Always wait as long as you can before upgrading because there is *always* something new coming out soon.
Not great advice since you becomes stuck with really old hardware eventually. There are always something new and cool in the making after all.
Depending on how you read it, it's great advice.
I'd read it as: "Don't upgrade before you need to upgrade because there is *always* something new coming out soon"
Erm no.
It was a funny notion to imply that if you are going to wait, you will never buy anything since there is always something new coming out you could wait for.
Always wait as long as you can before upgrading because there is *always* something new coming out soon.
Not great advice since you becomes stuck with really old hardware eventually. There are always something new and cool in the making after all.
Depending on how you read it, it's great advice.
I'd read it as: "Don't upgrade before you need to upgrade because there is *always* something new coming out soon"
Always getting the latest stuff isn't worth it but far too many people wait too long considering how much time they spend in front of said computer. It is of course a matter of priorities, if you just play a little Wow and facebook you can wait long between updates but if you play a lot of new games you do need to upgrade now and then.
But yeah, if you can max out your current games there is zero need to upgrade, upgrading just for upgrading sake is stupid unless you are rather rich.
As long as you can sounds a bit too me like running the setting on low/mid settings and I rather not do that. But that can be just me. Still, there is a thing like waiting too long. If you can't experience a good game with acceptable settings you are due.
There are god times to upgrade and bad times to upgrade, 1 month before new gen of CPU/GPU releases is bad time to upgrade.
If someone decided to upgrade, then someone decided to upgrade but if hes not very well informed he may actually waste a lot of money if he upgrade in such a bad time.
Windows doesnt randomly create threads and its irrelevant to number of threads your CPU has. Thread on CPU is in every way a core, just much slower core and its clearly visible that games are using all 8 available threads and in turn RUN FASTER (i guess filmoret character is negating that as well)
And old(er) games are using just 1 thread (maybe 2 but irrelevant if 1 thread is being hammered at 100% while the other is used with 15%) which is clearly visible from plentiful tests, theres actually nothing worthwile to discuss in that area, having more threads on your CPU started to matter 2+ years ago.
And yes, AMDs 8 core CPUs have seen a renaissance in last 2 years and perform similar to 2-3.5 times more expencive Intel CPUs (100$ FX8300 vs i5 -k and i7 -k)
Right now a 1151 CPU is pretty decent, unless spending more than 3-4 grand on a pc... This is assuming you pick the right DDR4 Memory, and CPU, as well as Mother Board...
Next AMD Zen, I don't know the benchmarks and tests but perhaps just maybe it will be better than the 1151 series.
And yes, AMDs 8 core CPUs have seen a renaissance in last 2 years and perform similar to 2-3.5 times more expencive Intel CPUs (100$ FX8300 vs i5 -k and i7 -k)
There's not a single actual 8 core AMD CPU coming close to even an older 4 core 8 thread I7. The FX8350 is roughly at the level of an average I5.
For those who don't need anything faster, though, the AMD processor is definitely cheaper, but that's just a $40 difference, not even remotely close to 2-3.5 times. The drawback of getting the AMD is that you give up on the ability to upgrade to an I7 if you need more power.
Let's hope ZEN will change that and be really competitive against I7 processors too.
My experience with AMD CPUs is such that I will never buy another one again. I don't really care about ZEN. It's dead to me.
An AMD CPU is not where you want to save money in a Gaming desktop, IMO. Save it on the GPU and just run your games at 1080p or on a 1080p Panel. Voila. Get an Intel Processor.
The fact that Intel could coast the way they have since [at last, IMO] Haswell is a stunning indicator of just how terribly AMD is doing there.
Zen may be the best thing since sliced bread, but I can't trust them.
You'd also have to ignore the fact that a lot of software: Games, Video Encoding, etc. is optimized for Intel Processors.
