Core i5 or Core i7: Is There a Real-World Noticeable Difference?

Hello,
Please let me know if there is any noticeable difference between these two processors. I'm a hobbyist upgrading to a new iMac and would rather spend money on new camera gear and external drives than specs that may not benefit me in the long run.
My current iMac is a 2006 Intel Core Duo with 2GB RAM and a video card with 128MB VRAM. Notice that's not an Intel Core 2 Duo. I work comfortably in Final Cut Express (the re-rendering of effects and long exports have become familiar tradeoffs) in a hobbyist capacity; the 2GB hasn't caused me much grief yet.
Nevertheless, it's time to upgrade (I can't move to Mountain Lion or upgrade Aperture and iWork or use iCloud services on this iMac). Will the 2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 be noticeably slower than the 3.1GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7? I won't have an opportunity to have them side by side and do real-time tests, unfortunately. I can't even do that comfortably in an Apple Store. Remember what I'm currently using, anything will likely be a major difference in speed. That said, will the i5 be strong enough or will I need the i7?
I'm planning to move up to Final Cut Pro X and use a Canon 6D (or 7D) later, and I guess the transition depends on the 6D being on the list of recognized devices. I plan on purchasing the iMac any day (I've been sitting on the fence for a few months and can wait a few more days).
Can anyone comment on the differences in the processors? I'd really appreciate your feedback.
Thanks!

The big difference is the i7 has hyper-threading, which enables up to eight cores. In i5, hyper-threading is disabled.
Most of the time the i5 will work great for hobbyist purposes  – and will be dramatically more quicker than your current setup.
Where you would see the difference is in rendering – particularly h.264. If you had Compressor, you could set up clusters that in the i7  could take advantage of 6 or 7 cores; whereas the i5 would be limited to 3. (In theory the i7 cluster could have 8 instances and the i5 could have 4, but practically speaking…)
Good luck.
Russ

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