Does Poser 11 make use of processors with multiple cores? If I bought a 3.5 GHz 8 core processor, or if I bought a 3.3 GHz 12 core processor, with which would Poser run faster? The second instance has 4 more cores, but the first instance is faster.

Yes. My machines each have two HyperThreaded hex core Xeon processors (server/workstation motherboards often have two CPU sockets), so 24 render threads. Open Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) and go to the performance tab while rendering; it should show a graph for each core, and they should all be at/near 100% capacity.

Multiply the number of cores by the clock speed to get a value of rendering power. 3.3 * 12 > 3.5 * 8, so the 3.3GHz 12-core would render faster. If one/both processors are HyperThreaded, take that into account, since it effectively doubles the number of cores, albeit the virtual cores may only be about 3/4 the speed of the primary physical cores.

Task Manager? I don't find that on my computer. Do you mean Activity Manager, which is what it's called on the Macintosh?

The render engines in Poser are tile based renders. More cores = more tiles are rendered at a time.

That matters if a core gets hung up rendering something like hair.

OK, so more cores will be better, even if the processor speed is a little lower. In the example I gave above, the 3.3 GHz 12 core processor would be better than the 3.5 GHz 8 core processor. Is this correct? Please tell me if I'm misunderstanding this.

Correct; 12 cores @ 3.3GHz gives you a coreXclockspeed of 39.6, while 8 cores @ 3.5 GHz yields 28.0

But you also need to account for whether either/both processors are HyperThreaded, which doubles the number of rendering cores.

Thanks very much for the info.