[Eastbound]

"I think a 9X boost in performance would merit the front page of every newspaper in the world. Something is amiss with the claim"

I sent the link to this to my son. He wrote back:

"HyperThreading at this point is mainly Hype...aptly named. The applications need to also support HT. Here's a blurb from a comparison site:

"Benchmarking the Pentium 4-3.06 GHz is a very difficult proposition, as its main benefits are easily apparent using standard performance tests. Unless a program supports multithreading, then any performance benefits are extremely hard to quantify. The benchmarks that do support multiple threads showed some serious gains, while standard single-threaded tests were on-par with a 3.06 GHz CPU. The more ethereal advantages are when actually using a HT-enabled system, and multi-tasking with resource-hungry applications. While the numerical results are not consistent enough to publish, we found speed jumps of 5-15% when performing duties like simultaneous MPEG and MP3 encoding."

Now the kicker:
Intel 3.06GHz cpu: $710
Fastest AMD XP 2700 / 333MHz fsb: 323"

FWIW

[js1138]

5-15% is a pretty good benefit. Most high-end applications are multi-threaded -- Photoshop, Autocad, any professional graphics or multi-media editing program.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

15% gain is what I have read also!