What is CPU utilization and CPU Load?

CPU Utilization is the term used to denote the percentage of CPU utilized/used.

90 % CPU utilzation means 10% of CPU is still not used and is idle.

CPU Load is the term which denotes the number of processes waiting to be scheduled for CPU.

Its generally taken as the average for 1 min.

CPU load is often measured in terms of Run-Queue length.

As a thumb rule CPU load should not be more than the number of CPUs of the system.

If you can look CPU Load in another perspective, Load is a measure of the amount of work that a computer system performs.

To make it simpler, a system with CPU Load 10 as well as another system with CPU Load 20  can have both CPU utilization of 100%,but definitely the second system is doing more work.