%CPU Utilization Is A Lie

Stress tests on the Ryzen 9 5900X uncovered a big gap between **reported CPU utilization** and what the chip actually pushes. Around 50% on paper? Could mean close to full throttle in reality—thanks to sneaky behaviors from **SMT resource sharing** and **Turbo frequency scaling**. **Takeaway:** Raw utilization metrics can’t be trusted for capacity planning anymore. They lie. Benchmark real throughput instead.