I think if you use the --show switch it might make more sense:
$ numactl --show policy: default preferred node: current physcpubind: 0 1 2 3 cpubind: 0 nodebind: 0 membind: 0 So you can control the use of physcpubind's like this:
$ numactl --physcpubind=+0-2 myapp This would limit the application myapp to the first 2 CPU cores. My system is an i5 with 4 cores.