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mac-collector

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 8, 2012
117
0
Europe
I sometimes see my % CPU in activity monitor go above 100 % to, lets say, 140 %. What does this number mean? Obviously not total CPU usage. Why is the maximum not 100 %?

Thanks.
 
1 CPU core is 100 %, 2 CPU cores are 200 %, 4 CPU cores are 400 %, 4 cores with 2 threads per core (HyperThreading, having eight virtual cores) gives you 800 % CPU capacity, thus 140 % CPU activity is using at least a dual core CPU.
 
Interesting, nice to know!

I always wondered about that, what would it mean, when CPU is >100%...
Anyway, the only software, which brings the CPU at this, is Skype, don't know why.............. Bad coding probably :)
 
Anyway, the only software, which brings the CPU at this, is Skype, don't know why.............. Bad coding probably :)

Do you video chat? If so, is the CPU activity that high during that activity? If so, then that is because the video has to be compressed* in real time, which is CPU intensive.

* to make it smaller and faster to upload
 
Do you video chat? If so, is the CPU activity that high during that activity? If so, then that is because the video has to be compressed* in real time, which is CPU intensive.

* to make it smaller and faster to upload

no, if I would video-chatting, it would be okay, but most of the times it happens randomly, e.g. when a normal chat window is opened, or generally, when skype is running, doesnt matter, if its minimized or not... The only workaround, which I figured out, is to quit completely skype and restart it... After some time the same thing happens again (estimately once/twice a day - so its not a real pain...)

even heavy CAD software or PS etc doesnt get the cpu at its limits, like skype sometimes. Funny :)
 
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