On Mon, Dec 06, 2004 at 02:02:03PM -0500, Greg A. Woods wrote:
> [ On Monday, December 6, 2004 at 13:32:47 (+0100), Martin Husemann wrote: ]
> > Subject: Re: Load Measurement
> >
> > The "load" numbers don't realy mean anything objective. You can not compare
> > them between different operating systems. I've seen AIX systems at load 20
> > that were fine for interactive use, and other systems at load 2 that were
> > barely usable.
> 
> Indeed and also one cannot really compare between architectures either.
> 
> On my dual-400MHz-CPU AlphaServer 4000 the load can be up in the 20's
> and the system is still quite usable and smooth for interactive use.
> 
> Meanwhile my 300Mhz P-II system, which for some common tasks is much
> faster than a single 400MHz alpha 21164a, can be crawling and jumpy with
> a load average even in the 10's.
> 
> However they're both running the exact same NetBSD release.  :-)

One has HZ=1024 by default.  You might want to do some experiments.