[Bioclusters] To hyperthread or not to...

[Chris Dagdigian]

Malay Kumar Basu wrote:
> Hello Cluster gurus:
> 
> I was just wondering about the new hyperthreded P4/Xeon processors. Is 
> there any issue regarding hyperthreading that I must be aware of? Does 
> SGE works in hyperthreaded nodes or head? Should I go for hyperthreaded 
> or non-hyperthreaded nodes?
> 
> Malay

You can enable/disable hyperththreading in BIOS usually so you don't 
have to make a yes/no purchase choice with P4/Xeon. The trend in the 
past on the Dell mailing lists and other places I've been loitering was 
that users were disabling hyperthreading right away but that may have 
changed recently.

For your applications you need to benchmark yourself with hyperthreading 
  turned off an on. Some people report real gains; others don't see any 
change.

SGE won't care. Platform LSF and any other OS or application that is 
licensed by CPU will certainly be affected as your virtual CPUs will 
consume real license tokens.  This may be your real issue -- what apps 
do you have that are licensed by CPU?

-Chris