🤑 How Does Windows Use Multiple CPU Cores? - ExtremeTech

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Hyper-threading is no substitute for additional cores, but a dual-core CPU with hyper-threading should perform better than a dual-core CPU without hyper-threading. Here, for example, you can see that this system has one actual CPU socket and four cores. The central processing unit CPU in your computer does the computational work—running programs, basically. Intel CPUs also feature hyper-threading, which is kind of a bonus. Smarthome Office Security Linux. The more CPUs or cores a computer has, the more things it can do at once, helping improve performance on most tasks. How-To Geek is where you turn when you want experts to explain technology.

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The clock speed for a CPU used to read article enough when comparing performance.

Before hyper-threading and multi-core CPUs came hyper-threading requires multiple processors, people attempted hyper-threading requires multiple processors add additional processing power to computers by adding additional CPUs. That meant the physical CPU had a single central processing unit on it.

Hyper-threading attempted to make up for that. This can speed things up somewhat—if one virtual CPU is stalled and hyper-threading requires multiple processors, the other virtual CPU can borrow its execution resources.

This helps dramatically improve performance while keeping the physical CPU unit small so it fits in a single socket. Most computers only have a single CPU. A CPU with two cores, for example, could run two different processes at the same time.

But modern CPUs offer features like multiple cores and hyper-threading. Windows Mac hyper-threading requires multiple processors Android. Joinsubscribers and get a daily digest of news, comics, trivia, reviews, and more.

Since we launched inour articles have been read more than 1 billion times. Skip to content. Your dual-core Hyper-threading requires multiple processors with hyper-threading appears as four cores to your operating system, while your quad-core CPU with hyper-threading appears as eight cores.

Hyperthreading makes each core look like two CPUs to the operating system, so it shows 8 logical processors. The Best Tech Newsletter Anywhere. Even a high-powered gaming desktop with multiple graphics cards will generally only have a single CPU.

This speeds up your system, because your computer can do multiple things at once. While the operating system sees two CPUs for each core, the actual CPU hardware only has a single set of execution resources for each core.

The CPU pretends it has more cores than it does, and it uses its own logic to speed up program execution. Unlike hyper-threading, there are no tricks here — a dual-core CPU literally has two central processing units on the CPU chip.

Hyper-threading allows the two logical CPU cores to share physical execution resources. Want to know more?

Originally, CPUs had a single core. All of these features are designed to allow PCs to more easily run multiple processes at the same time—increasing your performance when multitasking or under the demands of powerful apps like video encoders and modern games. The Best Tech Newsletter Anywhere Join , subscribers and get a daily digest of news, geek trivia, and our feature articles.