Cpu Load

[Slacker]

This might belong in hardware. My cpu is Intel i3 M370 2.40Ghz a dual core processor that acts like a quad core. When operating linux I notice my load gets up to 2 or 3 somtimes. I know why (running several Virtual machines) I am trying to understand if I have a load count of 4 or 2? The way load count was explained to me was the number of cores you have. Would the cpu load be 4 for me or 2?

 

[hornedturtle]

4. There's only two cores but the way that they are threaded makes the computer think there is 4. Apparently you get better speed out of the cpu that way

 

[patonb]

It's a dual core with hyperthreading, so it acts nearly like quad. Same as a i7 has 4 but acts as an 8.

 

[Slacker]

Thanks for the reply guys.. but can I count those 2 cores as 4??? I am trying to determine if My load is halfway or full.

 

[patonb]

My linux box is headless so I do everything by putty, if you type "lscpu' it'll tell you.
My 2p xeon box says
CPUS: 24
Threads per core: 2
cores per socket: 6
CPU sockets: 2

So I have 6 real cores and each have 2 threads for 12 "cores" and there's 2 sockets for 24 CPUs

If you terminal command "top" it'll tell you your average load, and it'll be between 1 and 2 or 1 and 4 depending on your cpu count above.

If you have 4 CPUs then if top says the ave load is 2 it is 50% loaded.

 

[carnageX]

Thanks for the reply guys.. but can I count those 2 cores as 4??? I am trying to determine if My load is halfway or full.

That's not how you would take into account CPU load.

CPU load is utilization by processes actively running and/or putting stress on the CPU, or making it do calculations.

You're talking about cores and hyperthreading, or virtual cores. You have 2 physical cores, with HyperThreading which splits each physical core into two, giving you 4 virtual cores available for threading processes.