Actually, Vista sees the true dual cores as 2 processors, as does XP in many ways. However, it does know what to do with it. Most programs only use one of the 2 cores, seeing each as one processor (and they are single threaded programs). If you look at the actual CPU usage log, a lot of programs use almost exactly 50% of the cpu - that's because they're fully utilizing one core. However, it's still definitely worth it, because it's rare that only a single program is running, and any time that more than just a single program is running, the multi core architecture will be faster.