How can a computer process use 399.6% of the CPU? Isn’t 100% the maximum?
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CPU usage is a measurement of the amount of time that a logical processor spends executing a workload other than the system idle process (which may include putting the hardware into a low power state)
If a computer has multiple logical processors, each processor is scheduled independently and has its usage computed independently.
Microsoft Windows normalizes this over the entire system. If the system has four logical processors, then each processor accounts for 25% of the maximum system utilization.
Unix-like operating systems including FreeBSD, Linux, and MacOS do not normalize this measurement. The same system with 4 logical processors can have a usage between 0 and 4, or 0% through 400% depending on how one looks at it.
CPU usage is not a measurement of computational throughput; rather, it is a measurement of relative busyness/availability.
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