RAW converter's computational power requirements: 4core or 8core?

with sony a57, there is a bit of difference.

unfortuanatelly the high iso jpgs are smeared to the level of a pentax wgI camera (thats another hurtful story)

as for linux, lightroom runs great on virtual pcs running win 8, macOS, and any other failed overprotected by dozens of laws OS out there.

windows 8 is not that bad, but still.. making it the host OS in my machine? a bit too much..