Why does it look like my Dell 8400 has two processors?

[AaronTheYoung]

When I take a look at performance in the Task Manager, I get a CPU graphs with two graphs of CPU usage. I thought my P4 was just a single processor? Why is does it show two?

 

[delluser1]

It's called Hyperthreading, Google it.

 

[AaronTheYoung]

I understand that it is hyperthreaded, why does it appear as two processors in the Windows Performance Monitor?

 

[hunter315]

because to an OS there is no difference between two logical cores on a single CPU, and two physical cores on two separate CPUs, it treats them identically and will therefore show each logical core as if it were its own CPU.