The Return of Hyper-Threading for Intel's 45nm CPUs

Dual-core CPUs have made their way into computers across the world and with quad-core processors poised to make the same invasion, it looks like the core race is on. Interestingly, Intel notes on its roadmap that in it's 45nm Wolfdale dual-core and Yorkfield quad-core CPUs, hyper threading may make a return.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about these two processors is the return of Hyper-Threading. This, however, does not mean that Yorkfield will appear as eight logical cores, nor does it mean Wolfdale will appear as four logical cores. Intel's internal guidance on the subject specifically claims the processor will ship with Hyper-Threading, but will only utilize 4 threads. On every Intel roadmap in the past, Hyper-Threading doubles the amount of listed threads in the guidance documentation. Clearly, there is more of a mystery here still.

It will be interesting to see how things pan out for Intel's possible implementation of hyper-threading in Wolfdale and Yorkfield. Read more...