Two Cores shown in Profiler, should be four

Question

Two Cores shown in Profiler, should be four

I recently noticed in TechTool Pro that it was only showing two cores working, it had been showing four. I went to "About This Mac" an under Hardware is shows "Total Number of Cores 2" and that's wrong. I have a late 2010 MacBook Pro i7 2.66 GHz. Which I presume is no different than the currently shipping i7 MBP - and the Apple Store shows in their specs as having four cores. Any suggestions as to the "lost cores"?

Thanks for any input.

Tom

MBPro 2.66 i7 10.6.5 8GB; MBPro 2.33 10.6.5; PB G4 1.6, 10.4; G5 DP, 10.5.8, Mac OS X (10.6.7), I've maxed out my computers' memory - you can never have too muc

Posted on Jun 20, 2011 10:48 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

kaz-k

Level 8

49,062 points

Jun 20, 2011 10:58 AM in response to Thomas Hohmann

i7-620M is 2-cores/4-threads CPU, so About your Mac and techTool Pro say right.

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Answer 2

Jun 20, 2011 11:05 AM in response to kaz-k

Thanks for your info. But I could have sworn with the previous version of TTP it showed four cores working. And the Activity Monitor shows four levels. Is that the 4-threads you are referring to?

Tom

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Answer 3

kaz-k

Level 8

49,062 points

Jun 20, 2011 3:24 PM in response to Thomas Hohmann

Yup, it shows "Hyper-threading" is working.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper-threading

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Answer 4

Jun 21, 2011 1:21 PM in response to kaz-k

I received mail from Micromat re TTP and the display of cores. Its latest release changed the presentation to actual cores, not hyper-threaded ones. I just went to look at the current MBP for sale on Apple's Store, with the i7 processor - it says "four cores" - kinda makes one feel a bit cheated for buying one earlier. I guess the old saying about "having the latest and greatest" applies here; one can never keep up with the evolution of technology.

Tom

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Answer 5

Jun 21, 2011 1:28 PM in response to Thomas Hohmann

I guess the old saying about "having the latest and greatest" applies here; one can never keep up with the evolution of technology.

Tom

If you can buy it in a box from a store, there is always something better within the next year. Deciding when to buy is always a balance between need / want / production refresh cycles.

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