I7 processors how many cores

Processors, regardless of whether they're a Core i3, i5 and i7, based on the same architecture are fundamentally the same inside. The differences in performance come from which features are enabled or disabled, the clock speed and how many cores each one has.

The feature table above shows you how the most popular processors line-up in terms of features. Note that there are exceptions see below , but you're mostly unlikely to encounter these odd models when buying a new CPU. Also, mobile processors are completely different again, so we're focussing on desktop models here only. What's important is what these different features mean, which we'll explain.

A core can be thought of as in individual processor. A dual-core processor, therefore has two internal processors, a quad-core model has four. More cores are useful for multi-tasking; for example, you can run two applications at the same time, each one having access to its own dedicated processor.

More cores are also useful for multi-threaded applications, such as video editing. With these types of applications they can use multiple cores to improve performance. Single-threaded applications can only use a single core leaving any others idle. Some Core i7 Extreme processors have six or eight cores. Generally speaking, we find that most applications can't take full advantage of six or eight cores, so the performance boost from extra cores isn't as great.

Hyper-Threading is Intel's technology for creating two logical cores in each physical core. In other words, to your operating system it appears as though your CPU has double the number of cores than it really does. In terms of performance, Hyper-Threading speeds up multi-tasking and multi-threaded applications. It's not as fast or as efficient as extra 'real' cores, but it's an improvement over a single Core. Core i3 and i7 processors have this technology, Core i5 processors do not.

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