Raspberry Pi - How To Check CPU Speed

Checking the CPU speed of a Raspberry Pi device is easy. Oftentimes people do this when overclocking their systems. The clock speed of the CPU will change depending on CPU load.

This command should show you what your current clock speed is. It will likely be lower than the max value if it is idling. It will display in hertz.

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq

This will tell you the maximum CPU Frequency in hertz ( what it should be when the system is under load ):

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_max_freq

This will tell you the minimum CPU frequency in hertz ( what it should be when idle ):

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_min_freq

This command should also tell you what your CPU clock speed is configured to be limited to. It displays in megahertz.

vcgencmd get_config arm_freq

You can use this command to watch the CPU speed in one terminal and do other work in another terminal:

watch -n 1 cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq