As others have correctly said, the article fails to mention usability.

For two years my work machine was a Dell Dual PII-450 (Web Application Development with NT4 Server, IIS & SQLServer 7). I recently upgraded to a P4 1.6 GHz (single CPU), also a Dell. While everything on the new machine is theoretically faster, I spend more time waiting... and THAT'S the beauty of SMP.

My home machine is a single-CPU PIII-1GHz. For my next upgrade I would rather go 2x1GHz than 1x2GHz.

IMHO unless you are a gamer, you probably wouldn't notice the top GHz of a P4's performance.

PRANG