When renting a Virtual Private Server or a dedicated server, how much work that computer can do is determined by the number of CPU Cores it has.

A CPU chip in a computer used to have just one core, but then started multiplying, 2, 4, 8, 12, 16, and currently up to 64 cores are available in a single processor. All of the cores share access to RAM and Disk Storage. But caching and other methods of access to data allow for all of the cores to work seamlessly independently. Which is a real neat trick.

Not all cores are equal though. One core from a 2010 Intel processor is not equivalent to a single core today. So be a little wary of renting cores based on that metric alone.