Hi Folks
a question re Intel i3 2120 CPU @3.3GHz as follows.
I know this processor to be a 2 core item. When I go to device manager, click on processor four entries appear.
I always thought the number applied to the number of cores in the processor - obviously - I have got this wrong.
Can someone clear up the mystery, and tell me what the four entries indicate (would it be threads?)
Thanks in advance
C
The 2120 supports "hyperthreading". (Intel proprietary term.) The number of CPUs that appear in Windows is double the number of physical cores.
Introduced in the early 2000s. Supported by Windows XP. I see that the 2012 dates from 2011.
At a former employer, hyperthreading was disabled by default in desktop PC BIOSes for maximum compatibility with software. That continued for years. The IT department apparently was biased more toward the simplest possible support rather than providing computing power to engineers. (Even though they leased expensive "workstation" machines.)
The latest addition to my 'collection' was a s/h Dell Latitude E7440, i7/8GB. It came with a corporate system image still on it - 32-bit Win7 (so could only use the first few GB). What a waste of a good machine. It also came with the OEM Win8.1 key in its bios so it now runs a fully activated 64-bit Windows 10
Like Skofab's i3, my i7 has two physical cores but shows as four logical processors.
Many thanks to you both
mystery is now solved, and another fact now implanted in the knowledge bank
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