The OS can keep a record over time of the maximum frequency each CPU core has ever hit.
This will take into account machine to machine variance, and even environmental factors effecting maximum speed.
This will take into account machine to machine variance, and even environmental factors effecting maximum speed.
Anyway, current processors run a separate clock per core, and maximum clocks are only available when a small number of cores are active; if all cores are busy, that should really be 100%, even if each core is only doing 80% of max for a single core.
Mostly, I want to see % of time cpu is busy, and separately, stats on how throttled the cpu is, because it's hard to combine both into a coherent number. Maybe also some idea of how much of the core is being exercised, if it can be easily measured... I'd love to know when a program is keeping the cpu busy, but not making good use of it.