only 1/2 of potential power?

orionetheusorionetheus
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
When I ran one of the distributed.net programs that tries to find aliens etc and uses my idle cycles. I noticed that on my Mac book pro my CPU usage went up to 170%.



Now when I'm doing day to day things I don't see 170% so I'm wondering why don't I get those numbers normally?
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 32
    performa636cdperforma636cd Posts: 187member
    I think it's because it has two cores. So if both cores were running at "full throttle" then you'd see 200%. Anyone want to confirm this?



    "Normal" operations shouldn't require more than 100% of one core, I would assume.
  • Reply 2 of 32
    mackilroymackilroy Posts: 34member
    Checking this out on my MacBook?



    The maximum percentage IS 200% with two cores. Your normal work must not push the processor that hard, so that's why you're not seeing 170% usage of the chip.
  • Reply 3 of 32
    orionetheusorionetheus Posts: 53member
    I push it hard plenty, it never goes beyond 100% though.
  • Reply 4 of 32
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Orionetheus

    I push it hard plenty, it never goes beyond 100% though.



    Open two Terminal windows and type "yes >/dev/null" into each. You should see CPU usage go up to 200%.
  • Reply 5 of 32
    pbpb Posts: 4,255member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Orionetheus

    I push it hard plenty, it never goes beyond 100% though.



    Run at the same time two demanding processes (or one well multi-threaded) and watch CPU usage.



    EDIT: got beaten by Chucker
  • Reply 6 of 32
    mcnewbiemcnewbie Posts: 27member
    Is it unhealthy so to speak for the MB or any computers for that matter to run at full throttle? How would I know if my computer has the ability though to run close to full throttle so I know that it's got the capacity to do so and I don't have a comp advertised at 1.83ghz but really never goes beyond 1.0ghz
  • Reply 7 of 32
    mackilroymackilroy Posts: 34member
    No, it's not bad. And your computer doesn't actually run at 1.0 GHz ? there's always a few processes going on - the idle speed is probably 1.33 or 1.5 GHz.



    If you want to see it push itself, do as Chucker said, open up two Terminal Windows, and type "yes >/dev/null" into each.
  • Reply 8 of 32
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    My 2 GHz MacBook Pro runs between 1.33 and 1.5 GHz most of the time, sometimes even 1 GHz. It rarely ever uses full speed. The bottlenecks are elsewhere.
  • Reply 9 of 32
    mcnewbiemcnewbie Posts: 27member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Mackilroy

    And your computer doesn't actually run at 1.0 GHz ? there's always a few processes going on - the idle speed is probably 1.33 or 1.5 GHz.



    Whilst saying that it runs a mere 1.0ghz was a bit of an overeaction I just wanted to know if my MB has the capacity that it has been advertised to have.



    Prior to purchasing my MB I purchased an Acer laptop which was advertised as 1.66ghz, with a 1.73ghz chip but ran at a max of 1.30ghz
  • Reply 10 of 32
    mackilroymackilroy Posts: 34member
    Well, McNewbie - fear not - your computer DOES have the capacity to run at the max speed stated.
  • Reply 11 of 32
    mcnewbiemcnewbie Posts: 27member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Mackilroy

    Well, McNewbie - fear not - your computer DOES have the capacity to run at the max speed stated.



    The test you mentioned in previous post, is that the only way to test if it is able to run at full capacity?
  • Reply 12 of 32
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by McNewbie

    Whilst saying that it runs a mere 1.0ghz was a bit of an overeaction I just wanted to know if my MB has the capacity that it has been advertised to have.



    Of course it does.



    Quote:

    Prior to purchasing my MB I purchased an Acer laptop which was advertised as 1.66ghz, with a 1.73ghz chip but ran at a max of 1.30ghz



    I doubt that. How do you figure?
  • Reply 13 of 32
    leonardleonard Posts: 528member
    Very few desktop and laptop computers run fully loaded because most of the time they're waiting on user input. Yes, that's right, they're waiting on YOU! Unless your running something CPU intensive like SETI, which doesn't need much user input, you will never fully load your computer. Even then, some programs will never utilize all of the CPU power of your computer. Mail, Word, Internet surfing don't need all that power. Computers get things done in nanoseconds and output it to the screen faster than Superman can get undressed. Programs like SETI, 3D rendering, 3D games, actually get close to using most of your computer's power.
  • Reply 14 of 32
    mcnewbiemcnewbie Posts: 27member
    Quote:

    [i]I doubt that. How do you figure? [/B]



    Well my partner did some tests and it would not allow for it to go over 1.30ghz, took it back to Acer and they admitted that the laptop is meant to have a 1.66ghz chip but a 1.73ghz was placed in it instead and mobo was not supporting it thus the reason as to why it's only running at 1.30
  • Reply 15 of 32
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    Ouch. That's quite a blunder on Acer's part.



    In any case, I haven't heard of such incidents wrt/ the MacBook or MacBook Pro. Personally, my MacBook Pro (advertised as 2 GHz) runs anywhere between 1 and 2 GHz, just as expected.
  • Reply 16 of 32
    orionetheusorionetheus Posts: 53member
    Okay I tried it.



    My cpu usage went up to 200% with the two processes "yes" running all of it.



    But right now my world of warcraft is only using 100% no more no less. How do I make the other processor get used.
  • Reply 17 of 32
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Run another copy of WoW.



    The CPUs will be utilized according to the threading used in the application, and that's not something that anyone but the developers control.
  • Reply 18 of 32
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    Sounds like World of Warcraft isn't multithreaded.
  • Reply 19 of 32
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    So, theoretically could you have WoW running at full load on one core and then another core running Mail or iTunes going? Is that how this works?
  • Reply 20 of 32
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Yup.
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