X-bit labs

On Intel’s Hyper-Threading Support by Chipsets.

Category: Other

by Anton Shilov

[ 09/30/2002 | 04:02 PM ]

Our sources at Intel have clarified us the situation with the Hyper-Threading technology support by chipsets. There were loads of rumours and sometimes misleading pieces of information regarding the matter, some of them were even published, so, now we seem to have a number of precise facts about the core-logic devices that can take advantage of the Hyper-Threading technology.

• All the new core-logic devices, including the upcoming i845PE, i845GE, Granite Bay and all the future mainstream chipsets support the Hyper-Threading technology by default.
• i845E and i850E based mainboards can take advantage of the Hyper-Threading technology when their BIOS is properly updated with appropriate version.
• i845G core-logic does not support the mentioned feature at all. Intel will soon issue i845G B-step with the Hyper-Threading support.
• It was stated that current revisions of chipsets from Silicon Integrates Systems, including pretty popular SiS645DX and SiS648 do not provide the Hyper-Threading technology support, however, they say, SiS will issue updated versions of their core-logic products for the Pentium 4 platform.
• According to our sources, VIA’s chipsets do not support the Hyper-Threading technology and since VIA still has not secured their license on the Pentium 4 Quad Pumped Bus, engineers from this Taiwanese company have no access to the appropriate documentation.

You should consult the manufacturer of your mainboard to be sure that your device really supports the Hyper-Threading technology. Keep in mind that even if your mainboard cannot take advantage of the Hyper-Threading technology due to chipset limitations, CPUs with such feature will still function normally on their clock-speed.