Pin CPU frequency CPUs, especially laptops, have turboboost, (thermal) throttling, and powersave features. Make sure to pin the CPU core frequency low enough that it can be sustained for long times without throttling. 1 2 3 sudo cpupower frequency-set -g performance sudo cpupower frequency-set -u 2.6GHz sudo cpupower frequency-set -d 2.6GHz Note that even with a pinned CPU frequency, thermal throttling can reduce it.