Virtual Cores vs Physical Cores

Hyper-threading, doesn't come anywhere close to having an an available core to run a thread on. The way hyper-threading works is that when the core is waiting for something, it can suspend the current thread and run a second one, until the original thread is once again ready to run.

So without having some charts or reference to show you, I would say from my own real world experience, the second thread in a hyper-thread runs maybe 20 % of the time tops.

I'd suggest you google Intel's hyper-thread architecture.

Tom

In theory hyperthreading allows a single physical processor to run multiple threads at the same time provided the software permits it. This allows a single core to approximate the processing power of multiple cores. So if a 4-core machine supports hyperthreading then 8 virtual processors will be available. Activity Monitor will show all 8. However, if an application isn't properly written to take advantage of all 8 cores, then it will run only as fast as what it is written to support - usually a single core. I don't think you will find this to be the case with advanced applications such as FCS or the Adobe suites.

There will be some loss of processing power if only because the laptop's internals are not quite the same as a 2010 multi-core Mac Pro, but it should perform reasonably well against your 2008 model. GeekBench results for your machine is around 8950. The 2010 15" i7 MBP - 2 physical cores - scored 5958. So, you will note the difference in performance versus the number of physical cores. The 2011 models have a 4-core i7 so expect that the score will come near doubling (not quite in reality) that of the 15" 2-core model of 2010.

I can't make that decision for you. If you have all the facts you need then you can make the most informed decision. If you search for some possible early benchmarks you may find additional information. For example, barefeats.com did some graphic benchmarks and found that the 2011 model was considerably faster than the 2010 model based on the dedicated GPUs.

According to Apple's online store FCS has the following system requirements:

*Minimum System Requirements to Install All Applications*

Mac computer with an Intel processor

1GB of RAM (2GB of RAM recommended for working with compressed HD and uncompressed SD sources; 4GB of RAM recommended for working with uncompressed HD sources)

ATI or NVIDIA graphics processor (integrated Intel graphics processors not supported)

128MB of VRAM

Display with 1280-by-800 resolution or higher

Mac OS X v10.5.6 or later

QuickTime 7.6 or later

DVD drive for installation

A Mac Pro needs symmetrical memory, so that both Risers or memory banks in Mac Pro 1,1 have 4 x 1GB.

A Mac Pro should really have 8 DIMMs for maximum memory bandwidth.

Those hardware requirements are not realistic in the least.

Instead of thinking of HT as virtual cores, it is just hyper-threading, and that means heat, small boost of 20%, and totally dependent on multithreading in applications (come don't, and some are not even now optimized for Nehalem architecture). Turbo-boost is another 'feature.' On my PC, I disable both.

What you don't want but will see all too often are apps or threads that are not multicore aware or optimized and use 90-100-110% (and the only way to get 110% is one core running two threads).

Stick with what you have, don't jump ship just yet. Spend on an SSD or two and PCIe SATA3 6G for instance that will help whatever you do. Only if you need a laptop to visit and demo off site with clients, get a MBP. Unless you see yourself buying one before apps are updated and after the time 10.7 ships, that was like Early 2008 all over again, new OS + new MP3,1 and apps had not caught up.