[linux-audio-user] Processor Recommendation

I'm planning on building a new machine and would like some advice. Right now I think the main application of it's "power" will be in recording/mixing in linux. People have been saying that a dual processor is something to consider, but there's currently a problem: the amd athlon's that would be at my price point (the 2600 - 2800's) have no dual processor motherboard support, and it looks like there won't be any b/c companies are just going to go straight to supporting the new 64-bit opterons (which aren't in my price range). So if anyone can comment on any of the following things, it would really help me out. Front Side Bus speed: how important is this for recording? i could just get two bargain athlon's with a slower FSB, would that work? Would any of the sound apps out there, or even linux in general, make any use of a 64 bit opteron anytime soon? (no i won't have more than 4GB of memory) Hyperthreading - the new fancy P4's have it. Does it do anything on linux? I saw some benchmarks where it really sped up video encoding (on windows), how similar to sound processing is this? In general, intel chips seem to do better in benchmarks on floating point stuff (games and video) while amd's do better on integer heavy apps (office software). I would think that sound stuff would therefore run better on intel's but lots of sound people say they prefer amd's. Any reason for this? How fast does a system really need to be before it can handle recording with practically no limits? (let's say fewer than 10 tracks at a time such as with a delta1010) thanks for any help, i'd be happy if i got responses to only a few of these questions. Peter