> It is outperforming my 1.75ghz Mac Mini by a good margin for whatever reason.

I think the reason is the L3 cache as you already suspected in other threads:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=9084&forum=38&start=7
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=9265&forum=3&start=9

> temperatures drop drastically with a single core cpu

This is solely about single-core CPUs anyway, even when using a dual-CPU module ;-)