Why does Windows switch processes between processors?

Question

If a single threaded process is busy and uses 100% of a single core it seems like Windows is switching this process between the cores, because in Task Managers core overview all cores are equal used.

Why does Windows do that? Isn't this destroying L1/L2 caches?

Answer 1

There are advantages to pinning a process to one core, primarily caching which you already mentioned.

There are also disadvantages -- you get unequal heating, which can create mechanical stresses that do not improve the expected lifetime of the silicon die.

To avoid this, OSes tend to keep all cores at equal utilization. When there's only one active thread, it will have to be moved and invalidate caches. As long as this is done infrequently (in CPU time), the impact of the extra cache misses during migration is negligible.

For example, the abstract of "Energy and thermal tradeoffs in hardware-based load balancing for clustered multi-core architectures implementing power gating" explicitly lists this as a design goal of scheduling algorithms (emphasis mine):

In this work, a load-balancing technique for these clustered multi-core architectures is presented that provides both a low overhead in energy and an a smooth temperature distribution across the die, increasing the reliability of the processor by evenly stressing the cores.

Spreading the heat dissipation throughout the die is also essential for techniques such as Turbo Boost, where cores are clocked temporarily at a rate that is unsustainable long term. By moving load to a different core regularly, the average heat dissipation remains sustainable even though the instantaneous power is not.