but the short answer is to use the multi-processor system. The single core will perform better when you care nothing about your performance, the multi-core system will perform better the only time you care at all about performance.
I think some information is getting lost here. I'm not comparing single vs multi core operation in a purely mathematical sense on identical hardware. I'm trying to decide between a setup that uses a relatively fast single core vs a setup that uses slower multi cores. In aggregate the multiple cores have more processing power than the fast single, but in isolation are notably slower. The workload is mainly pf, and given that pf is currently single threaded, I'm trying to figure out if the other stuff on the box causes enough overhead that going with slower multi cores will end up being faster in the end or not.
