the i7 (3DS Max for example)..