diff --git a/doc/configuration.txt b/doc/configuration.txt
index 230747968..67f4337af 100644
--- a/doc/configuration.txt
+++ b/doc/configuration.txt
@@ -3037,11 +3037,17 @@ master-worker no-exit-on-failure
 
 max-threads-per-group <number>
   Defines the maximum number of threads in a thread group. Unless the number
-  of thread groups is fixed with the thread-groups directive, haproxy will
-  create more thread groups if needed. The default and maximum value is 64.
-  Having a lower value means more groups will potentially be created, which
-  can help improve performances, as a number of data structures are per
-  thread group, and that will mean less contention
+  of thread groups is fixed with the "thread-groups" directive, haproxy will
+  create as many thread groups as needed to satisfy the requested number of
+  threads. Tha minimum value is 1, and the maximum value is 64 (on 64-bit
+  systems, or 32 on 32-bit systems). Lower values reduce contention caused by
+  atomic operations on shared states, but can increase the number of sockets
+  needed to create all listeners and to hold idle backend connections. Higher
+  values will reduce these costs, at the expense of higher CPU usage under
+  contented situations, and lower connection rates. The default value is 16,
+  which provides the best tradeoff that was experimentally found on various
+  tested systems, including x86_64 processors from multiple vendors, and large
+  Arm64 systems, both on bare metal and hypervisors.
 
 mworker-max-reloads <number>
   In master-worker mode, this option limits the number of time a worker can
diff --git a/include/haproxy/defaults.h b/include/haproxy/defaults.h
index 2c9896047..54e733d12 100644
--- a/include/haproxy/defaults.h
+++ b/include/haproxy/defaults.h
@@ -49,6 +49,15 @@
 
 #define MAX_THREADS_PER_GROUP __WORDSIZE
 
+/* Default value for the maximum number of threads per group. Thread counts
+ * beyond this value will induce the creation of new thread groups and thus
+ * limit contention on highly accessed areas. The value may be changed between
+ * 1 and MAX_THREADS_PER_GROUP via the global "max-threads-per-group" setting.
+ */
+#ifndef DEF_MAX_THREADS_PER_GROUP
+#define DEF_MAX_THREADS_PER_GROUP 16
+#endif
+
 /* threads enabled, max_threads defaults to long bits for 1 tgroup or 4 times
  * long bits if more tgroups are enabled.
  */
diff --git a/src/haproxy.c b/src/haproxy.c
index 39d1a0ac6..292679dfe 100644
--- a/src/haproxy.c
+++ b/src/haproxy.c
@@ -209,7 +209,7 @@ struct global global = {
 #endif
 	/* by default allow clients which use a privileged port for TCP only */
 	.clt_privileged_ports = HA_PROTO_TCP,
-	.maxthrpertgroup = MAX_THREADS_PER_GROUP,
+	.maxthrpertgroup = DEF_MAX_THREADS_PER_GROUP,
 	/* others NULL OK */
 };