How to see how many cores a processor has – 7 ways

It is often necessary to find out how many cores are in the processor installed on the user’s computer. This information is useful when upgrading a PC, or to get information about the potential performance of the CPU.

The central processing unit (CPU) is the most important part of a computer that processes machine data: instructions and program code that controls peripheral devices. The operation of the entire computer depends on the capabilities of the CPU (Central Processing Unit).

The main characteristics of the processor are:

• Speed ​​(Computing power) – the average number of operations performed per second.
• Clock frequency is the number of cycles per second, measured in GHz (GHz).
• Bit depth – determining the number of bits of information processed simultaneously.

To improve the performance of the central processor, the developers constantly increased the maximum clock frequency. Over time, the growth of this indicator slowed down, including due to the design features of the CPU.

A movement has begun in the direction of increasing the number of cores working in parallel in several threads. A larger number of cores in the processor allows you to work in multi-threaded mode, increase the overall processing power.

Given this information, there are questions about how many cores are in an Intel processor, how many cores are in AMD processors. The American companies Intel and AMD are the largest manufacturers of central processing units used for industrial purposes and on computers of ordinary users.

Diagnostic and information tools often show the number of logical processors (threads) in addition to the number of cores, which confuses ordinary users. On some modern processors, two threads are added per physical core.

There are several ways to get information about the number of CPU cores. In this article, you will find instructions on how to find out how many cores are in a processor using the Windows operating system tools, or using third-party software.

How to see how many cores are on a computer in the Task Manager

System Tool – Task Manager displays various information about computer settings, including some information about the CPU.

On Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8 operating systems, follow these steps:

1. Right-click on the Taskbar, select “Task Manager” from the context menu.
2. In the “Task Manager” window, open the “Performance” tab, click on the “CPU” section.
3. The window will display various information about the CPU, including the number of cores.

On the Windows 7 operating system, do the following:

1. In the Task Manager window, open the Performance tab.
2. In the CPU History area, the number of processor cores is determined by the number of graphs displayed: two graphs – two cores, four graphs – four cores, and so on.

How to see how many cores a processor has in the System Information app

The Windows operating system has a built-in msinfo32 utility that displays information about the system. The system tool is launched from the Run dialog box using the msinfo32 command, or from the Start menu.

After entering the Start menu, in Windows 10, open the Windows Administrative Tools folder to launch the System Information tool. In Windows 7, to run the msinfo32 utility, first go to the “Accessories” folder, and then to “System Tools”.

In the “System Information” window, opposite the “Processor” element, data on the number of CPU cores will be displayed.

How to find the number of CPU cores on the command line

Using the system tool – the Windows command line, you can find out data on the number of processor cores installed on the computer.

Do the following:

1. Run command prompt as administrator.
2. In the command line interpreter window, enter the presented command, and then press the “Enter” key:

WMIC CPU Get DeviceID,NumberOfCores,NumberOfLogicalProcessors

3. In the Administrator: Command Prompt window, the NumberOfCores column shows the number of cores, and the NumberOfLogicalProcessors column shows the number of threads (logical processors).

How to find out the number of processor cores on the manufacturer’s website

Visiting the official website of the manufacturer of the product is an easy way to find out the number of processor cores. Type the name of the processor model in the search, find the manufacturer’s website among the results, and look at the characteristics of the central processor on the official website page.

How to check how many cores a processor has on a computer in CPU-Z

The free CPU-Z program is designed to get complete information about the central processor unit, and about some other hardware components of the computer. The program has a portable (portable) version, the application works in English.

Do the following:

1. Run the CPU-Z program on your computer.
2. Immediately after launch, the application collects information about PC components.
3. In the “CPU-Z” window, in the “CPU” tab, in the “Cores” parameter, the number of CPU cores is shown. The “Threads” parameter displays the number of CPU threads.

How to determine how many cores in the processor using Speccy

Speccy is a free program for obtaining extensive information about computer hardware. The program supports Russian interface language.

Do the following:

1. Open the Speccy program on the PC.
2. In the main Speccy window, open the “Central Processing Unit” section.
3. The program window will display various characteristics of the CPU, including the number of cores.

How to find out how many cores a processor has in AIDA64

AIDA64 is the most powerful tool for obtaining information about computer hardware. The program works in Russian.

Go through the steps:

1. Launch the AIDA program
2. In the main window of the application, in the “Menu” tab, open the “Motherboard” section, and then “CPU”.
3. Scroll the slider down to the CPU Usage option. This displays the Core 1, Core 2, and so on. Focus on the highest value, which will show the number of cores. Kernels of the same name are not summed.

Article Conclusions

Many users, for one reason or another, require information about the number of CPU cores. The performance of the computer depends on the characteristics of the CPU. You can get information about the processor cores of your computer using the built-in tools of the Windows operating system, or using third-party software: specialized programs.