IDK how everyone got confused with what I was saying. The games are only built to process 4 threads at a time. Yes they load like 30 threads but they are waiting to be processed or just waiting on something to tell them what to do. The i5's will only process 4 threads at a time and meanwhile the i7 is capable of processing 8 threads at a time. Because the games are programmed to only run 4 threads through the processor at a given time it doesn't benefit them to have a 8 threaded processor. Otherwise the i7's would be so much better for gaming because its capable of processing twice the threads at a time.
But how the i7 is handled it isn't crippled by the 8 threads when it really should because applications are only suppose to be using 4 of the threads at a given time. Windows somehow runs the threads through all 8 of the cores. But it isn't very effecient which is why its better to turn off hyperthreading on the i7's for gamers.
Otherwise having a 100 core/ 100 thread processor would run your games 100x and the op would actually be right because his 8 core 16 thread processor would be faster but it doesn't because the games are only going to process 4 of them at a time.
Also, look up Preemptive Multitasking. It'll shed a bit more light on how threads work. You don't need 1 core per thread, unless your running DOS or something.
And yes, AMDs 8 core CPUs have seen a renaissance in last 2 years and perform similar to 2-3.5 times more expencive Intel CPUs (100$ FX8300 vs i5 -k and i7 -k)
There's not a single actual 8 core AMD CPU coming close to even an older 4 core 8 thread I7. The FX8350 is roughly at the level of an average I5.
For those who don't need anything faster, though, the AMD processor is definitely cheaper, but that's just a $40 difference, not even remotely close to 2-3.5 times. The drawback of getting the AMD is that you give up on the ability to upgrade to an I7 if you need more power.
Let's hope ZEN will change that and be really competitive against I7 processors too.
FX8300 costs 100$, i5 -k 250$, dont pretend its not 2,5x, you sound like filmoret rofl
In fact, you can buy FX8300+motherboard+8 GB RAM and still have 50$ leftover for whatever else you want to reach i5 -k price lol
And yes, AMDs 8 core CPUs have seen a renaissance in last 2 years and perform similar to 2-3.5 times more expencive Intel CPUs (100$ FX8300 vs i5 -k and i7 -k)
There's not a single actual 8 core AMD CPU coming close to even an older 4 core 8 thread I7. The FX8350 is roughly at the level of an average I5.
For those who don't need anything faster, though, the AMD processor is definitely cheaper, but that's just a $40 difference, not even remotely close to 2-3.5 times. The drawback of getting the AMD is that you give up on the ability to upgrade to an I7 if you need more power.
Let's hope ZEN will change that and be really competitive against I7 processors too.
My experience with AMD CPUs is such that I will never buy another one again. I don't really care about ZEN. It's dead to me.
An AMD CPU is not where you want to save money in a Gaming desktop, IMO. Save it on the GPU and just run your games at 1080p or on a 1080p Panel. Voila. Get an Intel Processor.
The fact that Intel could coast the way they have since [at last, IMO] Haswell is a stunning indicator of just how terribly AMD is doing there.
Zen may be the best thing since sliced bread, but I can't trust them.
You'd also have to ignore the fact that a lot of software: Games, Video Encoding, etc. is optimized for Intel Processors.
Best way to screw people and waste their money, GPU is THE most important part for gaming, id like to see 350$ i7 with 100$ 460/1050 outperform 50$ x4 Athlon and 1070/980ti/Fury X
People like you are scourge for gamers and hopefully aou never advised anyone about anything lol
And are you referring to cheating Intel did with gimping the competition for which they have been convicted and fined by both FTC and EU comission? lol
For gaming you should get an Intel over the FX processors. The IPC limitations on the FX does create a notable bottleneck on games that make use of less than 4 cores and are pushing enough frames to measure it. The FX processor stopped production with Piledriver, so it didn't receive the same IPC benefits as steamroller.
For gaming you should get an Intel than the FX processors. The IPC limitations on the FX does create a notable bottleneck on games that make use of less than 4 cores and are pushing enough frames to measure it. The FX processor stopped production with Piledriver, so it didn't receive the same IPC benefits as steamroller.
