What information does my processor spec contain?

Question

I have Intel® Core™ i5-5200U CPU @ 2.20GHz × 4. I want to know what does every single thing mean.

$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor   : 0
vendor_id   : GenuineIntel
cpu family  : 6
model       : 61
model name  : Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-5200U CPU @ 2.20GHz
stepping    : 4
microcode   : 0x22
cpu MHz     : 1898.445
cache size  : 3072 KB
physical id : 0
siblings    : 4
core id     : 0
cpu cores   : 2
apicid      : 0
initial apicid  : 0
fpu     : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level : 20
wp      : yes
flags       : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf eagerfpu pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 sdbg fma cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch epb intel_pt tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid rdseed adx smap xsaveopt dtherm ida arat pln pts
bugs        :
bogomips    : 4389.61
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 39 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

processor   : 1
vendor_id   : GenuineIntel
cpu family  : 6 model       : 61
model name  : Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-5200U CPU @ 2.20GHz
stepping    : 4
microcode   : 0x22
cpu MHz     : 1800.390
cache size  : 3072 KB
physical id : 0
siblings    : 4
core id     : 1
cpu cores   : 2
apicid      : 2
initial apicid  : 2
fpu     : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level : 20
wp      : yes
flags       : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf eagerfpu pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 sdbg fma cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch epb intel_pt tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid rdseed adx smap xsaveopt dtherm ida arat pln pts
bugs        :
bogomips    : 4389.61
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 39 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

processor   : 2
vendor_id   : GenuineIntel
cpu family  : 6
model       : 61
model name  : Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-5200U CPU @ 2.20GHz
stepping    : 4
microcode   : 0x22
cpu MHz     : 2085.015
cache size  : 3072 KB physical
id  : 0
siblings    : 4
core id     : 0
cpu cores   : 2
apicid      : 1
initial apicid  : 1
fpu     : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level : 20
wp      : yes
flags       : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf eagerfpu pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 sdbg fma cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch epb intel_pt tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid rdseed adx smap xsaveopt dtherm ida arat pln pts
bugs        :
bogomips    : 4389.61
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 39 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

processor   : 3
vendor_id   : GenuineIntel
cpu family  : 6
model       : 61
model name  : Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-5200U CPU @ 2.20GHz
stepping    : 4
microcode   : 0x22
cpu MHz     : 1055.742
cache size  : 3072 KB
physical id : 0
siblings    : 4
core id     : 1
cpu cores   : 2
apicid      : 3
initial apicid  : 3
fpu     : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level : 20
wp      : yes
flags       : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf eagerfpu pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 sdbg fma cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch epb intel_pt tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid rdseed adx smap xsaveopt dtherm ida arat pln pts
bugs        :
bogomips    : 4389.61
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 39 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

Answer 1

It's not complicated:

• The first bit, "Intel®", tells you that it's an Intel CPU (doh..).

• The second bit "Core™ i5-5200U" is the model number of the processor. The "U" stands for "Ultra-low power", meaning that it's a notebook / laptop processor.

• The third bit, "2.20GHz" is the speed of the processor, in this case, 2.2GHz, or 2 200 000 000 clock cycles per second.

• The last bit, "× 4", is the number of physical & virtual cores the processor has. This particular CPU features HyperThreading, meaning that, even though it only has two physical cores, each of these is presented to the operating system as two separate cores (for a total of 4 cores), and, as a result, the OS (Linux / Ubuntu) can run four threads in total simultaneously, thus improving performance.

Answer 2

I'd personally use cpuid, this converts a lot of the CPU flags into more meaningful information:

sudo apt-get install cpuid
cpuid

Answer 3

To check out a CPU I would recommend Wikipedia's lists of Intel processors. You can also check /proc/cpuinfo e.g. by using cat /proc/cpuinfo in a Terminal/Shell.

One of the search results for "i5-5200U" on en.wikipedia.org is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_i5_microprocessors

So you can see it is a "Broadwell-U" (dual-core, 14 nm) and the flags implemented, as shown by /proc/cpuinfo. You might want to use Ctrl + F "i5-5200U" on the list in Wikipedia, then you find the number of cores, etc. in the corresponding table.

I guess using /proc/cpuinfo is faster and on Wikipedia you can read more about the background of the cpu, etc..

You can see /proc/cpuinfo lists "cpu cores : 2" - Your CPU uses Hyper-threading, so the CPU runs 4 Threads simultaneously (every core runs 2 threads). If something is unclear I recommend Wikipedia.