Will the iStat menu meters show all 8 CPU's

Question

Will the iStat menu meters show all 8 CPU's

My dual core 2007 Mac Pro was taken by a burglar. The 2.93 8 core Mac is ordered and am wondering if the iStat menu meters will show each 8 core processor in the menu? Any help will be appreciated.

Rachael

Mac Pro 3Ghz 12 Gig Ram 4 500 Gigabyte HD's, Mac OS X (10.5.7), I am a student but I am not blond

Posted on Aug 4, 2009 2:45 AM

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Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Aug 4, 2009 3:09 AM in response to Rachael Jellicoe

Install it and find out. Exactly what other help do you need?

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Answer 2

qd.smits

Level 2

205 points

Aug 4, 2009 3:16 AM in response to Rachael Jellicoe

You will see 16, because of Hyperthreading. You can also set it to only show 1.

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Answer 3

Aug 4, 2009 12:36 PM in response to qd.smits

Thanks,

I didn't know that the 8 cpu's were hyper threaded. Having a graph of 16 cpu's across my menu bar may be a bit much. I may have to only graph all cpu's at once as you stated. Thanks for your help.

Rachael

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Answer 4

Samsara

Level 4

1,327 points

Aug 4, 2009 6:17 PM in response to Rachael Jellicoe

Hi Rachael Jellicoe, 🙂

It's an odd thing to see "phantom" cores. I'm sure there's an explanation behind it, but as yet our monitoring apps makers don't seem to regard it important or worthwhile enough to change. Here's a ten dollar app that shows quite a bit more than istat.
http://www.bresink.de/osx/216202/screenshots.html

And here's a screenshot it shows of my info.
http://i528.photobucket.com/albums/dd325/senecat/sensorsinHM.png
Note the 16 rather than eight. Nice to see though. 🙂

Maybe I'll ask the maker of HM a question about it and see what he says. He always replies to an email.
Ok, I did.

Anyway, I've always been curious about this myself.

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Answer 5

Aug 5, 2009 1:58 AM in response to Samsara

Samsara,

Thanks for the information. I will look into that program. The bottom line is I am looking for a easy way to determine which of my various programs are using as many of the cpu's as possible without having to enter the System Activity utility.

Thanks again for your help.

Rachael

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Answer 6

Samsara

Level 4

1,327 points

Aug 5, 2009 4:01 AM in response to Rachael Jellicoe

Hi Rachael,

I received an email from Marcel Bresink, the maker of HM and all those products on his pages, elaborating more fully on what the speed racer Mr. Smit said 😉

"When you are using Mac OS X 10.5.6 or later on an Intel processor
with "Core i7" technology, the operating system will automatically
enable a processor feature named Simultaneous Multithreading (also
called "Hyper-Threading Technology" by Intel).

With this feature, each CPU core will support a second hardware
thread, simulating twice the number of virtual processors. Mac OS X
Leoapard does not and cannot distinguish between real and virtual
cores, so your machine is basically running as a 16-core system.
The virtual cores only reach 15-30% of the performance of "full"
processors, however.

Hardware Monitor correctly reflects this. The true and the logical
numbers of cores will be shown in the System Information window (cmd+4)
of Hardware Monitor."

Why not Activity Monitor? You've seen these oft forgot CPU gauges in AM, haven't you? I admit I was surprised. This is with 17 apps open, including PS4 and AfterEffects:
http://i528.photobucket.com/albums/dd325/senecat/ama.png

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Answer 7

qd.smits

Level 2

205 points

Aug 5, 2009 4:27 AM in response to Samsara

As long as you're "idling" or doing nothing, your apps will probably use very little CPU power. Memory usage is another story.

Try looking at these graphs when you're actually doing something in those apps! (Or try opening a random Youtube page (or something else Flash-heavy) and look at Safari's CPU usage...)

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