Theo de Raadt has introduced a new hw.blockcpu sysctl to #OpenBSD -current to offer more control over which CPU core types (Performance, Efficiency, and SMT) are available to schedule processes on. Modern Intel (and ARM) CPUs additionally have slower LP-E (low-power) cores that severely hinder system performance.

deraadt@ modified src/sys/*: Some new intel machines have a new 3rd tier of cpus called LP-E which are E-core (Atom) without L3 cache. These cpus are Lethargic, and it sucks when processes migrate to them.
This introduces sysctl hw.blockcpu= which takes a sequence of 4 letters.
S (for SMT), P (regular performance cpu), E (efficient cpu) generally 80% to 50% as fast), and L (lethargic cpu) which are even slower.
By setting this, you can select cpus to kick out of the scheduler. The default is SL.
The hw.smt sysctl remains for now but we will eventually delete it.
hw.smt changes and follows hw.blockcpu=S.
ok kettenis mlarkin

So this replaces setting hw.smt to 1 ??

Would I then hw=blockcpu=L
To enable smt ??

Thanks in advance and apologies if I'm misunderstanding this.

@justine Yes, as I understand it. That would block only the LP-E cores.

hw.smt is still supported in 7.9-beta but will now print a deprecation warning. 

I just updated and it's not yet available on #365

hw.machine=amd64
hw.model=Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-10505 CPU @ 3.20GHz
hw.ncpu=12
hw.byteorder=1234
hw.pagesize=4096
hw.disknames=cd0:,sd0:5b94487c8aa38d41,sd1:d37010def7c156f7
hw.diskcount=3
hw.sensors.cpu0.temp0=30.00 degC
hw.sensors.cpu0.frequency0=4400000000.00 Hz
hw.sensors.cpu1.frequency0=4400000000.00 Hz
hw.sensors.cpu2.frequency0=4400000000.00 Hz
hw.sensors.cpu3.frequency0=4350000000.00 Hz
hw.sensors.cpu4.frequency0=4300000000.00 Hz
hw.sensors.cpu5.frequency0=4350000000.00 Hz
hw.sensors.acpitz0.temp0=27.80 degC (zone temperature)
hw.sensors.nvme0.temp0=28.00 degC, OK
hw.sensors.nvme0.percent0=0.00% (endurance used), OK
hw.sensors.nvme0.percent1=100.00% (available spare), OK
hw.sensors.softraid0.drive0=online (sd1), OK
hw.cpuspeed=3201
hw.setperf=100
hw.vendor=Dell Inc.
hw.product=OptiPlex 3080
hw.serialno=2GLK4K3
hw.uuid=44454c4c-4700-104c-804b-b2c04f344b33
hw.physmem=34078810112
hw.usermem=33578160128
hw.ncpufound=12
hw.allowpowerdown=1
hw.perfpolicy=high
hw.smt=1
hw.ncpuonline=12
hw.power=1
hw.ucomnames=