Well, at least until Ryzen comes out, Piledriver is the best AMD has.
I think your confusing Piledriver (the FX x3xx series) with Bulldozer (the FX x1xx series). Piledriver was a notable improvement over Bulldozer.
Apart from Piledriver, the only other thing AMD has to offer right now are the line used in their APU cores (Jaguar, Steamroller, Excavator) , which are not bad, but are more geared for the 15-45W TDP market, and bundled with GCN cores on the APU.
And yes, AMDs 8 core CPUs have seen a renaissance in last 2 years and perform similar to 2-3.5 times more expencive Intel CPUs (100$ FX8300 vs i5 -k and i7 -k)
There's not a single actual 8 core AMD CPU coming close to even an older 4 core 8 thread I7. The FX8350 is roughly at the level of an average I5.
For those who don't need anything faster, though, the AMD processor is definitely cheaper, but that's just a $40 difference, not even remotely close to 2-3.5 times. The drawback of getting the AMD is that you give up on the ability to upgrade to an I7 if you need more power.
Let's hope ZEN will change that and be really competitive against I7 processors too.
FX8300 costs 100$, i5 -k 250$, dont pretend its not 2,5x, you sound like filmoret rofl
In fact, you can buy FX8300+motherboard+8 GB RAM and still have 50$ leftover for whatever else you want to reach i5 -k price lol
I don't select my prices to get the most expensive for Intel and the least expensive for AMD, unlike you AMD fanboy. Make more research, kid. You may even end paying your AMD processor less
The very first PC I built was based around and AMD 386-40 when Intel was capped at 33. It made sense at the time because, you know, 7 more MHz!
So I have a nostalgic soft spot for AMD - even more so when they bought my good 'ole Canadian ATI.
But it's been years since I've felt that using an AMD CPU was worth it. Video cards is a different story and I have gone back and forth between nVidia and Radeon several times.
This stuff is just too important to be a fanboy about it.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
1) it may be the best available that fits certain limited budgets 2) if you really need a good integrated GPU, more so than a fast CPU 3) if you're in some really weird corner case that happens to favor AMD's CPU architectures.
For an example of (3), if you're doing something that is mostly random lookups to a fixed 1 MB table, an FX-8350 would probably beat a Core i7-7700K pretty handily, simply because it fits in L2 cache in the former and not the latter. Change that 1 MB table to 128 KB or 4 MB and suddenly AMD isn't even competitive anymore.
Also, look up Preemptive Multitasking. It'll shed a bit more light on how threads work. You don't need 1 core per thread, unless your running DOS or something.
So what does it mean when the i5 says it has 4 cores and 4 threads? That doesn't mean that each core has 1 thread it can process at a time?
Also, look up Preemptive Multitasking. It'll shed a bit more light on how threads work. You don't need 1 core per thread, unless your running DOS or something.
So what does it mean when the i5 says it has 4 cores and 4 threads? That doesn't mean that each core has 1 thread it can process at a time?
That means your CPU does not support Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT).
Unless your running on DOS, Windows 3.11 and lower, or MacOS 9 and lower, or some other archaic OS, your operating system supports Preemptive multitasking, which means that a CPU core can process as many threads as you have room in memory to hold them. It just can't do them all at the same time, the OS uses a Scheduler to determine which thread gets CPU access at any given time, and for how long, before it pauses that thread and allows another thread it's turn.
A thread spends most of it's time waiting on something else, not in core compute cycles. So there's plenty of room to slice up the core's compute time and give a bunch of threads a turn.
The best analogy I can think of - you don't need a lane on the highway for each car going down on the road. There's plenty of room for a bunch of cars, so long as they don't all try to get in the same place at the same time.
All I know is, in the real world, my 3570K is still running everything just fine. We're going on 5 years here and I've not hit any road block where any upgrade seemed reasonable.
