logical cores limit testing in free version

[flarbear]

I looked for a search feature to see if this is a known issue, but didn't see one...?

So the free version of the software has a limit of 16 cores.
And memtest only runs on physical cores.

So, for CPUs that have between 8 and 16 cores plus hyperthreading, they read as if they have 16 to 32 "logical cores", which the free version limits to 16. It then ignores half of those because they are logical cores and you end up running on only 8 cores.

If you go into BIOS and turn off hyperthreading/SMT then it will find the actual number of cores and run on all of those (up to 16 max).

Since most any processor that has 8+ cores will likely have hyperthreading/SMT, you essentially can't test all of the cores without changing BIOS settings.

While this doesn't prevent testing all cores because you can always disable HT/SMT, run the test, and then re-enable it, it would be nice if it would limit the core count to 16 *after* it ignores the logical cores so that it will run on all physical cores between 8 and 16 without having to change BIOS settings.

[David (PassMark)]

Memtest86 can use hyperthreading. But we just turned it off by default as it made testing slower. As does testing with a large number of physical cores.
Once you get past around 4 cores, speed is limited by the memory speed, not by the CPU.

So from the point of view of RAM testing there isn't much to be gained from testing with 16 cores.
(the exception to this being dual socket systems with multiple memory busses)