I just purchased a new PC which contains hyperthreading. Hyperthreading is a new technology in the latest P4 chipset. You also have to have a supporting motherboard and OS (XP or better, Win2000 dosen't support it properly). Hyperthreading changes each processor into 2 processors giving the user time back on their machine (you can render an image while using another instance of Vue creating your next masterpeice and photoshop and poser all at once). My new box is a dual so it makes it into a quad (don't know if these benchmarks will be the same on a single processor PC). I rendered an image with Hyperthreading on and off to check the difference, while not doing any other functions on the PC. My concern was that the average processor speed on performance monitor would not go above 50% while rendering except if I started rendering another render or did photoshop work etc (therefore the extra, above 50%, was from the other process). Hyperthreading On: 235 seconds Hyperthreading Off: 223 seconds Only a 5% gain with it off. My conclusion is that hyperthreading only has minimal hinderance to rendering times but gives greater usability to your system while rendering in the background. Sacada.