posted 13 years ago
Ideally, if you computer has 24% utlilization, it means that 76% of the time, it is doing nothing. It could be actually doing nothing (nothing is running). Or it could be waiting for stuff, like the network, the disk, etc., which in effect, for the processor is doing nothing.
Now, having said that, it could also mean that the number is wrong. For example, the new Intel i7 can timeslice eight threads (hyperthreading) on four cores. This is done internally to the processor. As far as the OS is concerned, it is a 8 core processor. This timeslicing can be done much better than the OS can do it... but since the OS thinks it is eight cores, then when it is passing 50 percent utilization, it should be nearly fully utilized.
Henry