It's called hyper-threading. Means the CPU core runs two threads per core. This is a way to make sure it is use a little better, although in cases it can hurt performance as much as it is supposed to boost it.
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+1
it doesn't hurt performance, I've lost my share of time on it, it does sometimes help with multitasking
and yeah THE ANSWER IS HYPERTHREADING
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Hyperthreading can cause some issues- I had an old laptop with heat issues and the CPU kept hitting it's thermal cap, triggering hard resets. You can disable it in Windows (forget how exactly, it was a W7 rig and I haven't used it in years) or underclock to prevent the heat issue, but you'll lose performance. Technically, the hyperthread cores are slightly weaker than the "regular" cores, but usually the "regular" cores do most of the heavy lifting with lighter processes being shifted onto the higher number hyperthreaded cores.
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overheating is a separate issue, so you can't really link the 2 even though disabling it may help a tiny bit
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Well, sorta. Thermal output is directly related to power input, and hyperthreading drastically increases the power draw of the CPU. Having issues with overheating, however, is a physical issue, which is merely exacerbated by hyperthreading.
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its probably 4 cores. most I3/5/7's are 4 cores or higher. the only good dual core CPU from intel is the G3258, but thats for another thread. You have 4 cores.
Edit: Forgot hyperthreading. Talgaby explains it well.
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Okay i watched a vid about hyper threading, he says that if you have hypertreahtding wwfhuugwaifh you can have 2 arms to put food in ur mouth and ur mouth is the proccesor?... so far as i understand i have 2 cores, but those 2 cores have 2 arms to put their food in the proccesor? XDDD
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A core is given a task and when it completes that task there is a small amount of down time where it does nothing while it waits for it's next task. With hyper-threading, a second thread will provide the core with a new task right when it finishes the first so there is no down time. So, 1 core with hyper-threading cannot do the work of 2, but the down time is removed and each core works faster than it would have without hyper-threading.
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So its a bit better then the proccesors without hyper threading? but why is my laptop showing 4x i5 which i found strange
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Because you have 4 cores. 2 of them are physical cores and 2 of them are logical cores. If you had an I7 processor that is a quad core with hyper-threading, Windows would say that you have 8 cores.
Edit: I used the wrong word, it's actually 2 physical and 2 virtual cores for a total of 4 logical cores/processors/threads or whatever they're called.
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I read somewhere that my laptop had 4 logical cores? hmmm
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ah 2 plus 2 cuz i have a dual core, i think i understand
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That is correct. I used the wrong word and Vlvgmr corrected me below. It's 2 physical cores and 2 "virtual" cores for a total of 4 logical cores.
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No, a laptop will probably only have 2 cores, even an i7. Only some gaming laptops may have 4 physical cores or more.
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You have 2 physical cores with hyper-threading which Windows will show as 4 cores. Look up what hyper-threading is. It is faster than just 2 cores, but not as fast as 4 cores.
Edit: Here's a easy to understand video that explains hyper-threading. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnS50lJicXc
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Two simulating four, I believe. Mine is an i5 too.
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Of course if you buy an iMac then you get Apple cores...
quietly disappears
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http://ark.intel.com/products/85212/Intel-Core-i5-5200U-Processor-3M-Cache-up-to-2_70-GHz
TL;DR: It has 2 core but multithreaded. (also most mobile i5 are 2 core.)
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So it means i have a dual core? which looks like a quad core or wut? hmmmm
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yep, its a dual core cpu
learn more about hyperthreading here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper-threading
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most laptops have 2 cores I3, I5 or I7, don't know why maybe cant handle the heat?
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Both heat and battery life. You can get quad core and quad with hyper-threading in laptops, but they are usually thicker with better cooling, larger batteries, and they are also clocked lower than desktop processors. If they make them small with a fast cpu, they just thermal throttle and kill the battery quick if you don't have it in a power saving mode.
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My mom has an Intel Atom, single core with hyperthreading. I gotta say, 1.8 GHz performing worse than my old LG's 600 MHz armv6.
But on a new CPU with modern apps running, hyperthreading does fine. You probably gain the responsiveness of 4 cores (mainly no input lag), but don't count on it to go over 50%... Windows should handle stats better...
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You have 2 cores. But the cores are "schizophrenic". So they can pretty much each handle 2 things at a time which makes your PC think it is 4 cores.
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So, uh, it's complicated. Intel does this thing with hyperthreading, where... well, it's complicated. Essentially, each physical core functions as two virtual cores (it's much more complicated) so it appears as virtual four cores (two physical cores). If you check here you'll see the specifications, but it has four for the system's purposes.
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Im pretty sure I saw ''Dual core'' on the site i bought my laptop from, but when I open device manager and tap on processors, I see 4x Intel I5 5200u 2.2 Ghz? Does that mean i have 4 cores? And when I open task manager I see theres standing '4 Logic processors, and when i open dxdiag.. I see :Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-5200CPU @ 2.2 GHz (4 CPU's).....
It looks like 4 cores to me, but im not really a computer technicus, maybe they are thread orsomething but idk?
Is this proccesor a dual core or a quad core?
I saw on the internet that this name has 2 cures but why do I see everywhere 4? but whatever please respond if you know :)
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