Are all cores unlocked?

[Michael Miles]

James Wilkinson wrote:
> Michael Miles wrote:
>    
>> I can't wait to see the Bulldozer series in action ( 16 cores
>> Hyperthreaded) yeah baby..........
>>      
> Unfortunately, Bulldozer doesn’t do conventional SMT (which is what
> Intel usually¹ means by hyperthreading). It has two integer cores
> sharing a wide floating point engine and level 2 cache. This combination
> is what AMD call a “module”, but they will be selling it as two cores.
>
> So a 16 core Bulldozer will have 16 hardware threads.
>
> A module takes more power and area than a traditional core with
> hyperthreading, but you should get more performance out of it, too.
>
> Sorry,
>
> James.
>
> ¹ Hyperthreading is an Intel trademark, and, as such, means precisely
> what Intel wants it to mean at the moment. This can change (it means
> something different for the Itanium).
>
>    
Thank's for the clear up. My question is with Hyperthreading that is if 
each core does double duty so to speak by looking after two threads 
would it not do basically the same work as one core full bore on one thread.
Is there a speed difference (faster, slower)

It seems to me that two threads time share one core. Thus making the 
work load the same as if one core was doing one task but at twice the speed

It is confusing why they would have Hyperthreading there.
An i7 920 with 4 cores does the same amount of work as the same chip 
with 8 cores showing with Hyperthreading active.

Michael