A spokesman for Intel Corp. confirmed Friday that the current "Foster" Xeon processors contain some of the circuitry for hyperthreading, but they have not been activated... Read More...

The spokesman said Friday that the technology will be turned on next year. A second spokesman for Intel, Santa Clara, Calif., said that the 64-bit Itanium processor does not contain the hyperthreading technology. "I still think that there needs to be some additional (hyperthreading) circuitry in there, however," the spokesman said of the Xeon. Hyperthreading, formerly called the "Jackson" technology, allows a single physical processor to act as two or more virtual processes, which can simultaneously execute different threads. Compaq Computer Corp.'s EV8 Alpha processor simulates a symmetric 4-way system. Hyperthreading requires the cache and other memory resources to be shared, and also the duplication of some of the microprocessor's internal circuitry. Since the Foster is based upon the Pentium 4 core, it is possible that hyperthreading could be contained within that chip as well. Representatives of Intel's desktop group, however, were on vacation on Friday and could not be reached. Source: ExtremeTech