How does adding more cores affect latency and potential clock-speed? Generally speaking: To make effective use of significantly more cores, you're talking higher buffer sizes. The more cores on the CPU, the harder it is to achieve high clock-speed Super tight enclosures mean low clock-speed (thermal limitations) Long Battery Life means low clock-speed    AMD has 32 cores on 3970x Threadripper, but the all-core clock-speed is about 4GHz. Intel 10900k