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How many CPU cores does macOS support?

LAHegarty

LAHegarty

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 17, 2013
134
41
York, UK.
I'm thinking of doing a Hackintosh in the near future and was wondering if anyone knew?

I'm going to go for a dual CPU board for the build with E5-2600 v3/v4 series (LGA2011) CPU's they go up to 22 cores/44 threads pre-CPU, so a dual board with 2 CPU's would have a max* of 44 cores/88 threads.

So, does anyone know how many cores/threads macOS supports?
 
There’s plenty of threads over on tonymacx86 that are doing pretty much just that.
 
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LAHegarty said:
I prefer it here if you have any links you are welcome to share.
Click to expand...

This is the 'Mac Pro' forum. You're likely to get much better responses over at tonymac, a site that specializes in building hacks...
 
Please excuse the rude people on this site for not sharing the links "here". Here are the Hack Links! :D
Links.png
 
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LAHegarty said:
I'm thinking of doing a Hackintosh in the near future and was wondering if anyone knew?

I'm going to go for a dual CPU board for the build with E5-2600 v3/v4 series (LGA2011) CPU's they go up to 22 cores/44 threads pre-CPU, so a dual board with 2 CPU's would have a max* of 44 cores/88 threads.

So, does anyone know how many cores/threads macOS supports?
Click to expand...
64 threads max.
 
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^^^^No, the real issue is why pose a question to a group of folks who are unfamiliar with with the subject matter. That would be like going into a BMW dealer and asking questions about a Silvedrado 3500 dually.

I think everyone here tried to steer you to the proper forum and for some reason you resisted. And then you come on with a negative comment. I for one, will ignore you in the future.

Lou
 
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res0lve said:
64 threads max.
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Note that word "thread" means several things - and some contexts use "physical cores" and "logical cores" to clarify the number of hardware-based physical and logical cores. Other contexts use "thread" for logical core, so a 4C/8T CPU is a two-way hyperthreaded CPU with 4 physical cores and 8 logical cores.

A process can have hundreds or thousands of threads, even on a 1C/1T system.
 
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LAHegarty said:
res0lve Thanks.

TheStork I already have an account, I asked here because I just wanted a quick answer to a simple question, I guess people don't like questions when they don't know the answers.
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I would tend not to trust any answer from the Macrumours Mac Pro forum - since no Mac Pro has ever had more than 24 logical cores. (I say "tend", because you might get lucky and someone who follows tonymacx86 might answer.)

Only if you were running hacks (like the folks on tonymacx86) would you know which (if any) builds support more than 24 cores.

Where "support" means "actually works". Apple OSX has some notoriously single-threaded bottlenecks, so beware of cases where 64 logical cores work, but are much slower than 24 logical cores.
 
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LAHegarty said:
If I know the answer to a question I will give an answer, the whole 'ask google' or equivalent answer is never helpful.

If you don't know, don't respond.
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The others were teaching you how and where to get the answer. It's even better than tell you the direct answer. They were improving your problem solving skill. And no one ask you to Google. They actually gave you a specific site name to study, which is the best Hackintosh forum on the net. Not any generic answer that can fit any question. If you don't know how or where to ask, don't ask!
 
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When I've used tonymacx86 in the past they don't seem to know the answers to the questions I'm asking either, hence why I'm asking here.

I'm not building it yet so I have time to delve deeper into it, I'm just at the asking questions phase/seeing what's possible.

------------------------------

Turns out there's an ignore feature here so I've used that on the haters, a shame, I thought of here as a good place up until yesterday, I guess there are people like that everywhere.

Such is life.

------------------------------

If you can see this, I'm not ignoring you, at least I think that's how this works.
 
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+1 as to Aiden Shaw's remarks.

PS: I don't think folks here are "hating" on you. Swallow your pride and don't simply press "ignore"; they are not bad people and may be a good resource in the future when you have other questions.

PPS: If you choose to ignore me, too, I will not be offended in the least.
 
AidenShaw said:
Note that word "thread" means several things - and some contexts use "physical cores" and "logical cores" to clarify the number of hardware-based physical and logical cores. Other contexts use "thread" for logical core, so a 4C/8T CPU is a two-way hyperthreaded CPU with 4 physical cores and 8 logical cores.

A process can have hundreds or thousands of threads, even on a 1C/1T system.
Click to expand...

We all have alter egos.
You can trust me on this matter.
64 threads max. Real cores or logical doesn't matter. Osx installed on 2 socket mobo 22 cores/44 threads per socket = 44 core /88 threads -> capped at 64 threads.
Some better hackers tried kernel patching, but they weren't successful.

edit due to horrible spelling/wording
 
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LAHegarty said:
I'm thinking of doing a Hackintosh in the near future and was wondering if anyone knew?

I'm going to go for a dual CPU board for the build with E5-2600 v3/v4 series (LGA2011) CPU's they go up to 22 cores/44 threads pre-CPU, so a dual board with 2 CPU's would have a max* of 44 cores/88 threads.

So, does anyone know how many cores/threads macOS supports?
Click to expand...

I'd argue this is a macOS question, as it's nothing to do with hardware, but what macOS supports. So you'd probably be better off asking in the macOS section.
 
LAHegarty said:
does anyone know how many cores/threads macOS supports?
Click to expand...

What do you plan on using software wise? Will it be able to use 22/44/88 cores? It'll take quite some programming to split an application's workload into 22 equal parts, let alone 44. I'd forget about the 88 (hyperthreading), I hardly see applications use it, but maybe you've got a corner-case?
 
Pval said:
What do you plan on using software wise? Will it be able to use 22/44/88 cores? It'll take quite some programming to split an application's workload into 22 equal parts, let alone 44. I'd forget about the 88 (hyperthreading), I hardly see applications use it, but maybe you've got a corner-case?
Click to expand...

A bit off-topic, but a typical use for lots of threads is a server application. Consider a database server with one thread per active user, or even one thread per connected session, plus internal worker threads -- it's not hard to hit hundreds of threads.
 
kschendel said:
A bit off-topic, but a typical use for lots of threads is a server application. Consider a database server with one thread per active user, or even one thread per connected session, plus internal worker threads -- it's not hard to hit hundreds of threads.
Click to expand...

Well true, but I doubt he's building a server, if he is, I'd advise against putting a hackintosh in any production environment supporting hundreds of users. He'd be better off running Linux in that environment and avoid the hacks required to get MacOS/OSX running on his system and lose Apple support / updates or risk breaking your system with the next update.
 
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