I used to multibox 4 copies of WoW. I play FFXIV, SC2 or any other game while BDO is fishing in the background while watching/listening to Youtube, browsing hentai and/or smirking at political posts on Facebook.
So does any of it really matter yet for the general consumer?
Yes, it does. It means exactly what you are doing is available for the general consumer. It means they can have more than one thing going on their PC at any particular time. Regardless of whether or not they have a dedicated graphics card.
"I used to think the worst thing in life was to be all alone. It's not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone." Robin Williams
Also, look up Preemptive Multitasking. It'll shed a bit more light on how threads work. You don't need 1 core per thread, unless your running DOS or something.
So what does it mean when the i5 says it has 4 cores and 4 threads? That doesn't mean that each core has 1 thread it can process at a time?
That means your CPU does not support Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT).
Unless your running on DOS, Windows 3.11 and lower, or MacOS 9 and lower, or some other archaic OS, your operating system supports Preemptive multitasking, which means that a CPU core can process as many threads as you have room in memory to hold them. It just can't do them all at the same time, the OS uses a Scheduler to determine which thread gets CPU access at any given time, and for how long, before it pauses that thread and allows another thread it's turn.
A thread spends most of it's time waiting on something else, not in core compute cycles. So there's plenty of room to slice up the core's compute time and give a bunch of threads a turn.
I think we have been saying the same thing the whole time but for some reason you been disagreeing with me. I clearly stated how and why the games aren't faster on 8 core processors even though they are capable of handling 16 threads at a time. Even why it appears that the 16 threads are all being used by the game and still doesn't help increase the speed. I understand why that is happening and maybe didn't explain it very clearly but i was not wrong.
This is like reading posts co-written by DRBaltazar and SEANMcad.
"I used to think the worst thing in life was to be all alone. It's not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone." Robin Williams
Also, look up Preemptive Multitasking. It'll shed a bit more light on how threads work. You don't need 1 core per thread, unless your running DOS or something.
So what does it mean when the i5 says it has 4 cores and 4 threads? That doesn't mean that each core has 1 thread it can process at a time?
Each core can process one thread at a time, but cores can switch between threads often, so that if you have a lot more than 4 threads, they all get processed.
Open up Task Manager (if you don't know how, Ctrl+Alt+Delete will bring up the option), go to the Processes tab, and select the option to show processes from all users. There are probably several dozen processes running on your computer right now. They all have at least one thread, and some of them could have a lot of threads. So you've got at least several dozen and possibly hundreds of threads active on your computer right now.
But most of them basically aren't doing anything, so they'll show CPU usage of 0%. If a thread has some work to do, it might flare up and Windows might give it a CPU core to process its work for a while. When a computer is mostly idle, there's generally enough CPU cores available for all of the threads that have work to do to get a core and use it until they're done, then let Windows take back the core and allocate it to something else.
When a computer is busy and has more threads that want to process something than CPU cores available, they have to take turns. Windows will let one thread run on a core for a while, then when either it's done or Windows decides it's time to let someone else have a turn, it will reclaim the core and let another thread use it.
Switching which threads have access to a core is expensive, as CPU caches have the data needed for the thread they've been processing, not the next one that is about to start, and it takes a while to swap the data in and out. So trying to switch threads every nanosecond wouldn't work, but letting a thread have a core for a millisecond before letting someone else have a turn isn't going to give you the same sort of cache thrashing problems. But you don't want to take too long to switch threads, as if something is supposed to play sound and it's delayed by half a second, it will seem all wrong to you. The OS is also aware of some threads being higher priorities than others.
Hyperthreading allows two threads to have their own resources on the same physical core at the same time, which allows the CPU core to switch between those two threads very quickly and without the huge penalty. Thus, one of the two threads resident on a core can process an instruction (or perhaps rather, do some particular pipeline stage of processing it) in one clock cycle, then the other thread can process its own completely independent instruction in the very next clock cycle, then switch back to the first thread for the cycle after that. If one thread has data ready to go and the other is waiting to load data from memory in a given clock cycle, the one that is ready can use the core and go. Without hyperthreading, sometimes the only thread resident would be one that is waiting on data and the core doesn't have anything to process.
