Hyper Threading Vs No Ht

Is Hyper Threading actually worth the boost in price?

For instance, if I am recoding video, the encoder would only be able to use physical cores, virtual cores given by HT, would give no increase in performance, that is decrease in encoding time. Similarly for video playback, HT, would not give better performance than a similar physical core.

Where would HT actually pay off?

 

It's unimportant. If you're buying/choosing one, just stick to the processor you actually want. Just choose it according to your needs. But you'll find all Intel Core models have HT included.
This is what HT is supposed to be about:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper-threading

 

Only the Desktop i3, i7 and Xeons have HT, the i5's don't.

Single threaded speed is what you need to aim for, currently the highest stock speeds come from the i7 (4GHz non-K, 4.2GHz K cf. 3.9GHz for the i5 versions), HT can be turned off in UEFI/BIOS if needed. (There are also some E3 Xeons that slot in between the top i5's and the low i7's in price.)

If you need to step up to 6 or more cores, then your choice is HT only and the Xeons will be a good alternative to the i7's.

Where would HT pay off? Playing FarCry 4 on an i3

 

Not according to Intel themselves. HT is supported in many i5 processors but not necessarily enabled. I'm typing this on a Haswell 22nm i5 4210m and HT is both supported and enabled on this actual system.

 

That's a Mobile not a Desktop CPU, it's closer to an i3 Desktop CPU with 2 cores + HT or the i5 4570T.

 

Yes but I didn't see any specification in the thread for mobile or desktop. But since "Core i5 uses Hyper-Threading to make a dual-core CPU act like a four-core one" that applies in desktop as well as mobile, but "if you have a Core i5 processor with four true cores, it won't have Hyper-Threading".
More complex than at first sight.
But the issue remains the same - match the CPU and budget to the specific needs of the user.

 

Out of some 65 Desktop i5 CPU's in the last 5 generations, only 3 have been dual core + HT and have the 'T' designation, are all low power 35W, so are presumably for the tiny box factors like nettops.

"Hey, you can have a high power i5 in your notebook/tiny box, too - except it'll perform at ~60% of a real i5." No, that doesn't sound like the kind of blurb that the Intel advertising cats would spring for, does it?

A lot more honest than what they do spew out though.