CPU utilization on any given node should on average be 60% or lower. This practice provides the capability for a node to burst CPU past 80% when necessary. The values for CPU utilization, like many of the other variables, needs to be analyzed by node. There can be a very large variance in the CPU utilization of individual nodes compared to the cluster.

Also, the CPU utilization percentage consists of all the physical cores on a node including any hyperthreaded cores. On a node with four physical cores, which results in eight hyperthreaded cores, a value of 60% utilization means each of the eight hyperthreaded cores is 60% busy on average. There are many situations where a hyperthreaded core will not provide a full CPU core worth of performance if the threads are using the same CPU resources.