Understanding CPU related output displayed by lshw

Question

I am trying to understand the meaning of some of the CPU related output provided by lshw.

$ sudo lshw -class processor
  *-cpu                   
       description: CPU
       product: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2400 CPU @ 3.10GHz
       vendor: Intel Corp.
       physical id: 4
       bus info: cpu@0
       version: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2400 CPU @ 3.10GH
       serial: Not Specified
       slot: CPU 1
       size: 1600MHz
       capacity: 4GHz
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 100MHz
       capabilities: x86-64 fpu fpu_exception wp vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx rdtscp constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic popcnt aes xsave avx lahf_lm ida arat epb xsaveopt pln pts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid cpufreq
       configuration: cores=4 enabledcores=4 threads=4

I would appreciate if somebody can shed some light on the following keys:

slot
size
capacity
width
clock: I was under the impression that the clock speed is 3.10 GHz.

wojciechz · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-10T14:45:01.447

2

Fix me if I'm wrong

slot - imagine that you have 4 processors - slots are numbered from CPU 1 to CPU 4. This is physical slot - not a core or thread
size - honestly I'm not sure but looks like FSB which can be treated as size of the processor multiplied by processor multiplier (for example 3.10GHz is 1600Mhz FSB * 1.93)
capacity - I would not treat capacity as important and credible parameter. It probably shows you the nominal maximum value of multiplication of FSB that is supported by the processor
width - of course the "width" of the addressing - which is here 64bit
clock is probably one increment of multiplier - in other words a "step" that is used while increasing or decreasing actual speed

Please look here for more specific and less subjective info:

http://ezix.org/project/wiki/HardwareLiSter#Howtointerpretlshwsoutput

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front-side_bus#CPU

edited Jan 10 '13 at 14:45

answered Jan 10 '13 at 14:11

wojciechz

538
3
11

Can you elaborate on 3.10GHz is 1600Mhz FSB * 1.93? – Ifthikhan Jan 10 '13 at 14:32
1

Probably this resource will be most relevant to your troubles : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front-side_bus#CPU and http://ezix.org/project/wiki/HardwareLiSter#Howtointerpretlshwsoutput – wojciechz Jan 10 '13 at 14:36
1

I suggest you add the above links especially the second to the answer. – Ifthikhan Jan 10 '13 at 14:39

Understanding CPU related output displayed by lshw

1 Answers1