Finally got around to seeing how much of my 8 cores get used and by how much. For an Alpha I was surprised that it was using all 8 cores, though cores 2 and 8 seem to be the lowest utilized so far, typically hovering around the 5-25% rate, while cores 4, 5, and 7 seem to get the most usage, being typically in the 70 percentile range throughout. Overall CPU usage tends to stay between 45-49%. The temps do get quite high though but nothing that I haven't seen before or that this CPU can't handle- 70s and 80s Celsius.
Edited to add system info:
P8Z68 Deluxe, i7 2700k @4.7GHz, EVGA GTX570HD 314.22s, 16gb DDR3 2130, 1000W PS, Onboard sound, 32" Bravia XBR, Win7Pro64