Monday, January 21, 2008

Difference between CPU time and elapsed time

In Performance metrics jargon, we often come across two measurements: CPU time and total elapsed time. So whats the difference between the two?

CPU time is the time for which the CPU was busy executing the task. It does not take into account the time spent in waiting for I/O (disk IO or network IO). Since I/O operations, such as reading files from disk, are performed by the OS, these operations may involve noticeable amount of time in waiting for I/O subsystems to complete their operations. This waiting time will be included in the elapsed time, but not CPU time. Hence CPU time is usually less than the elapsed time.

But in certain cases, the CPU time may be more than the elapsed time !
When multiple threads are used on a multi-processor system or a multi-core system, more than one CPU may be used to complete a task. In this case, the CPU time may be more than the elapsed time.

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