Analyzing CPU load in multicore CPUs

Question

I am trying to find out ideal load average for one of my linux servers. I understood load should be proportional to the no of cpu cores. But my doubt is that, how will we analyze this in case of multi core CPUs?

[root@server unnik]#  getconf _NPROCESSORS_ONLN
16
[root@server unnik]#


[root@server unnik]# grep "cpu cores" /proc/cpuinfo
cpu cores       : 4
cpu cores       : 4
cpu cores       : 4
cpu cores       : 4
cpu cores       : 4
cpu cores       : 4
cpu cores       : 4
cpu cores       : 4
cpu cores       : 4
cpu cores       : 4
cpu cores       : 4
cpu cores       : 4
cpu cores       : 4
cpu cores       : 4
cpu cores       : 4
cpu cores       : 4
[root@server unnik]#

So, suppose If I see a load average of 20, Should I compare it with 16(no of CPUs) or 16*4=64 (no of cpu x no of cores per cpu) ?