A processing platform and a method of controlling power consumption of a central processing unit of the processing platform are presented. By operating the method the processing platform is able to set an upper performance state limit and a lower performance state limit. The upper performance state limit is based on a central processing unit activity rate value and the lower performance state limit is based on a minimum require of the operating system to perform operating system tasks. The performance state values are varying within a range of the lower and upper limits according to a power management policy.