Computer Hardware question hyperthreading?

[Galaril]

I am looking at buying a new computer and would like to buy something that will not be out of date technology wise for a few years. I play a fair amount of games and watch dvds on the computer now and then. But, I also do alot work on it as well on it. Ok here are my questions related to hardware. I am looking at buying a 3.0GHz or higher cpu desktop but was wondering would it be better to go with the HT 800FSB 1MB Cache or the 400FSB. Is there much difference between the two. And my second question was related to Hyperthreading and memory. I want to get 2 GB of RAM and I see that most companies offer 2 GB in 2 X 1GB seperately.For example, Dell has an option for 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz (2x1GB). I am guessing than that an application would only be relying on one channel (1GB)at any one time,not both channels.So in fact it would be 2 separate 1 GB RAM. Therefore, this would only be useful for two application using Hyperthreading right? Am I undestandin gthis correctly?This type of question I guess only a select few who probably work in hardware would know.

Hyper-Threading Technology 3.0GHz 800FSB 1MB Cache

[cartman]

They are all related to each other, but not necessarily by application.

The FSB speed is how fast the CPU can send and receive information with the other components in the system, namely the memory and PCI cards. So 800Mhz FSB is better. The gotcha with that is if the 400Mhz system has a higher cache, but I don't think they had more than 1MB of L2 cache in them.

As for the memory, the two stick approach is better. This is independant of the applications, and purely a hardware issue. The first D in DDR stands for Dual. If you use only one stick of ram, you are limiting the speed of the memory. If you use two sticks of ram, the system uses both channels simultaneously. It's the difference between a two lane country road, and a 4 lane divided highway.

[daedalus]

I seem to remember reading once that Marc mentioned that FM made use of Hyper Threading. And, well, screw other applications and whether or not they used them, that's a good enough for me.

[Franklinnoble]

Hyperthreading kicks ass.

[Raiders Army]

Hyperthreading kicks ass.
Until the hyperdrive motivator gets damaged. Then it is impossible to go to lightspeed.

[gstelmack]

Hyperthreading is a way of running 2 threads on 1 processor using unused pipeline stages. The threads will still share memory, so you've still got a total of 2GB available (each can address the full 2GB, although if one is using 1.5GB, there's only .5GB available to the other). They go dual-channel because it's faster: you can interleave memory accesses, so you're working at twice the speed (roughly).

Hyperthreading is cool for multitasking and multithreaded games.

You definitely want the HT 800FSB processor.

[ZXTT]

The first D in DDR stands for Dual. If you use only one stick of ram, you are limiting the speed of the memory.

The D stands for Double. It refers to the fact that the RAM may transfer data twice per clock, on the rising and falling part of the cycle.

Having two banks that can be interleaved has nothing to do with DDR and is purely a chipset feature, which, as has already been stated, works independently of software and hyperthreading. A single-threaded application will benefit from interleaved memory access because the result is simply greater memory bandwidth.

So, to concur with gstelmack -> HT 800FSB.

[Galaril]

Awesome responses I am enlightened thanks alot great explanations. :)

[Galaril]

which is better to have 4 x 512mb RAm or 2 x 1GB RAm . They are comparable in price.Thanks.

[jeff061]

2 x 1GB, to run in dual channel mode.

[gstelmack]

2 x 1GB, to run in dual channel mode.
Yup, because that leaves you 2 slots for 2 more GB later...

[jeff061]

Though I'd reccommend you try to always stay with two sticks. Two sticks will run faster than any other configuration.

[Mr. Wednesday]

The amount of speedup you get from hyperthreading depends a lot on the instruction mix of the apps you're running. If you're not trying to run two integer-heavy or FPU-heavy apps (either both mixed, or one integer-heavy and one FPU-heavy), then it'll work pretty well, but it does depend on the second thread being able to use the pipeline stages that aren't currently in use.

[Galaril]

I was wondering about that.