A method and apparatus for adjusting a frequency of a processor is disclosed herein. In one embodiment, the method includes inhibiting one or more processor cores from exiting an idle state. The method further includes determining a number of processor cores requesting exit from the idle state and a number of non-idle processor cores. The method also includes selecting a maximum frequency for the inhibited processor cores based on the number of inhibited processor cores requesting exit from the idle state and the number of non-idle processor cores. The method includes setting the maximum frequency for the inhibited processor cores, and then uninhibiting the processor cores requesting exit from the idle state.