Dumb Q? Quad core MP shows 8 cores in Activity Monitor

[nickscale]

Just got a Mac Pro with a single 2.93 GHz Quad-Core Xeon (Nehalem) and it's all working fine, but I'm wondering why this 4-core machine shows 8 cores in Activity Monitor - 8 columns in both the floating CPU windows.

I'm sure the answer's obvious, but it's late in the evening and I did search around the forum threads a little bit before posting...

Thanks dudes...

 

[leekohler]

That's strange. Do you have a screen shot?

 

[2002cbr600f4i]

Just got a Mac Pro with a single 2.93 GHz Quad-Core Xeon (Nehalem) and it's all working fine, but I'm wondering why this 4-core machine shows 8 cores in Activity Monitor - 8 columns in both the floating CPU windows.

I'm sure the answer's obvious, but it's late in the evening and I did search around the forum threads a little bit before posting...

Thanks dudes...

You're seeing the 2nd "virtual core" for each real core caused by the Hyperthreading stuff...

You have 4 REAL cores, each capable of 2 threads (or 1 real, 1 virtual "core")

 

[Cynicalone]

4 real cores = 8 virtual cores

 

[nickscale]

You're seeing the 2nd "virtual core" for each real core caused by the Hyperthreading stuff...

You have 4 REAL cores, each capable of 2 threads (or 1 real, 1 virtual "core")

Ah that'll be it... Cheers for ultra quick responses guys!

 

[Genghis Khan]

lol...that's how Apple is able to charge you more then a 2.8GHz Octo for a 2.93GHz Quad