I know its supposed to be able to do multiple tasks at once, but what are these task? For example, is it like playing video games while listening music or something. Im sure its probably a lot more advanced than that, so please give examples.
In: Technology
It’s obviously more complex than this, but yes, it’s your device multitasking.
Computers run a *lot* of tasks at the same time. Even if you have no programs open, there’s a ton of stuff going on in the background.
Your processor has to schedule time for all of this stuff to happen, and it’s actually extremely good at it. The faster the clock speed (how many things it can do in a second), the faster it can get stuff done. There is a limit to this, though, both how fast a processor can go and how much it can handle.
But never fear! We invented dual-core processors! The processor got its twin a job, and can take some of the workload off its hands. They schedule what’s best for them to do by themselves, then do it. Suddenly the workflow is more efficient and gets done faster, freeing them up to do more tasks.
But what if the workload is still too much? Never fear, for they’re quadruplets! Or octuplets, or… sexdecuplets… because we now have 16-core processors (and more!). Imagine how much can get done with that many processing cores!
Some programs can ask for multiple processing cores to help out with a task, since the workload is so extreme. Games take advantage of this, like having one core deal with artificial intelligence and another with the physics engine.
And sometimes, these -uplets have an assistant who can help out each processing core and do some of the work for them. This is called hyperthreading, which is why you’ll sometimes see processors advertised as “4 cores, 8 threads”.
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