The mbp has a very specific thermal envelope. As computing power increases, so does the mechanism by which heat is removed/prevented.
If the quadcores have additional powersaving features which do NOT impact performance, then it might happen, but I doubt those power saving features would not have an impact on performance. For instance, I doubt you could run all four cores at 100% because even one millisecond of that would cause serious thermal issues.
In that case, the c2d would be faster than a quadcore.
how feasible is this....?
wonder if the core2 duo chip can be ditched for a quad core one.
um my core 2 duo runs hot as hell i wouldnt want 4 cores
More cores is not necessarily equated to more heat.
With shrinking die sizes you can use the same amount of energy to run four cores as to run two.
The Penryn chips, of course, are not being aimed at being power savers and are also upping the frequencies (I believe the ones lately being tested are running at 3.33ghz, quite a bit higher than the 2.33ghz we're using).