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I currently have the 17" Pro w/ the dual core 3.06Mhz processor (mid 2009 model).

I use the box for some fairly large spreadsheet and graphics work and periodically run Windoze applications under Parallels.

I like the idea of being able to assign 2 cores to a Windoze process; keeping the other for OSX, but I'm not sure the new i7 box will really provide material performance improvement. Frankly, I'm wondering whether I would be better off keeping my existing box and adding another 4gb of memory vs the processor upgrade.

Would appreciate any comments / observations...

Thanks!
Trying to clarify.

In addition to work stuff (spreadsheets) and email, I also do a fair amount of Lightroom / Photoshop work on the machine I have now.

So my question is really whether I would get overall better (material) performance from the new CPU or would adding another 4gb of RAM to my existing machine give me nearly the same improvement specifically for photoshop...

Thanks!