Anyone turn off Hyper-Threading or E-Cores?

[RobertRent 17]

Has anyone experimented with turning off Hyper-Threading or E-Cores?  Any performance difference?

[FBW737 512]

I've always had hyper threading turned off on the main thread core but 'on' on all the other cores. I found performance was better doing so but I've had it like that for a long time and haven't ever assessed it again so I'll re-evaluate.

[bobcat999 8,489]

We covered this just recently.  On my 13900, I run all P-cores without hyperthreading, and I have turned off all but 4 of my E-cores (used just to run stuff in the background during MSFS through Process Lasso).

I can't see a massive performance gain, but it is really smooth, and no issues.  The main improvement is the lack of heat. 

I have a Corsair water cooler, mx-5 paste, and the socket mod; the CPU and cooler are seated properly, plus I have been building PC's for 30 years, but apparently I am a heretic for doing this, or my PC cooling must be duff! 

Well, no it isn't, it is just that MSFS is really hard on any CPU, and the 13900 is a bit of a hot cookie - as is widely understood by a lot of people (but not all it seems ).

You will now probably get the AMD lot saying "well, mine runs cool!"    

My justification is MSFS still has 8 P-cores to run on, which is more than enough (it mainly uses only 2 for me in DX11), but at least they get the chance to run at 5.6 to 5.8 GHz - no thermal throttling. 

With hyperthreading, the two main cores / threads were getting up to 100C on occasion.  I do run 4k, 60Hz, ultra settings, so I am not complaining.  Meanwhile, the 3080Ti is coasting at about 70% with DLSS and a bit of sharpening.

MSFS 2024 will utilise the cores better apparently - can't wait!

Edited July 9, 2023 by bobcat999

[pmb 5,138]

17 minutes ago, bobcat999 said:

With hyperthreading, the two main cores / threads were getting up to 100C on occasion.  I do run 4k, 60Hz, ultra settings, so I am not complaining.  sharpening.

I observed 100C / throtteling with DX12 time ago and decided to limit temperature to 80C in the BIOS since (aside the fact I only have air cooling). Doesn't running at or close to 100C shorten lifetime of the CPU?  I found different opinions on this upon some research, and I am not a hardware guru myself.

Kind regards, Michael 

[hvw 408]

13 minutes ago, pmb said:

I observed 100C / throtteling with DX12 time ago and decided to limit temperature to 80C in the BIOS since (aside the fact I only have air cooling). Doesn't running at or close to 100C shorten lifetime of the CPU?  I found different opinions on this upon some research, and I am not a hardware guru myself.

Kind regards, Michael 

Hyperthreading for FS2020 running on DX11 is on on my PC, but to avoid extreme high temperatures I set CPU and GPU fans at 90% of their maximum capacity and the two "auxiliary" fans at 80%. Performance of FS2020 is very smooth and temperatures are between 60 and 65 degrees. Which is acceptable for me 🙂 When I put all fans at "Gaming" mode, then temperatures of course are lower (mid 50s) but the noise the fans make is unacceptable 🙂 

[bobcat999 8,489]

55 minutes ago, pmb said:

I observed 100C / throtteling with DX12 time ago and decided to limit temperature to 80C in the BIOS since (aside the fact I only have air cooling). Doesn't running at or close to 100C shorten lifetime of the CPU?  I found different opinions on this upon some research, and I am not a hardware guru myself.

Kind regards, Michael 

Constantly hitting 100C may shorten life a little bit - probably impossible to quantify due to the differing levels of tolerance and quality of each individual chip, but I don't think it is a significant factor, as a lot of us tend to change CPU's long before the expected failure lifetime, even if it is accelerated a little by constantly hitting 100C.

Before the 13900, I always overclocked, and I never suffered one CPU failure.  My last two failures have been a power supply, and a stick of DDR4 ram that went bad, but I was able to trace it with the motherboard (BIOS) ram checker luckily.  It was giving me blue screens and instability after about 18 months of use.  It was on XMP profile 1, so technically the RAM was overclocked, but then the manufacturers sell it to do XMP.  I simply bought two new matched pairs of RAM.

@hvw I forgot to add this important detail... I can actually run hyperthreading and just about keep it under 100C with a few other tweaks in MSFS (slightly reduce quality etc.) but I need all my fans on 100% and the noise is simply unbearable - I won't do it.
That is one of the downfalls of water cooling.  The water cooler pump is relatively quiet, but the three fans on the radiator, whatever the make (and I have gone for the quietest), are still very noisy.  When turned up loud, they simply spoil my enjoyment of the sim.

