What is Hyper-threading?

If you happen to be a PC enthusiast, chances are, you like to keep tinkering with your desktop or laptop to extract maximum speed and performance from its processor. 

One such process is Hyper-threading. Now, while it sounds highly technical, we’re here to help simplify it for you. Read on:

What is Hyper-threading?

Hyper-threading, officially called Hyper-threading Technology  or HTT, is an Intel technology which allows multiple threads to run on each core on your computer’s CPU.  In simple words, it improves your computer’s performance by allowing each physical core to simultaneously process two or more sets of sets of instructions.  

For those new to computers, a core can be considered to be a small CPU within a CPU, capable of performing computational tasks independently. Under normal circumtances, one core can handle one task. Hyper-threading is a hardware innovation, which allows for more than one thread, or instruction, to run on each core.  

ALSO READ: What are CPU Cores?

For each processor core, the operating system addresses two virtual cores and shares the workload  between them when possible. The degree of benefit when using Hyper-threading depends on the needs of the software, as well as how well it and the operating system are written to manage the processor efficiently. Hyper-threading helps with improved performance, increased efficiency, imported multi-tasking, and more. But there are a few disadvantages to it too, including increased power consumption, potential stability issues, and more.