article Windows process CPU workload stats don't match CPU Total

You may notice that the graphing of CPU Total and CPU by Process (e.g. Workload top 10) don't match on multi-CPU or multi-core Windows servers. For example, you may see that your total CPU averages 50% but your top 10 shows 3 processes all at 70% CPU.

This difference is related to the way Windows tracks its performance counters at the process level. The maximum CPU usage is always 100% at the CPU total level. At the per-process level, the total will be 100% x the number of cores. So on a 2-CPU dual-core server, your per-process workload may go as high as 400%.

Keeping this in mind, you can quickly divide per-process CPU workload by the number of cores to get a true understanding of how much of the total CPU a single process is consuming instead of seeing how much of a single core it is consuming.

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