How do I monitor CPU core usage per thread?

Question

I need this information to optimize the number of worker threads my custom application is allocating.

For example, if I just use top on a single-threaded application on a two-core machine, the 100% CPU usage does not tell me if there is still unused capacity in the form of the other core!

What kind of monitoring tools can I use to detect the difference?

Solution 1

Use htop. It has many more features than top, including showing individual threads and individual CPU usage etc.

http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/oneiric/man1/htop.1.html

Solution 2

When running top, press 1, this will show per-core usage. Maybe it's what you need?

Comments

[kfmfe04]

+1 It's definitely helpful - I can see total cpu1 and cpu2 usage - lemme try it out some more...