The short answer is yes.
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3448&p=17
"The Core i7's
general purpose performance is solid, you're looking at a
5 - 10% increase in general application performance at the same clock speeds as Penryn. Where Nehalem really succeeds however is in anything involving
video encoding or 3D rendering, the performance
gains there are easily in the
20 - 40% range."
Keep in mind that these improvements are over the latest and greatest chipsets available now. If you've got an older Core 2 Duo or Pentium 4 or Athlon system, the boost will be staggering.
