Ryan, From my Unix SysAdmin once you reach 60% CPU utilization you've reached the point of diminishing returns, namely things are going to slow down real fast. This is one time I believe him as we've seen the results. Dick Goulet Senior Oracle DBA Oracle Certified 8i DBA -----Original Message----- From: ryan_gaffuri@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ryan_gaffuri@xxxxxxxxxxx]=20 Sent: Friday, October 22, 2004 3:56 PM To: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: question about cpu usage I'm not a hardware guy or sys admin person so forgive me if this is a stupid question. Leaving out all other variables(such as IO), should I expect performance to be the same in a databse if the server it is riding at is at 90% cpu usages as opposed to 10%? since there would still be spare cycles? Or is there a declining returns as you get closing to the maximum available cpu usage?=20 -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l