How many cores does an Intel i3 CPU have?

I had, somewhat naively it turns out, assumed that an i3 CPU has 3 cores, i5 has 5 cores and i7 has 7 cores. That is not so.

I was wondering about this, as my new Lenovo PC has an i3 CPU, see previous blog post:

https://bkhome.org/news/202003/mke2fs-created-wrong-block-size.html

My PC has an 8th generation "i3 8100 3.6". I looked up the Intel site about i3 CPUs:

https://www.intel.com.au/content/www/au/en/products/processors/core/i3-processors.html

Surprise, some of them only have 2 cores, with hyperthreading to give the appearance of 4 cores. However, some do have an actual physical 4 cores -- mine included. Here are the specs on the i3 8100:

https://www.intel.com.au/content/www/au/en/products/processors/core/i3-processors/i3-8100.html

I don't know the relative merits of 2 cores with hyperthreading, versus 4 real cores, however I feel reassured that my CPU does have 4 real cores! 

Tags: easy