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A Brief Overview Of Dual-Core Processors

For many years, the major computer processor manufacturers devoted their resources
to continually increasing the clock speed of their CPUs. That was how they remained
competitive. In recent years, they’ve changed direction. While improving clock speed
remains a key objective, technological hurdles in the hardware’s architecture limit
progress in that area. Instead, manufacturers are dedicating resources to dual-core
and multi-core processors. Below, you’ll learn how these processors work and the
benefits they offer over traditional CPUs.

How They Work

To appreciate how dual-core processors work, we need to talk briefly about
“threading.” Threads are data streams. Every application on your computer sends one
or more threads through the computer processor. A single-core processor is only
capable of dealing with single threads. That is, it doesn’t handle multiple threads
simultaneously. When multiple thread flow into the processor, it swaps them quickly
to give the appearance of handling them at the same time.

In a dual-core processor, multiple threads can be handled simultaneously. Your
computer has a scheduler that assigns threads to each core. The presence of a
dual-core essentially provides twice the processing resources of that in a
single-core processor. While a machine that operates on a single-core CPU can slow
to a crawl when running multiple applications, a dual-core machine can often handle
the extra processing load. This is due to multithreading. While one core of the CPU
is handling a stream of threads, the other core is handling another stream.
Meanwhile, your computer’s scheduler ensures that the threads are allocated to each
core in a way that maximizes the overall speed of the processor.

Benefits Of Dual-Core Processors

Whenever your computer’s processor receives a string of threads to execute, it
checks its cache for faster retrieval of instructions. A dual-core processor can
effectively check multiple cache sources. That lessens the time required to retrieve
instructions and execute programs. Another benefit comes from how closely the cores
sit next to each other on the motherboard. Signals that travel to the CPUs in
multi-processor machines tend to degrade due to the distance they sit from each
other. The proximity of the dual cores reduces the amount of signal decay. Lastly,
due to their design, dual-core CPUs tend to use less power than multi-processor
machines.

Investing In Dual Cores

Increasing the clock speed of a processor requires manufacturers to overcome costly
architectural issues. So, you’ll continue to see more dual-core processors (and
other multi-core variants) becoming available. They’re more efficient in both
program execution and instruction retrieval. By multithreading, dual-core CPUs can
deliver the speed that people want in their computers.

Even today, there are computer processors being designed with 10 cores, each capable
of handling its own stream of threads. As manufacturers compete aggressively to
deliver faster machines to consumers, the prices of dual-core processors will
continue to fall. Now may be the time to invest in a faster CPU.