I7 dual-core vs i7 quad-core; very specific question!

[sammyw]

Hello,

I come to this forum because most people here seem very educated. I'll breakdown my situation, I even have two CPU's in mind, I just need to know how big of a difference an i7 dual-core vs an i7 quad-core would make for video editing.

I've been using a PC laptop for the past three years to edit HD videos and render them. I have a 2.4 dual-core processor and I can normally render a 10 minute video in about an hour and a half. I am required to get a Macbrook Pro laptop due to a program I am in, so I will be also using that to edit/render videos as well. Here are the two options I have:

Option #1: 2.9GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz) with 4MB L3 cache

Option #2: 2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz) with 6MB L3 cache

Obviously option #2 is better, but just how much better? The first option cost $1400 and the second option cost $1700. I'm trying to figure out if the second option is worth the extra $300. As I said, I am going to be using this laptop for normal everyday computing as well as video editing/rendering.

Thanks so much in advance for your help.

 

[austing]

Alot better, 4 cores allow for much faster video decoding and processing.

Infact, the main reason why people get more cores in processors is increased video, multitasking, image editing, and multimedia speed.