GPUs take this approach much, much farther than CPUs. GPUs will commonly have tens of thousands of threads resident, most of which won't schedule any instructions at all in a given clock cycle. But GPU threads are very lightweight, so that when a GPU schedules a thread (or more properly a warp/wavefront), it can choose which one to schedule from among the ones available completely independently of what it chose last time. Switching which threads are processing every single clock cycle is not merely possible without penalties, but is the intended way GPUs are supposed to work. Having enough threads waiting means that, even if most threads aren't ready at a given moment in time, there can usually be something ready to go and keep the GPU busy.
This is like reading posts co-written by DRBaltazar and SEANMcad.
I have said very clearly games are designed to run on 4 cores at a time. Meaning they will only push 4 threads at a time through the processor. You cannot make them push more then 4 threads at a time because they aren't designed to do such a thing. When games are designed to take advantage of 16 threads then we will see 8 core processors being used for gaming.
Meanwhile like he said windows is scheduling the threads so even though the i7 should be weaker because they are splitting their cores in 1/2. They aren't weaker because of how windows uses the threads and spreads the tasks out. So it looks like the games are taking advantage of 8 cores when really its windows spreading out the work. When they are coded to take advantage of 8 cores we will see a huge increase in performance.
This is like reading posts co-written by DRBaltazar and SEANMcad.
I have said very clearly games are designed to run on 4 cores at a time. Meaning they will only push 4 threads at a time through the processor. You cannot make them push more then 4 threads at a time because they aren't designed to do such a thing. When games are designed to take advantage of 16 threads then we will see 8 core processors being used for gaming.
Meanwhile like he said windows is scheduling the threads so even though the i7 should be weaker because they are splitting their cores in 1/2. They aren't weaker because of how windows uses the threads and spreads the tasks out. So it looks like the games are taking advantage of 8 cores when really its windows spreading out the work. When they are coded to take advantage of 8 cores we will see a huge increase in performance.
A competent game designer does not target a particular, fixed number of CPU cores, with the possible exception of consoles. And even then, if you want your game to run on multiple consoles, you want it to run well on all of the CPUs that any of the consoles you care about have, and they sometimes have different numbers of CPU cores.
This is like reading posts co-written by DRBaltazar and SEANMcad.
I have said very clearly games are designed to run on 4 cores at a time. Meaning they will only push 4 threads at a time through the processor. You cannot make them push more then 4 threads at a time because they aren't designed to do such a thing. When games are designed to take advantage of 16 threads then we will see 8 core processors being used for gaming.
Meanwhile like he said windows is scheduling the threads so even though the i7 should be weaker because they are splitting their cores in 1/2. They aren't weaker because of how windows uses the threads and spreads the tasks out. So it looks like the games are taking advantage of 8 cores when really its windows spreading out the work. When they are coded to take advantage of 8 cores we will see a huge increase in performance.
A competent game designer does not target a particular, fixed number of CPU cores, with the possible exception of consoles. And even then, if you want your game to run on multiple consoles, you want it to run well on all of the CPUs that any of the consoles you care about have, and they sometimes have different numbers of CPU cores.
Yea I just don't know how this got all mixed up the way it did when I'm basically agreeing with everyone except the ones who think the games are actually running on 16 thread processor. The games are designed to be processed 2-4 threads at a time and you just cannot do more then that untill someone starts making them that way.
Most modern games do seem to be using a lower amount of threads even though the modern consoles have like 8 cores. Some of the i3 series, from benchmarks I've looked at, seems very comparable to some of the i5 series of the same generation. 2 cores vs 4 and not many games seem to be even taking advantage of 4.
