Processor question

[plutomaniac]

When you say difference, do you mean the performance or the lexical one?

Lexical: Hyper Threading "divides" each core to two threads which means that the same core can focus on more than one tasks at a given time. It it still a single core though, single-core performance but with the ability for multiple tasks. So, a dual core with HT has 2 cores and 4 threads, a quad core has 4 cores and 4 threads, a quad core with HT has 4 cores and 8 threads.

Performance: Hyper Threading is useful for multitasking environments, especially when it comes to video editing, rendering etc. In the near future games will also be able to benefit from multiple threads because since now usually 1-2 cores were used while gaming with the other ones doing nothing for the game itself. The rule is that a core is better than a thread, so you will get a lot better performance by getting a quad core (4 cores/4 threads) rather than a dual core with HT(2 cores/4 threads).