Whereas the CPU previously throttled its own speed to protect against overheating, the chipset can now send a signal (PROCHOT) to the processor instructing it to reduce power consumption. This can prevent damage to a voltage regulator that is working flat out.

Hyper-Threading: A Virtual Dual CPU System

Comparison of multi-threading and multitasking. Multi-threading distributes the load of an application over several (virtual) CPUs.

Doing this requires an operating system with a multi-kernel.

Behaves just like a dual CPU system: P4 with Hyper-Threading.

A conventional CPU without HT can carry out parallel commands, but cannot execute threads. The performance of a system therefore increases more or less in line with increases in clock rates, irrespective of the scalability of the particular platform. A dual CPU system, on the other hand, can process several threads simultaneously.