WHY DO APPLE APPS NOT TAKE ADVANTAGE OF AN 8-CORE'S SPEED?

Question

I bought a new 8-core, 3Ghz Mac with 16GB of RAM because I always by the "best" when upgrading, so what I buy lasts as long as possible.
The unfortunate thing I discovered, is the FCP and Motion neither take full advantage of the processor speed.
Apple tells me there is a limit to the processor speed they will function - as well as the amount of memory.
This seems strange since Apple makes the "box".
I'd be content with all program dynamically sharing the "real estate" but right now the only advantage it being able to work in two apps at the same time. Since that doesn't happen that often, I'd trade that advantage for faster processing per app.
If anyone knows how to remove the “speed-limiter” for apps on a multi-proc Mac, please let me know.
Dan

Answer 1

I appreciate the desire to purchase something that will last and has quality. Still, "best" is a very slippery concept and is often confused with "more stuff" and/or "more expensive stuff".
I'm reminded of the potential folly of the "I always get the best" attitude when I go out to dinner and the person deciding on the wine simply picks the most expensive thing they can find on the wine list. They did not consider the nature of the food (spicy or subtle, acidic or basic, etc) and how the wine will react. They just equated cost with quality. And while the most expensive bottle on the list may well be an extraordinary vintage, it also may be equally lost on the palates of the diners if it does not suit the food that evening.
Since "best" is term of relativity, that is, it references a comparison between things, the real question might be "best for what"? Best compared to what other things under what circumstances?
Did you define the tasks you wanted this machine to accomplish and investigate other options to accomplish these tasks? If not, how can you have decided this is the 'best' machine?
In the for what it's worth category, FCP has been and will likely remain for the near future a 32bit program. It is in the nature of 32bit computing to be limited to 4GB of addressable RAM. Apple does not decide this. This is just the way it is.
Eight processor machines used to be the realm of supercomputers. The OSs of those rarified beasts spent enormous time and computing resources simply keeping track of what its processors were doing - keeping them fed and cleaning up the messes when things get out of sequence. Oh, and the programs were written and compiled for that particular machine as well. OSX is not such an OS and FCP is not such a program. They are designed to run on a range of machines, from single processor PPC G4 Powerbooks all the way up to your mighty intel octobeast. Eventually we'll have 64bit OSs and applications - but backward compatibility and consumer based (aka cheap and as broad a market share as possible) economics limit this movement.
Enjoy your machine, it is very capable. You need to understand how those capabilities can be made manifest. Get an ATI X1900 card and learn how to use as many programs at the same time as possible. If you use Compressor, learn how to set up virtual clusters. You are correct, it is a machine that you should be able to use for a long (in "computer years') time.
Good luck.
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