[geeks] New small Intel Board

[nate at portents.com]

>> Atom does have hyperthreading (just as Nehalem will).
>
> I'm a bit puzzled.  HyperThreading was invented because the Pentium 4
> architecture -- Willamette through Cedar Mill -- had some unused
> execution unit time resulting from the poor design, and presenting an
> extra logical CPU got a little of the lost performance back.  Why is HT
> suddenly making a return?
>
> ...Intel hasn't suddenly added *real* threading a la SPARC T1/T2, have
> they?

For details of how HT works on Atom (which is a non-superscaler, in-order
CPU) see this:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3276&p=10

Details of how Nehalem's HT is going to work have been scarce, but it is
going to be different from the HT seen in the P4.

- Nate