Mac Pro processor "hobbled"?

[DeadSirius]

I have MenuMeters installed, so I can always watch my processor activity in the menu bar. It seems that processor #1 is less active than the other 3. Even when the system gets busy, and activity increases on the entire set, it seems that #1 is always a couple of notches lower than the rest. I run an eDonkey server around the clock, and it has a tendency to max out a random processor individually on a rotating basis, but #1 rarely seems to get chosen for one of these spikes.

Hardware Test never complains about it, so I don't know if it's worth fussing about. Is there something special about the first processor that the System withholds it from regular usage?

 

[matticus008]

I don't know specifically about the newest Intel architecture, but a number of Xeon servers I've managed in years past have attempted to keep load off the #1 CPU wherever possible, to allow for processes which can't span processors or can't recognize addresses beyond the first CPU.

I was told by an engineer friend in the mid-90s who worked with SMP that the theory was like boarding an airplane: load from the back forward, except VIP processes, which get to go where they want, when they want.

 

[SmurfBoxMasta]

In most SMP-aware apps (OS X) & multi-CPU systems (Mac Pro), CPU #1 is normally reserved for the OS and it's inherently complex operations of controlling everything that happens, and it assigns other, lower priority and/or less complex tasks to the rest of the available cpus.

So yea, the OS is da VIP in this instance