diff --git a/doc/configuration.txt b/doc/configuration.txt
index 430ab4f82..c84f7f10c 100644
--- a/doc/configuration.txt
+++ b/doc/configuration.txt
@@ -2098,15 +2098,16 @@ cpu-policy <policy>
                         admins to validate setups.
 
    - performance        exactly like group-by-cluster above, except that CPU
-                        clusters whose performance is less than half of the
-                        next more performant one are evicted. These are
-                        typically "little" or "efficient" cores, whose addition
-                        generally doesn't bring significant gains and can
-                        easily be counter-productive (e.g. TLS handshakes).
-                        Often, keeping such cores for other tasks such as
-                        network handling is much more effective. On development
-                        systems, these can also be used to run auxiliary tools
-                        such as load generators and monitoring tools.
+                        clusters composed of cores whose performance is less
+                        than 80% of those of the next more performant one are
+                        evicted. These are typically "little" or "efficient"
+                        cores, whose addition generally doesn't bring significant
+                        gains and can easily be counter-productive (e.g. TLS
+                        handshakes). Often, keeping such cores for other tasks
+                        such as network handling is much more effective. On
+                        development systems, these can also be used to run
+                        auxiliary tools such as load generators and monitoring
+                        tools.
 
    - resource           this is like group-by-cluster above, except that only
                         the smallest and most efficient CPU cluster will be
diff --git a/src/cpu_topo.c b/src/cpu_topo.c
index 8145309f5..759f9fab8 100644
--- a/src/cpu_topo.c
+++ b/src/cpu_topo.c
@@ -1316,7 +1316,7 @@ static int cpu_policy_group_by_ccx(int policy, int tmin, int tmax, int gmin, int
 
 /* the "performance" cpu-policy:
  *  - does nothing if nbthread or thread-groups are set
- *  - eliminates clusters whose total capacity is below half of others
+ *  - eliminates clusters whose average capacity is less than 80% that of others
  *  - tries to create one thread-group per cluster, with as many
  *    threads as CPUs in the cluster, and bind all the threads of
  *    this group to all the CPUs of the cluster.
@@ -1329,22 +1329,26 @@ static int cpu_policy_performance(int policy, int tmin, int tmax, int gmin, int
 	if (global.nbthread || global.nbtgroups)
 		return 0;
 
-	/* sort clusters by reverse capacity */
-	cpu_cluster_reorder_by_capa(ha_cpu_clusters, cpu_topo_maxcpus);
+	/* sort clusters by average reverse capacity */
+	cpu_cluster_reorder_by_avg_capa(ha_cpu_clusters, cpu_topo_maxcpus);
 
 	capa = 0;
 	for (cluster = 0; cluster < cpu_topo_maxcpus; cluster++) {
-		if (capa && ha_cpu_clusters[cluster].capa < capa / 2) {
-			/* This cluster is more than twice as slow as the
-			 * previous one, we're not interested in using it.
+		if (capa && ha_cpu_clusters[cluster].capa * 10 < ha_cpu_clusters[cluster].nb_cpu * capa * 8) {
+			/* This cluster is made of cores delivering less than
+			 * 80% of the performance of those of the previous
+			 * cluster, previous one, we're not interested in
+			 * using it.
 			 */
 			for (cpu = 0; cpu <= cpu_topo_lastcpu; cpu++) {
 				if (ha_cpu_topo[cpu].cl_gid == ha_cpu_clusters[cluster].idx)
 					ha_cpu_topo[cpu].st |= HA_CPU_F_IGNORED;
 			}
 		}
+		else if (ha_cpu_clusters[cluster].nb_cpu)
+			capa = ha_cpu_clusters[cluster].capa / ha_cpu_clusters[cluster].nb_cpu;
 		else
-			capa = ha_cpu_clusters[cluster].capa;
+			capa = 0;
 	}
 
 	cpu_cluster_reorder_by_index(ha_cpu_clusters, cpu_topo_maxcpus);