Quote Originally Posted by Bear View Post
I'm certainly not knocking the P4, it's definitely adequate for anyone not totally gaming oriented, but am offering some info on the hyperthread processors. Hyperthreading was developed as dual cores were, possibly just a little bit before. As are many computer related items, it fell to the wayside as a better option(dual core) emerged. It was a transitional piece, as I call them(along with PCI-X vs PCI Express etc), and even though it does show in windows as two processors, and even tho it is superior to a single core, it is still only capable of processing single threads (it just does so more efficiently than the plain single cores did)



I'm not as "up" on the newer stuff as I once was, but still believe separate CPUs will out manuever a dual core, as would quad CPUs vs a single quad core CPU. In the case of multiple CPUs, the primary CPUs function will default to running the operating system, and additional CPUs will be free to address other applications
Hyperthreading does allow for multiple threads. It allows the os to create two virtual cores allowing multiple threads on one core. Although it doesn't brake up the main executions of the architecture. It increase the ability to run parallel computations minimizing the number of instructions on one pipeline. It does allow windows and applications to run just as if it was a dual core. P4 computers will not run games. But with a mediocre graphics card a p4 with hyperthreading will run games on low settings.