At the moment, I have smooth performance, cool and quiet, so it works for me. 

 

Edited July 9, 2023 by bobcat999

[hvw 408]

8 minutes ago, bobcat999 said:

I forgot to add this important detail... I can actually run hyperthreading and just about keep it under 100C with a few other tweaks in MSFS (slightly reduce quality etc.)

The weird thing at my contraption is, that even if I set all graphic settings to low, there is no positive or negative impact on CPU and GPU temperature. I have locked my fps to 30 and all is fine for me with regard to performance, smoothness and CPU and GPU temperatures. Strange, isn't it? But I don't mind 🙂 

[DD_Arthur 1,069]

4 hours ago, RobertRent said:

Has anyone experimented with turning off Hyper-Threading or E-Cores?  Any performance difference?

I have everything running surprisingly well on an ancient I7 3930k oc’d to 4.2ghz and water cooled.

I have always had HT turned off as I’m under the impression most games need a strong single thread performance.

Be aware you’ll get thirty to fifty different opinions on this subject. It’s a perennial favourite and a classic case of whatever works for you.

1 hour ago, bobcat999 said:

MSFS 2024 will utilise the cores better apparently - can't wait!

Yeah I saw that! They’re going for multi threading.
I thought this was one of the big, stand out features of what’s been announced for 2024 so far but actually seems to have been  largely ignored.

[Dazzlercee23 68]

On my 13600K I keep all hyperthreading on, but undervolt the CPU to 1.21v and overclock to 5.4 on all power cores. This limits temps to approx mid 60's in MSFS. AIO watercooling. 

I also use Addon Linker to run all MSFS related apps on their own individual e-cores. 

[bobcat999 8,489]

23 minutes ago, hvw said:

The weird thing at my contraption is, that even if I set all graphic settings to low, there is no positive or negative impact on CPU and GPU temperature. I have locked my fps to 30 and all is fine for me with regard to performance, smoothness and CPU and GPU temperatures. Strange, isn't it? But I don't mind 🙂 

Sure.  I used to run 30, but I can just do 60 fps now since they implemented DLSS in the sim.  I switched to 60 mainly due to buying a head tracker, where the view can flicker a bit at 30 when looking sideways at low level. 

The main thing is, whatever our different settings and setups, you need to be happy with what you have.  Or at least, that is what the wife tells me!   

[bobcat999 8,489]

13 minutes ago, Dazzlercee23 said:

On my 13600K I keep all hyperthreading on, but undervolt the CPU to 1.21v and overclock to 5.4 on all power cores. This limits temps to approx mid 60's in MSFS. AIO watercooling. 

I also use Addon Linker to run all MSFS related apps on their own individual e-cores. 

Yes.  I do actually under-volt slightly, but my 13900 won't tolerate much, I think it is only 0.05 lower actually, but it does help a bit with the heat generation. 

I tried lower, but it blue-screens.  I have been dead stable for six months now, so I am not going to mess around anymore. 

[hvw 408]

6 minutes ago, bobcat999 said:

The main thing is, whatever our different settings and setups, you need to be happy with what you have.  Or at least, that is what the wife tells me!   

Exactly! I don't think we ever can reach a satisfactory factor of 100% 🙂 

[Stuart Hay 4]

Hi. Run my i7 4790k with hyperthreading disabled in BIOS.

After renewing the thermal paste as advised previously and topping up my CPU water cooling, found my system able to run without problems with hyperthreading on.

However, after disabling hyperthreading,  my CPU temperatures are cooler and MSFS runs a lot smoother.

Am not in a hurry to upgrade my system as I'm happy with the performance. Will wait to see how MSFS 2024 runs on multiple cores before deciding whether to upgrade or not.

[JSmith2112 317]

I leave my CPU at default settings but being a 12600KF it doesn't get hotter than about 60 degrees C in any gaming title including FS2020 - cooled by a 280mm AIO.

For my preference, high settings with DLSS auto at 4k gives me acceptable performance and I feel no need to do any other tweaks.

[RobertRent 17]

Thanks to all for your information and humor. Based upon your advice, I turned off hyper-threading, turned off E-cores, and undervolted my cores by -0.025 volts. My system is now running cooler (and quieter) without a noticeable difference in MSFS2020 performance.

Thanks,

RobertR