Is the i3 4130(4th gen) effectively a 4-core processor?

[Rafael Mestdag]

I ask this because loads of programas treat it as if it was, showing 4 individual cores(threads?). And also I can play any game out there that's come out lately such as Crysis 3, Metro Last Light and Splinter Cell Black List(on medium settings of course). The bottleneck I have is an old Gt430 1Gb DDR3. So, Is my i3 effectively a 4-core processor?

Thx in advance!

 

[Paul NZ]

No http://ark.intel.com/products/77480/Intel-Core-i3-4130-Processor-3M-Cache-3_40-GHz

Probably because it uses hyperthreading which makes things think its 4 core. It isnt. Its 2 core

 

[TheIcedCanadian]

This is because it is hyper threaded - meaning it has 2 physical cores, but 4 virtual core, making programs/ the computer treat it as a 4 core processor.

 

[IInuyasha74]

Like the others mentioned, this is because a technology known as Hyper Threading, Intel's version of Simultaneous Multi Threading. Pretty much the idea behind it is that the CPU has several different parts that do specialized tasks. One program going through it will need some of those parts but rarely will it need all of them. In a CPU without Hyper Threading, these extra parts just do nothing during this time because only one program is worked on at a time. Hyper Threading basically tells the computer to send two programs through at the same time so that if the programs use different parts of the CPU, more of the CPU is used at the same time and so performance overall is increased.

There is a bit more to it than that, but thats it in basic. The reason why it shows up as having two extra cores is because if it doesn't, then not enough information is sent through and part of the CPU would still be sitting idle.