Hyperthreading provides a 5% performance increase with Intel 875/865 systems (dual 400MHz memory) but only ~1.5% increase with Intel 845PE systems (333MHz memory).  Perhaps for Hyperthreading to have an impact additional bandwidth is required that the 875/865 systems have available.

An Intel 875/865 system with HT on is about 25% faster per clock than an Intel 845PE system with HT on.

An AMD dual channel nforce system with an Athlon XP cpu is about 12% more efficient at rendering than an Intel 875/865 P4 system.

Although MSP7 appears to not be heavily optimized for HT during rendering, the real time instant playback engine does seem to utilize HT quite well.  I noticed that the one scene that was not RT with HT off was RT with HT on with my system (P4 3.06).  In addition, all of the other clips I designated real time were even smoother with HT turned on.

MediaStudio Pro 7 requires both a fast cpu AND fast fsb/memory.

Intel 875 systems paired with 800MHz fsb motherboards and dual PC3200 memory are excellent performers in MSP7.

Athlon XP's are also very good performers but are limited by clock speed.  At this point in time Intel has about a 30% lead in clockspeed over AMD, while AMD XP processors are only 12% more efficient at running the test.

It would be interesting to see how the Athlon 64 processors perform on the test as well as the new Prescott Intel P4 core.

HT gives a slight boost to rendering performance, but a much larger one to real time previews.