see there is always something to learn. I never double checked it or observed it.
So a pure thoretical example: I have 8 core. I have Adobe open and Solidworks at the same time.
Windows will use the first 4 for Adobe and the other 4 for Solidworks? So the Adobe Encoding is not slowed down by the others programs running and vice versa?
If yes, I want the 2950x... and yes, now I understand what a workstation is.
Y'never punched CTRL+SHIFT+ESC before? (Task Manager)
Windows normally shifts tasks around in some kind of sequence, or maybe it's not sequential at all, but in any case, all threads tend to be shared among all cores, sooner or later.
These days, idle cores are shut down for power saving purposes, but sleep/wake takes microseconds so it can be done seamlessly as threads are scheduled.
Programs can be locked to a group of cores (right-click a Process, Set Affinity...) if you like, in which case only those will be used. This can save on cache latency for critical applications, but mostly isn't necessary.
AFAIK, this has been around in some form or another, since preemptive multitasking was rolled out to PCs in the 90s. Multi-core machines were very rare for the first decade or so, but Windows NT I think has always supported it (and consumer Windowses since 98 or 2000?).
Tim