OK, had to post again. Tonight is the first good play I've had with the MBP and I am very impressed.
I am able to render a 5 second 720x576 3D animation with 1000+ objects, fog, volume light, and motion blur in 3D Studio Max in about 10-15 mintes! that is friggin amazing and takes my PC over an hour (PC is 512 RAM, 1.8Ghz AMD).
Best part is, I can be rendering a scene like the one above while surfing the Web and playing a DVD and I swear the system doesn't drag at all. It's as though nothing was rendering at all.