Do I5s Have Hyperthreading?

Hyperthreading is a technology that can effectively increase the efficiency of your CPUs processing cores, many applications such as video editing, and streaming can benefit from hyperthreading. With hyperthreading active, you can expect up to a 30% increase in performance in multithreaded applications, but it’s mostly application-dependent.

Hyperthreading works by splitting two physical cores into two logical cores, this is why processors will mostly have double the number of threads than cores. These logical threads allow a single processing core to process two different sets of instructions at the same time; it takes advantage of CPU stalling. When buying a processor the specifications will say something like 6c12 which stands for 6 cores 12 threads.

Answer: As of Intels 10th generation chips, the I5s have been granted hyperthreading capabilities which will greatly improve the I5’s multicore performance so they do indeed support hyperthreading. This is a recent development being implemented back in 2020, so you can expect many future I5s to support hyperthreading.

Do I5s Have Hyperthreading?

Historically, i5s never used to support hyperthreading as it was only exclusive to i7s and i9 processors, but to compete with Ryzen, it was a pretty smart move to implement hyperthreading into the i5s. Most Ryzens processors support SMT which hyperthreading is a form of, even the Ryzen 3 processors support SMT and they compete with the Intel I3 processors.

I7s used to be referred to as I5s with hyperthreading enabled, the older generations of i5s before the 10th generation were basically i7 processors with specific sectors disabled. You can look at i5s as being defective i7s that did not meet specific i7 expectations. Just because a CPU is faulty, doesn’t make it useless, you can just disable certain features such as hyperthreading and sell it as another processor.

As for the i5 12th generation processors, they feature hyperthreading on their performance cores sector, and there are 6 performance cores. So the i5 has 6 performance cores and 12 performance threads, and there are 4 efficiency cores and 4 efficiency threads, so in total the i5 12600K has 10 cores and 16 threads. This is more than enough performance to handle applications such as streaming and video editing.

Is Hyperthreading Worth It?

Hyperthreading is a great thing to have and there is no reason to have it really because it can improve performance greatly in terms of multitasking. As previously said, hyperthreading helps tremendously with multithreaded applications, so if you’re a content creator, this can be beneficial for you. There are no ill effects of having hyperthreading active with applications single-core optimized, overall it has positive results.

If you’re a streamer, you will benefit from the extra threads depending on what encoder you are using. If you’re using the X264 encoder, then hyperthreading will definitely boost your performance as the x264 codec is heavily CPU-dependent. If you’re using something like NVENC which is a hardware encoder, then hyperthreading will have no influence as it’s GPU intensive. For streaming, we recommend 6 cores and 12 threads, the latest i5 processors have 10 cores and 16 threads so it’s pretty good for streaming.

Video editing is another task that will heavily benefit from hyperthreading due to decreased rendering times, this is because video editing is also CPU-dependent. More threads will help with the multitasking side of things by queueing up frames whilst another one is being processed. You may experience up to a 30% performance increase depending on the encoders and decoders being used.

Also Read: Is Hyperthreading Worth It

Is Hyperthreading Good For Gaming?

Most applications will benefit from hyperthreading as many applications are coded to use multiple cores, but games are notoriously difficult to code for multithreading. So since games are single-core applications, the only way your processor influences the gaming performance is through single-core performance such as IPC and clock speeds. Hyperthreading won’t benefit you when it comes to gaming, so your I5s extra threads won’t boost fps.

Hyperthreading is still a nice feature to have when gaming, this is because it can help run background tasks such as the operating system and other crucial system tasks. Not having hyperthreading isn’t the end of the world, but it can help make games run more stable. The thing with hyperthreading is that some games will exhibit slightly higher frame rates, and some games will lose frames, but on average there will be no difference.

Since hyperthreading doesn’t influence gaming performance in any meaningful way, the I5 became the processor of choice for gaming PCs. Older gaming builds went for the I5 processors over the i7s to save money and receive practically identical gaming performance.

I5 Vs Ryzen 5 Multi Core Performance Benchmark

In terms of multicore performance, Ryzen is the more popular choice as their processors are more multicore oriented rather than single-core. This is what makes Ryzen the better choice for streaming, and video editing, and I5s the better choice for gaming. The i5 competes directly with the Ryzen 5 lineup of processors, comparing identical generations such as the i5 10th generation and the Ryzen 5 5000 generation will show the Ryzen 5 5000 generation processors win in multicore performance.

The Ryzen 5 5000 generation processors have huge IPC gains over the Intel 10th generation processors, this makes the Ryzen 5 5000 especially the 5600x the better choice for gaming as well as multicore applications. You can see in the benchmark tests below that the Ryzen 5 5600x has a lower base and boost clock speeds than the 10600K, but higher PassMark and Cinebench multi core scores, this is due to a more efficient architecture.

With the release of the Intel 12th generation processors, the single-core performance has been addressed with huge IPC and clock speed gains, as well as great multicore performance gains. The Intel 12th generation processors are an amazing lineup of processors making the i5s applicable for streaming, video editing, and gaming.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the I5 processors do have hyperthreading active as long you’re using the i5 10th generation and higher. Generations before the 10th generation will have hyperthreading disabled making them non-applicable for multitasking tasks such as streaming and video editing.

Hyperthreading is a great feature to have on the Intel i5 processors as it allows them to compete with the Ryzen 5 processors in multi-core performance tests. The i5s with hyperthreading makes them more usable for multithreaded tasks, so if you’re looking to game and stream at the same time, that will be possible with the latest i5 processors.