Pentium 4 HT - Hyper Threading CPU

I stand corrected on one of my previous posts about buying and using Pentium 4 processors. I so far have tested two different P4 HT computers and I was blown away by their performance. I have heard that when you review the processors on P4 HT machines that two cpu's show up and that is absolutely right. Those processors do more than just show up as two cpu's they perform like it too!

I install Linux Mint 11 on the computers I currently build and I use the system profiler to check system components and run the CPU Blowfish benchmark test. These cpu's perform like a dual core system. Here are some of my results:

• Intel Duo Core E2140 runs the Blowfish test at 10.75 seconds.
• Intel Pentium 4, HT 3.2GHz run the Blowfish test at 11.45 seconds.
• Intel Pentium 4, HT 3.0GHz run the Blowfish test at 11.66 seconds.

As you can see the P4 HT's perform almost as fast as the early Duo Core processors. So my recommendation is not to get rid of your HT's yet, they should provide lots of years of good service still.

Computer System Speed Comparison

Computer Speed Tests for the Average Person

This section is my attempt at showing the differences between processors and how their performance ranks.

Computer Speed Analysis:

CPU Descrip.	CPU Speed	CPU Cores	CPU FSB	CPU Cache	64 Bit	Mobo FSB	Sys RAM	Video	CPU Rank	Benchmark
AMD Athlon X3	3.2 GHz	3	2 GHz	1 mb	Yes	1 GHz	4 GB	ATI 5450	2715	4.09 sec.
AMD Athlon X2	2.4 GHz	2	1 GHz	1 mb	Yes	1 GHz	2 GB	ATI X600	1050	9.15 sec.
Intel Dual E2140	1.6 GHz	2	800 MHz	1 mb	Yes	1 GHz	1 GB	TBD	907	10.75 sec.
AMD Athlon64 3800	2.4 GHz	1	1 GHz	512 mb	Yes	1 GHz	2 GB	On Board	610	14.99 sec.
AMD Athlon64 3500	2.2 GHz	1	1 GHz	512 mb	Yes	1 GHz	2 GB	Nvidia 6600 GT	567	16.15 sec.
AMD Sempron 3100	1.8 GHz	1	256 MHz	256 KB	No	533 MHz	768 MB	ATI X300	450	19.20 sec.
Pentium 4	2.8 GHz	1	533 MHz	512 kb	Yes	533 MHz	768 MB	ATI X300	415	20.98 sec.
Celeron	2.6 GHz	1	400 MHz	256 kb	No	400 MHz	768 MB	On Board	295	20.98 sec.

Take a look at the above chart and see how your computer stacks up. All of the machines shown above will get on the internet and surf the web. If you need a budget gaming machine I would stick with machine with CPU ranks above 550. What does this mean for you? Do not overpay for older Pentium 4 machines and before you shell out your hard earned dough on a computer make sure you check your CPU's performance rating.

So What Does this List Mean?

In layman's terms I would never buy a used or refurbished computer slower than a Pentium 4 2.8GHz and even then I would not pay more than $40 -$50 for it and only if it came with a decent amount of memory and good hard drive. My most surprising budget build was the AMD Athlon 64 3500. It was fast enough of a machine to play Nexuiz, a 3D fast paced FPS for Linux. I am sure the 2GB of RAM and Nvidia 6600GT video card helped.

Data Sources: CPU rankings were obtained from www.passmark.com, an excellent source of CPU data. The benchmark numbers are actual measurements that I received from performing the CNC Blowfish test on the Linux Mint 11 operating system.