My $50 router has two cores.

  root@OpenWrt2:~# lscpu
  Architecture:        mips
  Byte Order:          Little Endian
  CPU(s):              4
  On-line CPU(s) list: 0-3
  Model name:          -
  Model:               MIPS 1004Kc V2.15
  Thread(s) per core:  2
  Core(s) per socket:  2
  Socket(s):           1