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According to the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B specs the SoC used is BCM2711. The BCM2711 uses an ARM Cortex-A72 core. Does this have simultaneous multi-threading (SMT), like Intel cores with hyperthreading? I have read somewhere that some newer ARM processors do.

Related: software threads vs hardware threads

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  • Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
    – goldilocks
    Oct 3, 2020 at 17:44
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    Why can't I vote to close this question which has no real relevance to the Raspberry Pi.
    – joan
    Oct 3, 2020 at 21:34
  • @joan meta.stackexchange.com/q/69092/212479 ...To be fair, it is a question about Pi hardware.
    – goldilocks
    Oct 4, 2020 at 14:33

1 Answer 1

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I'm putting together a Raspberry Pi 4 cluster and had the same question (I need a particular minimum of hardware threads). Although there was no answer here, the question was answered in the comments, so for future visitors I'll summarize it:

The Raspberry Pi 4 does not have simultaneous multithreading ("SMT") hardware. Each of its four cores can only run one thread at a time. That said, each core will switch between (software) threads hundreds or thousands of times a second, so like any Intel- or AMD-based system it can still handle many threads "at once," from a human perspective.

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  • Right. The credits should go to @goldilocks cause he pointed at this topic during discussion. If goldilocks writes an answer I'd accept it. If not I'll accept this one that we can close this question.
    – thinwybk
    Oct 5, 2020 at 8:52
  • You should improve "...run one thread at a time..." probabably cause it could be misinterpreted as software thread.
    – thinwybk
    Oct 5, 2020 at 8:53
  • @thinwybk, I'll be happy to edit it, but I'm not sure what wording would improve it. Each core can run one thread at a time, regardless of what kind of thread it might be.
    – Head Geek
    Oct 6, 2020 at 1:59
  • Just have a look into the discussion hyperlinked in the comment section of the question. It's pretty obvious then.
    – thinwybk
    Oct 7, 2020 at 8:11

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