On Friday, 10 April 2020 16:17:08 BST Ralph Corderoy wrote:
> I don't see a mention of ‘thread’ in either of those screenshots. :-)
True, but the CPU has four cores each supporting two 'threads' according to
the datasheet. (This is written as 'four cores and 8 threads.) It doesn't
help that the System Monitor shows 8 CPUs. ;-(
However, your explanation does clear up a few things for me about what a
thread is in hardware terms. Although I never knew the detail that you've
provided I could understand the concept of a software thread; my problem has
always been how that related to a hardware thread.
> If a core duplicates everything needed to run code then two cores allow
> the programs multiplexed onto them to run entirely independently;
> neither interferes with the other. But that's more expensive than a
> cheaper short cut that Intel named HyperThreading. A puffed-up name for
> a cut-down feature. They realised that two duplicate cores often have
> different parts of their circuitry active at the same time, e.g. one
> might be loading a byte from RAM whilst the other is working out
> ‘a=b*c+d’. Thus some of the bits of circuitry can be shared between the
> two cores as long as they're ‘gated’ at the entrance and exit so only
> one of the cores is using the shared part at the same time; like a
> single-line stretch of railway.
So why am I not surprised that it's all the fault of the Marketeers?
--
Terry Coles
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