Server CPU load is the amount of CPU tasks waiting to be processed and running, The outcome is relative to the amount of CPU available. A load of 1 when you have 2 cores means you are using 50% of the CPU allowance at that time.

Once you get to 100% tasks have to wait like a  queue to get processed.

In Linux systems you can view server load a few ways:

cat /proc/loadavg

uptime

htop

top

Server CPU load will look like this:

For the last minute 0.40 processes have been waiting,  Past 5 minutes it has been 0.58 and over the past 15 minutes an average of 0.56 processes have had to wait.

Running nproc tells me I have 8 CPU processing units available on this system.

That means for me to have max CPU use (100%) I would need to see Load average: 8…

As a good rule of thumb if the nproc number is above your load number you likely have high server CPU load. If the load is under half of your nproc output or even better under 1 you are running the server under its capacity.

If you had a 1 vCPU virtual container that had Load Average 1.1 0.92 0.86 you are using close to, at and even over 100%