

These days, both the operating systems (Windows 7/8, OS X, etc.) and the programs (Creative Suite 6, Handbrake, etc.) have been developed to take advantage of how many threads your processor can handle.

In those days, running a single threaded app through the single core, multi-threaded Pentium 4 sometimes introduced inefficiencies that slowed down processing instead of improving performance. This was not the case when the first Intel Pentium 4 processor with HyperThreading was released in 2002. Programs have to be written and developed to work with a multi-stream or multi-core processor, but that's commonplace now. HyperThreading, and simultaneous multithreading in general, involves taking your current PC tasks (like downloading email, or applying a filter to a photo) and breaking them into streams that can be computed simultaneously. However, HyperThreading has trickled its way down from the highest-end Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition processors, down to the low-powered Intel Atom, and everything in between.

Old school single-core processors could only process one data stream or task at a time. HyperThreading, simply put, is the Intel-branded technology that lets a multi-threaded processor work on multiple tasks/threads/processes simultaneously. For myriad reasons, tweakers have historically wanted to turn HyperThreading off because of its perceived inefficiencies with single-threaded tasks. HyperThreading (a.k.a., Hyper-Threading or hyperthreading) is part of Intel's processor technology that essentially allows a CPU to work on multiple streams of data simultaneously, improving performance and efficiency. How to Set Up Two-Factor Authentication.How to Record the Screen on Your Windows PC or Mac.How to Convert YouTube Videos to MP3 Files.

