CPU operates with just four processing units.
CPU operates with just four processing units.
Hey everyone, I noticed my CPU is using just 4 cores in CS:GO and similar games now. I wasn’t sure how that could happen since Windows 7 supports all 8 cores. After upgrading, it seems like the opposite is happening. Did something change?
Modern Intel chips connect their logical units in a way that resembles AMD's setup, where each group shares specific hardware parts. It's important to recognize these groups exist, and if one unit in a pair is active, it can significantly affect the other's speed. These units sit next to each other. For example, cores 0 and 1 work together, as do cores 2 and 3, etc. In a test run, cores 0 and 1 will perform much worse than cores 0 and 3, since cores 0 and 3 are on separate physical processors, while cores 0 and 1 share certain processing units and memory. This is why some titles actually gain from not using hyperthreaded cores and turning them off, and others are limited to just four cores. Thanks to DX12, games might use different or fewer cores depending on the game. That's why your experience could vary—using less, more, or different cores than before Windows 10.