I am running Ubuntu 10.10 64bit on a system with an AMD Phenom II X2 550 CPU overclocked to 3.5ghz (from the default 3.1ghz).
When I perform an Xvid encode using k9copy/mencoder and check the speed of the CPU using cat /proc/cpuinfo
, neither of the cores ever seem to go above 2400mhz (sometimes less due to AMD Cool'n'Quiet).
Assuming this is the true speed, how do I ensure that the processor operates at full speed when performing a CPU intensive task such as encoding video?
Edit - some further info below:
william@optimus:/usr/bin$ sudo dmesg | grep "powernow" [ 0.985857] powernow-k8: Found 1 AMD Phenom(tm) II X2 550 Processor (2 cpu cores) (version 2.20.00) [ 0.985885] powernow-k8: 0 : pstate 0 (3500 MHz) [ 0.985886] powernow-k8: 1 : pstate 1 (2400 MHz) [ 0.985887] powernow-k8: 2 : pstate 2 (1900 MHz) [ 0.985888] powernow-k8: 3 : pstate 3 (800 MHz) william@optimus:/usr/bin$ sudo dmidecode | grep "Max Speed" Max Speed: 3200 MHz
william@optimus:/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/ondemand$ cpufreq-info cpufrequtils 007: cpufreq-info (C) Dominik Brodowski 2004-2009 Report errors and bugs to [email protected], please. analyzing CPU 0: driver: powernow-k8 CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 0 CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 0 maximum transition latency: 8.0 us. hardware limits: 800 MHz - 3.50 GHz available frequency steps: 3.50 GHz, 2.40 GHz, 1.90 GHz, 800 MHz available cpufreq governors: conservative, ondemand, userspace, powersave, performance current policy: frequency should be within 800 MHz and 3.10 GHz. The governor "ondemand" may decide which speed to use within this range. current CPU frequency is 800 MHz. cpufreq stats: 3.50 GHz:0.00%, 2.40 GHz:5.63%, 1.90 GHz:1.63%, 800 MHz:92.74% (109352) analyzing CPU 1: driver: powernow-k8 CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 1 CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 1 maximum transition latency: 8.0 us. hardware limits: 800 MHz - 3.50 GHz available frequency steps: 3.50 GHz, 2.40 GHz, 1.90 GHz, 800 MHz available cpufreq governors: conservative, ondemand, userspace, powersave, performance current policy: frequency should be within 800 MHz and 3.10 GHz. The governor "ondemand" may decide which speed to use within this range. current CPU frequency is 800 MHz. cpufreq stats: 3.50 GHz:0.00%, 2.40 GHz:8.58%, 1.90 GHz:2.47%, 800 MHz:88.95% (76452)