Intel Pentium D XE criticised for poor hyperthreading

ONE OF Intel's ideas for dual core systems is, as it demonstrated at its Developer Forum earlier this year, the Pentium D XE. The "D", we're told, stands for different, while XE confirms it as a member of the Extreme Edition family.

Unlike Intel's "Smithfield" family, this expensive member of the Pentium stable will include not only a dual "Prescott" core, but also be kitted out with hyperthreading.

The reason for this is purely marketing, as far as we can see. The Smithfield "non D" processors are also priced far more reasonably than Mr D XE.

Now a chap has claimed online that overall performance for the Pentium D XE is poorer with HT turned on for this chip than when two separate CPUs are used.

He wonders if Microsoft has plans to patch the XP threads scheduler for dual core HT CPUs, as you can read here. µ