Hexacore Xeon questions: Hyperthreading and Enhanced Turbo Boost

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soo-nah-mee

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So I get to work this morning and there's a brand new workstation sitting next to my desk, still in the box.

It has a Xeon 5680 6-core CPU, and I'm used to AMD Opterons.

I'm wondering if there will be any beneift (or drawback) to turning on hyperthreading and/or the enhanced turbo boost mode. Any links to benchmarks would be welcome. The software I use the most is Autodesk Inventor 2010 and Mastercam X4.
 
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Both hyperthreading and turbo mode increase performance in the vast majority of cases - there's no reason to leave them off.
Sheesh - my company makes me live with a P4 :p. Don't complain too loudly or I'll come steal your new desktop :D.

Anyway, I'd go to both sofware companies websites and see if you can find out the answers, or else spend a few minutes experimenting and see if either HT or turbo increases your speed.
 

soo-nah-mee

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Thanks for the repsonses. The default settings in BIOS were HT off and Turbo-Boost on in standard mode.

I turned HT on and left left Turbo in standard mode.

Does anyone know if the "enhanced" Turbo mode is worth using?
 

soo-nah-mee

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A little further research:
"The Z800 has two levels of turbo mode, the standard level supplied by Intel, and an enhanced level, developed in-house, which delivers up to 5% additional performance."
 
Personally, I would try it, ideally with something like CPU-Z running, and see what the CPU does in both standard and advanced mode. It has to be a difference in clock speeds, so you should be able to see what it's doing.
 
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