No, I'm not counting the hyperthreads as *physical* cores, but I do know that hyperthreading can add up to 20% (total) additional performance, so to *not* take advantage of those 4 additional threads isn't ideal. Using 7 threads instead of 8 leaves the operating system and other applications with a small but useful amount of spare CPU power.
bla blah: For a 10 core i7 CPU, you have 20 total threads available (10 physical, 10 hyperthreads), so you could set it to 19 or 18 threads.
- Oshyan