I would strongly recommend getting an Intel Core-series if you can. Any Pentium 4 will radically underperform on MAME while drawing a lot of power and throwing off a lot of heat (it's why the P4 was killed). If you can't afford any used Core system, an AMD system of the same vintage as the P4s will outperform them and run cooler/quieter.
HT varies by the specific CPU model how well it works; in general it doesn't hurt, but the way MAME uses threads really assumes multiple full-power cores.
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