One fast quad-core or two slower ones?

[mike_nw]

Would Excel 2007 (and eventually 2010) make better use of:

1) one quad-core processor with a very fast clock speed or
2) two quad-core processors with slower clock speeds?

I've struggled finding detailed information about core usage capabilities. I'm leaning toward one very fast quad-core because it would aid in more mundane operations. But when I calculate my 100MB file with 40 sheets and as many as 70,000 rows on a sheet, I want the best possible performance within those parameters.

Any insight greatly appreciated.

 

[mike_nw]

Might finally have somewhat of an answer.

http://blogs.pcmag.com/miller/2007/04/excel_2007_is_multithreaded_bu.php

 

[FastExcel]

Depends on the degree of parallelism in your workbook: but if you have a high percentage of formulae in your 100MB workbook the chances are that you will get a good speedup with multi-core and the more cores the better.
(But much larger speedups come from optimising the formulae you are using).
See http://www.decisionmodels.com/VersionCompare.htm for timimg comparisons on a spead of workbooks.