We're partial to the workstation, and you couldn't find anything in iMac forum or Google/Wikipedia (great for those dictionary/encyclopedia type inquiries)
On September 8, 2009, Intel released the first Core i5 processor: The Core i5 750,[1] which is a 2.66 GHz quad-core Lynnfield processor with Hyper-threading disabled.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_i5
What about the Core i5 iMac? Based on the four CPU intensive apps featured in the graphs, we believe it's well worth paying 10% more for the Core i7 iMac to get 13% to 30% more CPU crunching power.
My reading on all of it was that the hyper-threading was disabled on the 2.6 Quad-Core on both platforms, the i5 and the 2.6 Mac Pro. When reading the performance information on Apple website, the hyper-threading feature gets mentioned at the beginning of a sentence related to the 2.9 Mac Pro, with no reference to the 2.6.
As for application, I am photography and some video editing, multiple programs opened and working at same time. It is not a deal breaker feature that I need, I just wanted to know so I could understand the product better.
I don't look to Apple for technical information on hardware or in-depth, and what I do read, it is with a grain of salt.
I turn to Intel for information on the processors, Apple has no control over those really other than if/how well OS X handles HT and threading.
Platform? not quite. All Intel, only there is Bloomfield, Lynnfield, Westmere, Nehalem, Gulftown (6-core late 2010). All same "platform."
What I would be doing is looking at some who found the iMac easy to outgrow, others, that it was more than needed.
When you reach the need for more than 8GB RAM, CS5, and of course video editing does make use of HT and more cores. Or more hard drives, if you like to have SSD boot drive and some media drives all internal.
Apple doesn't like to get into more than "improves stability and performance" and usually overstates any. Just as 10.6.3 opens up APIs for some features, or that OpenCL and Grand Central are not mature technologies, they are in their infancy.
I wish there were more options, though it is really possible for someone to swap out stock processor in Mac Pro, and probably iMac, and throw in their own retail (Core i5 660 or something). Very doable.
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Hyper-threading
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