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Date:      Mon, 25 May 2009 15:31:23 -0400
From:      Glen Barber <glen.j.barber@gmail.com>
To:        Wojciech Puchar <wojtek@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, Peter Boosten <peter@boosten.org>
Subject:   Re: How can this 'top' command output make sense? Load over 7 and  total CPU use ~5%
Message-ID:  <4ad871310905251231x8c61c93j97bf364ebea8d533@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.00.0905252119520.41069@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl>
References:  <200905241315.n4ODFB96007801@mp.cs.niu.edu> <b79ecaef0905250104p55c302cdh102202d1a06a389b@mail.gmail.com> <alpine.BSF.2.00.0905251013500.36458@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl> <b79ecaef0905250133n5cd641dv6ca8e088f8fa2f33@mail.gmail.com> <4A1A58FA.60303@boosten.org> <alpine.BSF.2.00.0905251912000.40022@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl> <C9B964A3-BE91-4518-B13C-EE28282FD810@boosten.org> <alpine.BSF.2.00.0905252107590.40989@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl> <1932D812-03CF-48AF-A306-669C39862EB7@boosten.org> <alpine.BSF.2.00.0905252119520.41069@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl>

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On Mon, May 25, 2009 at 3:24 PM, Wojciech Puchar
<wojtek@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl> wrote:
>>
>> The CPU will perform the same, whether at 10% utilization, or at 100%
>> utilization, the system however won't.
>> That's the difference between load and utilization.
>
> still don't understand you.
>
> CPU will not perform the same at 10% utilization, it will perform 10 times
> less than at 100% utilization.
>

You are assuming this based on what?

> CPU load == CPU utilization == how big percentage of time CPU (or CPUs by
> average) are doing anything except being in idle loop or hlt/waiting for
> interrupt.
> it's exactly the same words in that context.
>

Not true.  top(1) can fully utilize the CPU.  Doing so does not put
the system under full load.

>
> load average is how much processes (by average) is not doing calculations
> because something is not yet available and depends of computer resources(*)
> - like CPU time, disk I/O results etc..
>
> (*) - for example waiting on tty read is not calculated to load average as
> it's depends on human not computer.

What?

-- 
Glen Barber



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