Most modern games do seem to be using a lower amount of threads even though the modern consoles have like 8 cores. Some of the i3 series, from benchmarks I've looked at, seems very comparable to some of the i5 series of the same generation. 2 cores vs 4 and not many games seem to be even taking advantage of 4.
i3 user HyperThreading technology for simultaneous thread processing. It is essentially a 4 core CPU, altough the cpability is limited and within one cycle, computational units are shared between threads(instructions).
Comments
I'd read it as: "Don't upgrade before you need to upgrade because there is *always* something new coming out soon"
It was a funny notion to imply that if you are going to wait, you will never buy anything since there is always something new coming out you could wait for.
But yeah, if you can max out your current games there is zero need to upgrade, upgrading just for upgrading sake is stupid unless you are rather rich.
As long as you can sounds a bit too me like running the setting on low/mid settings and I rather not do that. But that can be just me. Still, there is a thing like waiting too long. If you can't experience a good game with acceptable settings you are due.
If someone decided to upgrade, then someone decided to upgrade but if hes not very well informed he may actually waste a lot of money if he upgrade in such a bad time.
Windows doesnt randomly create threads and its irrelevant to number of threads your CPU has. Thread on CPU is in every way a core, just much slower core and its clearly visible that games are using all 8 available threads and in turn RUN FASTER (i guess filmoret character is negating that as well)
And old(er) games are using just 1 thread (maybe 2 but irrelevant if 1 thread is being hammered at 100% while the other is used with 15%) which is clearly visible from plentiful tests, theres actually nothing worthwile to discuss in that area, having more threads on your CPU started to matter 2+ years ago.
And yes, AMDs 8 core CPUs have seen a renaissance in last 2 years and perform similar to 2-3.5 times more expencive Intel CPUs (100$ FX8300 vs i5 -k and i7 -k)
Next AMD Zen, I don't know the benchmarks and tests but perhaps just maybe it will be better than the 1151 series.
An AMD CPU is not where you want to save money in a Gaming desktop, IMO. Save it on the GPU and just run your games at 1080p or on a 1080p Panel. Voila. Get an Intel Processor.
The fact that Intel could coast the way they have since [at last, IMO] Haswell is a stunning indicator of just how terribly AMD is doing there.
Zen may be the best thing since sliced bread, but I can't trust them.
You'd also have to ignore the fact that a lot of software: Games, Video Encoding, etc. is optimized for Intel Processors.
But how the i7 is handled it isn't crippled by the 8 threads when it really should because applications are only suppose to be using 4 of the threads at a given time. Windows somehow runs the threads through all 8 of the cores. But it isn't very effecient which is why its better to turn off hyperthreading on the i7's for gamers.
Otherwise having a 100 core/ 100 thread processor would run your games 100x and the op would actually be right because his 8 core 16 thread processor would be faster but it doesn't because the games are only going to process 4 of them at a time.
In fact, you can buy FX8300+motherboard+8 GB RAM and still have 50$ leftover for whatever else you want to reach i5 -k price lol
People like you are scourge for gamers and hopefully aou never advised anyone about anything lol
And are you referring to cheating Intel did with gimping the competition for which they have been convicted and fined by both FTC and EU comission? lol
I think your confusing Piledriver (the FX x3xx series) with Bulldozer (the FX x1xx series). Piledriver was a notable improvement over Bulldozer.
Apart from Piledriver, the only other thing AMD has to offer right now are the line used in their APU cores (Jaguar, Steamroller, Excavator) , which are not bad, but are more geared for the 15-45W TDP market, and bundled with GCN cores on the APU.
So I have a nostalgic soft spot for AMD - even more so when they bought my good 'ole Canadian ATI.
But it's been years since I've felt that using an AMD CPU was worth it. Video cards is a different story and I have gone back and forth between nVidia and Radeon several times.
This stuff is just too important to be a fanboy about it.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
1) it may be the best available that fits certain limited budgets
2) if you really need a good integrated GPU, more so than a fast CPU
3) if you're in some really weird corner case that happens to favor AMD's CPU architectures.
