0

I got a Linux computer with 64 cores from one physical CPU.

The computer certainly has some job management tool that when I submit a job, the job is affixed to Core 1. htop shows Core 1 is working 100% while other cores are 0%.

When I submit a second job, the second job is affixed to Core 2. So on and so forth.

I never see Core 64 run any processes.

If Core 1 has more jobs than Core 64, will Core 1 die earlier than Core 64 given there is only one physical CPU?

Gqqnbig
  • 409
  • 1
  • 6
  • 18
  • 1
    Does this answer your question? [Can I run my CPU at 100% usage for a long time?](https://superuser.com/questions/1531045/can-i-run-my-cpu-at-100-usage-for-a-long-time) – gronostaj Oct 13 '22 at 08:50

1 Answers1

4

CPU cores don't really "wear out" by use. The only thing that is really dangerous is badly overheating the CPU, but on modern CPU's internal safeties kick in which will throttle the performance before that happens.
A CPU is designed to be able to run briefly on full load (all cores) without overheating. After that it starts throttling back its performance and (if still too hot) it will shutdown to prevent damage.

So, no matter what the load-profile is, you can't really hurt the CPU just by driving up the load on the CPU. And certainly not using just a single core.

And NOT seeing any load on all cores not really unusual. Getting all cores to do work simultaneously is pretty hard on a CPU with that many cores anyway (outside special benchmark programs that are explicitly designed to stress all cores at least).

You either need to run a whole lot of programs in a parallel or run a program that needs many internal parallel processing threads. Usually a PC just doesn't hit that many parallel processes.
64-core CPU's are usually only found in servers and very high-end workstations. They are usually total over-kill for a normal system.

I've got several 12 and 16 core systems at my disposal at work and at home. I rarely get them to use all my cores with normal work.
Only happens if I have to compile a very large software project (multi-threaded build) and have several heavy multi-threaded applications (3D rendering software, video trans-coding) running in the background as well.

Tonny
  • 29,601
  • 7
  • 52
  • 84
  • The average load on all cores are very low, but what worries me is that core 1 is always at 100%. I have another home computer which has 4 cores, but the same theory should apply. If I affinix all processes to core 1 rather than evenly distribute them or let the modern OS handle them, does it do any damage to the CPU? – Gqqnbig Oct 13 '22 at 09:06
  • Like I have 4 video cards, if I always mine bitcoin on GPU 1, GPU 1 wears out faster than GPU 4. I have a hard disk drive. No matter whether it's 1 TB or 4 TB, if I only use the first 1GB, these sectors wear faster than others, right? However, you are saying CPUs are like solid-state drives which have no sectors to die, a CPU with no matter how many cores either works or fails as a whole? – Gqqnbig Oct 13 '22 at 09:14
  • 1
    @Gqqnbig Your question is answered in this answer. Also "SSDs have no sectors to die" is incorrect. – gronostaj Oct 13 '22 at 09:22
  • I got you. No matter how I thrash a single core, all cores concert to live or die together, no core left behind. – Gqqnbig Oct 13 '22 at 09:27