Hyper-Threading is a technology from Intel that creates one or more virtual CPUs on your system. Windows treats these virtual processors as if they were additional CPUs inside your system, improving performance in some applications. Thus, Hyper-Threading theoretically doubles the number of processor cores in your computer. But in order to take advantage of Hyper-Threading, you must have an Intel CPU that supports this technology. There are simple ways to determine if your processor has this technology to see if you can benefit from Hyper-Threading.
Step 1
Turn on your computer and log in to Windows if you have not already done so.
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Step 2
Press "Ctrl-Alt-Delete" simultaneously on your keyboard. Click "Start Task Manager" at the bottom of the screen that appears.
Step 3
Click the "Performance" tab in the Task Manager. This shows current CPU and memory usage. The Task Manager displays a separate graph for each CPU core on your system. You should see double the number of graphs as you have processor cores if your CPU supports Hyper-Threading.
For example, you should see four performance graphs if you have a dual-core processor that supports Hyper-Threading. Quad-core processors with Hyper-Threading would show eight graphs, but would show only four if the CPU does not have Hyper-Threading.
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