However, nowadays, all of us see computers that handle multi-tasking effortlessly and still is providing stellar performances. So, how did that come to pass? Let us take a detailed look at that.
One of the biggest reasons for this performance-rich multi-tasking ability is multiple cores. Now, during the earlier years of the computer, CPUs tend to have a single core. What that essentially means is the physical CPU contained only one central processing unit inside it. To give you an example, when you see a dual-core CPU then you are looking at a CPU that has a couple of central processing units.
A dual-core CPU is perfectly able to run two simultaneous processes at any given time. This, in turn, makes your system faster. The reason behind this is that your CPU can now do multiple things simultaneously. There are no other tricks involved here — a dual-core CPU has two central processing units, whereas quad-cores ones have four central processing units on the CPU chip, an octa-core one has eight, and so on. These additional cores enable your system to offer enhanced and faster performance.
However, the size of the physical CPU is still kept small for it to fit in a small socket. You do not need multiple CPU sockets along with several different CPUs, with each of them requiring their own power, hardware, cooling, and much other stuff.
In addition to that, as the cores are on the same chip, they can communicate with each other in a quicker way. As a result, you will experience less latency. Now, let us look at the other factor behind this faster and better performance along with the multitasking abilities of the computers — Hyper-threading. The giant in the business of computers, Intel, used hyper-threading for the first time.
What they wanted to achieve with it was bringing parallel computation to consumer PCs. Back at that time, the Pentium 4T contained a single CPU core, thereby being able to perform a single task at any given time. However, the users were able to switch between the tasks fast enough for it to look like multitasking. The hyper-threading was provided as an answer to that question.
The Intel Hyper-threading technology — as the company named it — plays a trick that makes your operating system believe there are several different CPUs attached to it. However, in reality, there is only one. This, in turn, makes your system faster along with providing better performance all along.
To make it even clearer to you, here is another example. In case you have a single-core CPU along with Hyper-threading, the operating system of your computer is going to find two logical CPUs in place. Just like that, in case you have a dual-core CPU, the operating system will be tricked into believing there are four logical CPUs. Let's clarify first what is a CPU and what is a core, a central processing unit CPU, can have multiple core units, those cores are a processor by itself , capable of execute a program but it is self contained on the same chip.
What is the difference between MultiCore and MultiProcessor? A CPU central processing unit contains 1-many cores. Each core can execute 1-many threads depending on hyper-threading technology - it does the actual computation sort to speak. So what is a processor? Does it refer to the CPU, the entire chip as a whole? Does it refer to one core on a CPU? Are they synonymous? Yes, A processor is a generic term used to describe any sort of CPU, regardless of cores.
Same goes for CPU, it does not imply single or multi-core and can be used to refer to either. The term has been used in the computer industry at least since the early s. Processing performance of computers is increased by using multi-core processors, which essentially is plugging two or more individual processors called cores in this sense into one integrated circuit. Ideally, a dual core processor would be nearly twice as powerful as a single core processor.
Increasing the number of cores in a processor i. This means that the processor can now handle numerous asynchronous events, interrupts, etc. These cores can be thought of as different floors in a processing plant, with each floor handling a different task. Sometimes, these cores will handle the same tasks as cores adjacent to them if a single core is not enough to handle the information.
Due to specific capabilities of modern CPUs, such as hyper-threading and uncore, which involve sharing of actual CPU resources while aiming at increased utilization, monitoring performance levels and hardware utilization gradually became a more complex task.
Multi-processor systems are different however. This refers to a computer with a motherboard that supports more than 1 processor usually 2 to 8 CPUs, but some super computers use special hardware that allows for many more to be used on a single motherboard.
Here is a catch, multi-processor computers can and usually do use multi-core CPUs. This particular CPU offers a technology known as hyper threading. Hyper threading is a technology that virtually splits the 4 quad cores into halves, which effectively gives you a total of 8 cores per CPU. Since we have 8 cores per CPU with hyper-threading, and the system is multi-processor - the end result is a system with 16 cores. Each core can process a thread independently of the other cores, which means you have a lot more power to process information than you would with a single CPU.
So now we understood what are cores ie they are mini processors which combine to become a processor. And each core can handle a single process at a time or multi threads as designed for the OS. And they folloq the same steps as I mentioned above about the single processor. A i7 6gen processor has 8 cores And this is how multi tasking can be done. I have read all answers, but this link was more clear explanation for me about difference between CPU Processor and Core.
So I'm leaving here some notes from there. Processor : One semiconductor chip, the CPU central processing unit seated in one socket, circa ss.
Over time, more functions have been packed onto the CPU chip. Prior to the s releases of single-chip processors, one processor might have spread across multiple chips. In the mid s the system-on-a-chip chips made it slightly more sketchy to equate one processor to one chip, though that's generally what people mean by processor, as in "this computer has an i7 processor" or "this computer system has four processors.
Core : One block of a CPU, executing one instruction at a time. You'll see people say one instruction per clock cycle, but some CPUs use multiple clock cycles for some instructions. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Collectives on Stack Overflow.
Learn more. Difference between core and processor Ask Question. Asked 8 years, 1 month ago. Active 2 months ago. Viewed k times. What is the difference between a core and a processor? Improve this question. Matthias Braun Saad Achemlal Saad Achemlal 2, 5 5 gold badges 14 14 silver badges 17 17 bronze badges. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. Peter Mortensen 29k 21 21 gold badges 97 97 silver badges bronze badges. Leeor Leeor Nrj, if you run one single-threaded application, it will be allocated to a single core, and activate only a single HW thread on it.
If you activate another application it will usually be allocated to another core, and so on until you saturate the number of cores. Beyond that any additional thread will be scheduled to the same cores again using SMT. Leeor apparently this was my expectation but its not what i found. Leeor I think I did the test incorrectly. Thats why all of them get busy. Note that this terminology varies, depending on who you ask. So, at least in this case, each of the 8 "cores" has two "processors", which is at odds with some other answers here.
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