Comparing processor specs, I often come across terms like physical and logical cores. What's the difference between the two? Does it really change performance in gaming or video editing? And how do I know how many logical cores are equivalent to one physical core?
What differentiates physical and logical CPU cores?
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From my experience building PCs, a physical core refers to the actual number of independent processing units on a chip—like a 6-core 12-thread CPU having 6 physical cores. Logical cores, on the other hand, are created using Intel’s Hyper-Threading (HT) or AMD’s SMT technology, which splits one physical core into two logical cores to boost multi-threaded task efficiency. The real-world performance gain depends on software optimization—games might see a 10-30% FPS boost, while video editing benefits even more.
As a rough estimate, 1 physical core ≈ 2 logical cores, but this isn’t set in stone—it depends on the CPU’s architecture.