My new server has 2 x X5570 CPUs.
Now here is the output of grep -i hz /proc/cpuinfo
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5570 @ 2.93GHz
cpu MHz : 1600.231
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5570 @ 2.93GHz
cpu MHz : 1600.231
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5570 @ 2.93GHz
cpu MHz : 1600.231
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5570 @ 2.93GHz
cpu MHz : 1600.231
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5570 @ 2.93GHz
cpu MHz : 1600.231
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5570 @ 2.93GHz
cpu MHz : 1600.231
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5570 @ 2.93GHz
cpu MHz : 1600.231
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5570 @ 2.93GHz
cpu MHz : 1600.231
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5570 @ 2.93GHz
cpu MHz : 1600.231
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5570 @ 2.93GHz
cpu MHz : 1600.231
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5570 @ 2.93GHz
cpu MHz : 1600.231
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5570 @ 2.93GHz
cpu MHz : 1600.231
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5570 @ 2.93GHz
cpu MHz : 1600.231
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5570 @ 2.93GHz
cpu MHz : 1600.231
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5570 @ 2.93GHz
cpu MHz : 1600.231
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5570 @ 2.93GHz
cpu MHz : 1600.231
It always remains the same.. no matter how much load is mysql or any other app hogging. Even when mysql eats 2 or 3 CPUs at 100% each, the output of cpuinfo is the same.
If fact mysql performance for some heavy inserts is poorer than my old E5430 server.
Any clues? I contacted the server provider, they tried turning off SpeedStep and still we see the same results.
Any insights would be helpful cause I am paying heavily for this box and would love to milk all juice i can.
/proc/cpuinfo isnt your currently cpu usage speed, its you hardware info on cpu.
you have to at least use top to see your current usages.
The powertop utility can display this type of information.
You want to install lm_sensors, cpufrequtils and cpufreqd. Cpufreqd is a daemon that can manage assigning different 'governors', like 'ondemand' or 'conservative.' Cpufrequtils set and get the status of the CPU's. Lm_sensors monitors the cores so you know what's really the impact of the changes. You also might need an appropriate kernel module loaded, like acpi_cpufreq.ko but that's starting to get into a chip/chipset specific settings.