The file /proc/cpuinfo contains useful information about your processor(s). This page explains, what this file actually tells you.
The following is an output from /proc/cpuinfo on a laptop with a Core 2 Duo T7200 CPU.
processor : 1 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 15 model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU T7200 @ 2.00GHz stepping : 6 cpu MHz : 1000.000 cache size : 4096 KB physical id : 0 siblings : 2 core id : 1 cpu cores : 2 fdiv_bug : no hlt_bug : no f00f_bug : no coma_bug : no fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 10 wp : yes flags : fpu 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 lm constant_tsc pni monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr lahf_lm bogomips : 3990.09 clflush size : 64
As you can see, the file tells us we have one processor with two cores. Furthermore the cpu is clocked down to 1000 MHz. We also have a bunch of flags which tells us what extra instructions this processor has to offer.
flags
The flags line tells us what extra instructions the processor has to offer. This is a listing of flags with a short explanation of each. There is an even shorter explanation in the file /usr/include/asm/cpufeature.h.
Intel flags (This table is currently identical with /usr/include/asm/cpufeature.h. Hopefully some hardware god will share his wisdom and expand this table. )
Flag Description Common in processor types
- fpu Onboard (x87) Floating Point Unit
- vme Virtual Mode Extension
- de Debugging Extensions
- pse Page Size Extensions
- tsc Time Stamp Counter: support for RDTSC and WRTSC instructions
- msr Model-Specific Registers
- pae Physical Address Extensions: ability to access 64GB of memory; only 4GB can be accessed at a time though
- mce Machine Check Architecture
- cx8 CMPXCHG8 instruction
- apic Onboard Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller
- sep Sysenter/Sysexit Instructions; SYSENTER is used for jumps to kernel memory during system calls, and SYSEXIT is used for jumps back to the user code
- mtrr Memory Type Range Registers
- pge Page Global Enable
- mca Machine Check Architecture
- cmov CMOV instruction
- pat Page Attribute Table
- pse36 36-bit Page Size Extensions: allows to map 4 MB pages into the first 64GB RAM, used with PSE.
- pn Processor Serial-Number; only available on Pentium 3
- clflush CLFLUSH instruction
- dtes Debug Trace Store
- acpi ACPI via MSR
- mmx MultiMedia Extension
- fxsr FXSAVE and FXSTOR instructions
- sse Streaming SIMD Extensions. Single instruction multiple data. Lets you do a bunch of the same operation on different pieces of input in a single clock tick.
- sse2 Streaming SIMD Extensions-2. More of the same.
- selfsnoop CPU self snoop
- acc Automatic Clock Control
- IA64 IA-64 processor Itanium.
- ht HyperThreading. Introduces an imaginary second processor that doesn’t do much but lets you run threads in the same process a bit quicker.
- nx No Execute bit. Prevents arbitrary code running via buffer overflows.
- pni Prescott New Instructions aka. SSE3
- vmx Intel Vanderpool hardware virtualization technology
- svm AMD “Pacifica” hardware virtualization technology
- lm “Long Mode,” which means the chip supports the AMD64 instruction set
- tm “Thermal Monitor” Thermal throttling with IDLE instructions. Usually hardware controlled in response to CPU temperature.
- tm2 “Thermal Monitor 2” Decrease speed by reducing multipler and vcore.
- est “Enhanced SpeedStep”
Cited from : http://www.gentoo-wiki.info/Gentoo:/proc/cpuinfo
