How do I reconcile the different readings for CPU usage on the Activity Monitor?
When the digital reading for a particular application reads 120% (a kind of impossible number I would think) the visual readout for the whole chip is a good deal lower. This doesn't make any sense.
This is a 2015 27" iMac 3.2 Ghz quad core i5 with 8 gigs of RAM.
Ellen
iMac 27″, macOS 10.15
Hi Ellen, yes, it does seem strange, but enter Cores & then Hyper threading..
An i5 2 core has 2 processors on one chip, so the max would be 200%, then by trickery each core can have 2 processes in waiting, making for 400%.
An i7 4 core has 4 processors on one chip, so the max would be 400%, then by trickery each core can have 2 processes in waiting, making for 800%.
A 6 core XEON has 6 processors on one chip, so the max would be 600%, then by trickery each core can have 2 processes in waiting, making for 1,200%.
Thank you. It's still pretty mystifying in that when I look at how each core is performing with the little CPU history graphic display, no core gets a high mark. Still your answer suffices.
Great news, take care my friend! :)
If you're running10.15 you can get an even better look with Intel Power Gadget 3.7.0...
https://www.techspot.com/downloads/7172-intel-power-gadget.html+
Activity Monitor usage
