Intel reacts to Ryzen: adds HT to Kaby Lake Pentium CPUs

AMD launched an offensive late last year with the massive reveal of Ryzen, and had a more detailed tease at CES 2017 last week - but now, Intel has seemingly reacted by adding Hyper-Threading technology to some its new Kaby Lake-based range of Pentium processors.

Not all of the new Pentium CPUs will receive HT, but TechPowerUp reports that the list includes the "Pentium G4620 (3.7GHz base frequency and integrated graphics HD 630, $93) and G4600 (3.6GHz base frequency, $82), both at 51 W TDP; G4560 (54W TDP at 3.5GHz and integrated HD 610 graphics, $64); and the Pentium G4600T (3GHz, HD 630, $75) and G4560T (2.9GHz, HD 610, $64) slot in as the low power Pentium offerings with a 35W TDP".

But now that some of the new Pentium processors feature Hyper-Threading support, how will Intel make consumers see a difference between the Core i3 models? The company Advanced Vector Instructions 2 (AVX2) extension set, which is mainly used for database processing and video editing - so Intel is hoping there is still a market for a slice of consumers who will buy a HT-enabled Pentium processor over the slightly cheaper Core i3.

The pricing is also a little cheaper, with the new Kaby Lake-based Core i3 processors having a $50+ premium over the new Pentium chips, but will the performance be much better? Well, the new Core i3-7100 and Pentium G4620 are only 200MHz apart and with AVX2 being the only difference, why would you pay more?