I have a 9700k 8 core 8 threads
If I Give a VM 8 cores will it be able to utilize the 8 threads as well or do I instead give it 16 Vcores to account for the 8 threads.
How do VCores work and what exactly do they represent
Qubes OS disabled hyper-threading for security reasons, you can only use 8 cores, you can’t use the threads.
vCPU is the process that functions as the virtual CPU, running on the physical core.
is there a reason why hyper-threading is disabled
It increases the attack surface of the CPU, and multiple transient exploits have been found that rely on HT being enabled.
CPU exploits often allow an attack to break out of a VM, which would bypass the Qubes OS security model.