Dual core and FreeBSD

[ViperChief]

I'm waiting for a Lenovo T61 Laptop with a Core 2 Duo T9300 and 2GB RAM to show up and had a couple questions.

1) As of right now, planning on installing 7 i386, but was considering CURRENT. I wanted to see ask opinions on this. I haven't used FreeBSD before (tried in VirtualBox but couldn't get the networking to work, even with trying everything I read online). I have, however, used Linux for about 9 years, so I'm not completely new to using a UNIX-like system, and I know the risks of using a non-release version, but I like having a little more bleeding-edge. Currently, I use Debian testing. I realize that FreeBSD != Linux, which is why I'm asking for input.

I'm going with i386 because I've used both 64-bit and 32-bit and haven't really seen much difference except that the 64-bit can be a PITA sometimes when trying to use 32 bit programs. But, again FreeBSD != Linux, so can I get input on that, as well?

2) How does FreeBSD do on dual-cores? Will it effectively use both cores?

I greatly appreciate any input and I'm really looking forward to finally using FreeBSD.