New Quad Core 27" i5 imac vs New Dual Core 27" i5 imac...

Question

Even tho the Quad core 27" imac has 4 REAL cores as opposed to the Dual core 27" imac which only has 2 Real and 2 virtual(with hyperthreading)....a similarly spec'd dual core actually costs slightly more when you bump up the GPU to match the Quad's ATI RADEON 5750 with 1 GB of SDRAM.
For example with the student discount:
1) 3.6 Ghz Intel Core i5 27" iMac with 4MB level 3 cache, 1TB HDD, 4MB RAM,hyper threading & Turbo Boost AND upgrading the GPU to the ATI RADEON 5750 costs $1,914
2) 2.8 Ghz Intel Quad Core i5 27" with 8MB level 3 cache, 1TB HDDD 4MB RAM, (no hyper threading), has Turbo Boost and comes with ATI RADEON 5750 GPU costs $1899
Personally I'd rather have 4 REAL cores AND 8MB of level 3 cache than hyperthreading. Am I wrong? Why is the Quad core actually LESS?
I plan to do moderate HD video editing on imovie, and FCE, web design, animation using Flash and Anime Studio as well as photoshop and photography work.
Thanks for any and all feed back. I'm waiting to see if the new ilife rumors are true on August 7th before ordering, so I've got time.

Answer 1

It was the same with the last generation, where the top upgraded Core 2 was more expensive than the quad.
The quadcore Core i5 27" is by far the faster computer - partially because of the two extra cores, but also because of the bigger cache and the integrated memory controller. The dual is more expensive for two reasons:
1) BTO options are always more expensive
2) The CPU used in the top dualcore is actually more expensive than the one in the quad. The world is full of people who only look at the clockspeed, and for them Intel makes a model with the highest possible clockspeed and charges them for the nose through it. It is slower than the slowest quad on any reasonable benchmark, but it still sells.
Pick the quadcore, it's a much better computer.