Dual core started coming out ~2005. It took a few more years for it to dominate the product lineup. Computers tend to have a replacement cycle of ~5 years. Cons

Dual core started coming out ~2005. It took a few more years for it to dominate the product lineup. Computers tend to have a replacement cycle of ~5 years. Consequently, it's not until about 2012-ish that you could reasonably expect a personal computer to have a multicore computer. (Yeah, that's still a decade ago, but that's a good deal more recent than 17 years.)