CPU Core
Domain: Computer Systems
🎯 Motivation
A physical processing unit in the CPU. More cores = more parallel work. Modern CPUs have 4-16 cores.
📋 Concrete Example
4-core CPU: can run 4 threads simultaneously. 16-core: 16 threads. Your Python program can use multiprocessing to use all cores: 16x faster for CPU-intensive tasks.
🔗 Analogy
A CPU core is like a chef. 1 core = 1 chef. 16 cores = 16 chefs. More chefs = more dishes cooked simultaneously. But coordination overhead means it is not always perfectly 16x faster.