For an example of (3), if you're doing something that is mostly random lookups to a fixed 1 MB table, an FX-8350 would probably beat a Core i7-7700K pretty handily, simply because it fits in L2 cache in the former and not the latter. Change that 1 MB table to 128 KB or 4 MB and suddenly AMD isn't even competitive anymore.
Unless your running on DOS, Windows 3.11 and lower, or MacOS 9 and lower, or some other archaic OS, your operating system supports Preemptive multitasking, which means that a CPU core can process as many threads as you have room in memory to hold them. It just can't do them all at the same time, the OS uses a Scheduler to determine which thread gets CPU access at any given time, and for how long, before it pauses that thread and allows another thread it's turn.
A thread spends most of it's time waiting on something else, not in core compute cycles. So there's plenty of room to slice up the core's compute time and give a bunch of threads a turn.
The best analogy I can think of - you don't need a lane on the highway for each car going down on the road. There's plenty of room for a bunch of cars, so long as they don't all try to get in the same place at the same time.
Open up Task Manager (if you don't know how, Ctrl+Alt+Delete will bring up the option), go to the Processes tab, and select the option to show processes from all users. There are probably several dozen processes running on your computer right now. They all have at least one thread, and some of them could have a lot of threads. So you've got at least several dozen and possibly hundreds of threads active on your computer right now.
But most of them basically aren't doing anything, so they'll show CPU usage of 0%. If a thread has some work to do, it might flare up and Windows might give it a CPU core to process its work for a while. When a computer is mostly idle, there's generally enough CPU cores available for all of the threads that have work to do to get a core and use it until they're done, then let Windows take back the core and allocate it to something else.
When a computer is busy and has more threads that want to process something than CPU cores available, they have to take turns. Windows will let one thread run on a core for a while, then when either it's done or Windows decides it's time to let someone else have a turn, it will reclaim the core and let another thread use it.
Switching which threads have access to a core is expensive, as CPU caches have the data needed for the thread they've been processing, not the next one that is about to start, and it takes a while to swap the data in and out. So trying to switch threads every nanosecond wouldn't work, but letting a thread have a core for a millisecond before letting someone else have a turn isn't going to give you the same sort of cache thrashing problems. But you don't want to take too long to switch threads, as if something is supposed to play sound and it's delayed by half a second, it will seem all wrong to you. The OS is also aware of some threads being higher priorities than others.
Hyperthreading allows two threads to have their own resources on the same physical core at the same time, which allows the CPU core to switch between those two threads very quickly and without the huge penalty. Thus, one of the two threads resident on a core can process an instruction (or perhaps rather, do some particular pipeline stage of processing it) in one clock cycle, then the other thread can process its own completely independent instruction in the very next clock cycle, then switch back to the first thread for the cycle after that. If one thread has data ready to go and the other is waiting to load data from memory in a given clock cycle, the one that is ready can use the core and go. Without hyperthreading, sometimes the only thread resident would be one that is waiting on data and the core doesn't have anything to process.
GPUs take this approach much, much farther than CPUs. GPUs will commonly have tens of thousands of threads resident, most of which won't schedule any instructions at all in a given clock cycle. But GPU threads are very lightweight, so that when a GPU schedules a thread (or more properly a warp/wavefront), it can choose which one to schedule from among the ones available completely independently of what it chose last time. Switching which threads are processing every single clock cycle is not merely possible without penalties, but is the intended way GPUs are supposed to work. Having enough threads waiting means that, even if most threads aren't ready at a given moment in time, there can usually be something ready to go and keep the GPU busy.
Meanwhile like he said windows is scheduling the threads so even though the i7 should be weaker because they are splitting their cores in 1/2. They aren't weaker because of how windows uses the threads and spreads the tasks out. So it looks like the games are taking advantage of 8 cores when really its windows spreading out the work. When they are coded to take advantage of 8 cores we will see a huge increase in performance.
Works still very fine tho.