CPU – How Fast Is Each Core in a Dual-Core Processor?

cpumulti-core

My Macbook has a 2.4 GHz dual core processor. Because it has two separate cores, that means it can execute two functions at once, right?

So does that mean each core is approx. 1.2GHz each (for a combined 2.4 GHz) or are they actually 2.4 GHz each, and therefore is effectively running at 4.8 GHz?

Dual (and quad) core processors confuse me.

Best Answer

Each core runs at 2.4 GHz.

Though that doesn't mean that your system is twice as fast as a 2.4 GHz single-core system. Parallelism has (in principle) at most a linear speedup but in reality it's often much slower (though still faster than a single core).

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