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questions regarding xeon x5500

idata
Employee
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Hi There,

I am using a xeon x5500 6.67GHz quad core processor for simulation. (in a dell precision T5500)

 

When run my program, I noticed that the CPU is occupied 25% only, and the usage of the 4 cores looks the same (all at about 25% level usage).

May I know if anybody experienced that and what should I do to use the max power of the processor, or even one core. I did several test and it looks that this processor (benchmark score ~3000) runs my program about 3 times faster than my old pentium duo core (benchmark score ~300). I think it should/could be faster.

While the usage can go up to 50% when I install some softwares... and also 50% for all 4 cores. Not like what happened for old pentium duo core (one core 100%,one about 0%, totall 50%), or is it normal (the new way to use CPU)?

Thank you very much for your help!

stll

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1 Reply
JLodh
New Contributor II
373 Views

Hi Stll,

From what it seems, I suspect that your application is not really consuming all the cores of the processor. Just check how many maximum cores your application can actually support cause most of the times, an application that does not support dual or quad cores is unable to benefit from all the available cores of the processor. In your case here, you are using a quad-core Xeon meanwhile a lot of applications still are not programmed for quad-core processors which is why, you are not gaining maximum core performance with all cores enabled.

You however do have the option of turning off individual cores from the BIOS limiting your Xeon 5500 to work on lesser number of cores, even two or one depending on the number of cores your application supports.

Hope this answers your question, however for any further information, feel free to contact us and we'll be glad to help.

Thank you for using Intel, have a great day!

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Warm Regards,

Javed Lodhi

Intel Go Green, Save The Environment!

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