Automatic yielding on lock contention for a multi-threaded processor

A method and system are provided for managing processor resources in a multi-threaded processor. When attempting to acquire a lock on resources available in the cache, tests are conducted to determine if there is a lock on the resource as well as a state of the cache associated with the resource. If it is determined that the lock is in use by another thread, the lock requesting thread may spin on the lock. In limited circumstances a high priority may be assigned to the lock holding thread and a low priority may be assigned to the thread spinning on the lock. Processor resources are proportionally assigned to the threads based upon the assigned priorities, thereby allowing the processor to allocate more resources to a thread assigned a high priority and fewer resources to a thread assigned a low priority.