Trying to decide between i7 and quad core - was told that i7 will overheat?

Question

Hi,
Did some searching in old threads on this here and online - seemed inconclusive so thought I'd ask again since the Core i7s have been out a while now.
I've been trying to decide between buying a quad core and one of the recent MPB 15" i7s (specifically the 2.66 with the hi res non glare screen). I use FCP, DVDSP, Photoshop etc - usually for several hours a day.
Although the quad core seems the logical choice, I'm on a budget would like some wiggle room to get some other gear - if I get the MPB, I'd be able to sell my 13" 2.53 Core 2 Duo and get that gear. On the other hand, I'm trying to think long term in terms of the viability of the machine I buy.
Just got off the phone with MacMall who told me that because the quad core uses physical cores and the MPB Core i7 uses virtual cores there is a substantial overheating issue with the MPB if you're doing sustained work - say working in Photoshop all day, as I often do. He said that the MBP Core i7s weren't designed to do that so the overheating could cause logic board and other issues over time.
Has anyone experienced this?? Or if you have other thoughts on my dilemma, would love to hear them.
Thanks!
cb

Answer 1

I will be a bit more blunt than the other person. Whomever you talked to at MacMall was full of it.
Either you transcribed the details of the conversation wrong, or they have no clue what they're talking about.
Even if you're doing a lot of work in Photoshop all day, the odds of you doing anything that requires a lot of sustained heavy action by the CPU is going to be low. There might be 5 minutes worth of something here or there, but most of the time it's probably going to be pretty limited CPU wise.
There's a reason Apple doesn't put the Core i5 or i7 into the 13" MBPs, and that's because there's just not enough room in the case for the second fan the 15 and 17" models have.
But long story short, Apple isn't like HP or Acer, who will stuff desktop CPUs into laptops because there's some idiot out there who will buy it. And it would be pretty stupid to put a high end CPU like the Core i7 into a laptop, and then expect people NOT to use it.
MBPs aren't really designed for hours worth of sustained work like you'd get from gaming, but I don't think you'd run into any problems with Photoshop.