3 Ways to check how many cores in CPU on Windows 11, 10

• To determine a processor core count on Windows, open Task Manager’s Performance tab, click on “CPU,” and check the core number in the details. 
• You can also use Command Prompt and PowerShell to find out this information.

UPDATED 1/28/2025: Windows 11 and 10 offer several ways to check how many cores your computer’s processor has. In this guide, I’ll outline three simple methods to find this information.

Most modern computers come with processors that have multiple physical cores, allowing them to process multiple instructions simultaneously. For example:

• A dual-core processor has “2” cores and can handle two sets of instructions at once.
• A quad-core processor has “4” cores and can process four sets of instructions simultaneously.
  This scaling continues with processors featuring 6, 8, 10, 12, 16, 18, 24, 28, or even 32 cores.

In addition to physical cores, many CPUs (Central Processing Units) support Hyper-Threading. This technology, available on Intel, Qualcomm, and AMD processors (AMD calls it “threads”), enables each core to handle two instructions simultaneously. If your processor supports this feature, it will also have logical processors, effectively doubling the number of available threads.

Knowing the number of cores and logical processors in the processor is useful in various scenarios, such as running virtual machines or optimizing performance for apps that benefit from multi-core processing.

Whatever the reason, Windows 11, as well as Windows 10, provide multiple built-in tools to check your processor’s core count. You can use Task Manager, Command Prompt, or PowerShell to find this information quickly.

In this guide, I will teach you how to determine the number of cores your Intel, AMD, or ARM processor has on Windows. (You can also use these instructions to find out if your computer has an NPU (Neural Processing Unit).)

Check CPU core count from Task Manager

To determine the number of cores your processor has on Windows 11 (and 10) through Task Manager, use these steps:

1. Open Start.

2. Search for Task Manager and click the top result to open the app.

3. Click the Performance tab.

4. Click on CPU from the left pane.

5. Check the core count at the bottom of the page.

   Quick tip: If your processor has hyper-threading, you can also see the number of “Logical processors,” which is usually twice as many as the number of physical cores.

Once you complete the steps, you’ll understand your computer’s physical cores and logical processors.

Check CPU core count from Command Prompt

To check how many cores your CPU has through Command Prompt, use these steps:

1. Open Start.

2. Search for Command Prompt and click the top result to open the console.

3. Type the following command to find out how many cores your CPU has, and press Enter:

   wmic cpu get NumberOfCores,NumberOfLogicalProcessors

   

4. Check the CPU core count and logical processors.

After you complete the steps, you’ll know the number of cores and logical processors on your machine.

Check CPU core count from PowerShell

To find out the processor core count through PowerShell, use these steps:

1. Open Start.

2. Search for PowerShell and click the top result to open the console.

3. Type the following command to find out how many cores your CPU has, and press Enter:

   Get-WmiObject –class Win32_processor | ft NumberOfCores,NumberOfLogicalProcessors

   

4. Check the processor core count and logical processors.

Once you complete the steps, the command will output the number of physical cores and logical processors on your computer (if it has hyperthreading).

Update January 28, 2025: This guide has been updated to ensure accuracy and reflect changes to the process.