A CPU thread is an independent sequence of instructions that the operating system schedules to run. Hardware multithreading, such as Intel Hyper-Threading or AMD SMT, lets one physical core present itself as two logical processors.
Why it matters
Threads allow a program to do several things concurrently, such as handling many connections or keeping a user interface responsive while work runs in the background. Hardware threads improve utilization when one stream is waiting for data, but the two threads share the same core resources.
A second hardware thread typically adds a fraction of a core's performance, not double.
Example
A 6-core processor with two threads per core shows up as 12 logical processors:
6 cores x 2 threads = 12 logical CPUsTask Manager or lscpu reports 12, but a fully parallel workload will not run 12 times faster than a single thread.
Common misconceptions
- Threads and cores are the same thing. Threads are instruction streams, cores are hardware.
- Doubling threads doubles performance. Shared core resources limit the gain.
- Software threads and hardware threads are identical. The OS maps many software threads onto fewer hardware ones.
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