Number of processor cores confusion

[Paul Smith]

On Mon, 2020-11-09 at 18:28 +0100, Volker Wysk wrote:
> desktop ~ $ inxi --cpu
> CPU:
>   Topology: 8-Core model: AMD Ryzen 7 2700X bits: 64 type: MT MCP

There's an unfortunate terminology issue.

When hardware folks talk about "cores" they mean physical cores in the
CPU.  But, each of these cores supports "hyper threading" [1] which
means that the Linux kernel treats each one as if it were two "cores"
from a scheduling etc. standpoint.

So when you look at the number of "cores" from within Linux it will
look like you have 2x your hardware cores.

I can't explain why you would see 12 cores from /proc/cpuinfo.



[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper-threading