To check the CPU temperature you will need to install a third-party software, Normal CPU temperature is below 70°C. You can check it on Mac and Linux OS quite easily. In some PCs, this information can be checked form BIOS also.
I am aware of these answers:
Which refer to
Intel Power Gadget
as a way to obtain current CPU frequency, is there a program/method to obtain this information from the terminal? sysctl hw.cpufrequency
only shows the nominal frequency of the CPU, i.e. what the manufacturer has stated. It does not consider Turbo Boost or lower frequencies when CPU is idle. (For example if CPU is i5, 1.4GHz, it will always state 1.4GHz)The
C
solution given it SO using sysctl.h
has the same effect.amanusk
amanuskamanusk
3 Answers
Since your comment mentions that you're really just focused on enabling Terminal (or more accurately not desktop)...
I think that the Intel Power Gadget will help you get your info from Terminal. From Intel:
Intel® Power Gadget also provides a C/C++ Application Programming Interface (API) for accessing this power and frequency data in your program; the API is supported on Windows and Mac OS X. For more information on the API's, see:
And on that same page, also a link to Using the Intel Power Gadget API on Mac OS X
Sorry this isn't a link to an out of the box solution; I spent a few minutes with google to see if I could find someone who already did this without luck.
webmarcwebmarc
Try
top -F -n0 -s3 | grep 'CPU usage'
top
display and update sorted information about processes-F
do not calculate statistics on shared libraries (frameworks)-n0
display zero processes (because we're not interested in them)-s3
update every 3 seconds (default is 1)grep
shows us only the line containing the phrase CPU usageExample Output:
You could even parse the output for display elsewhere.
Be aware that
top
is very resource intensive whilst it is running.Edit: Ah, you want frequency. I know
iStat Menus
has to install a helper to get that info in realtime.nohillside♦
Matt SephtonMatt Sephton
I have to think this is a bit of an X Y question in that 'What are you going to do once you get this number?' and want to answer that directly, but let's dive a bit into what you're trying to measure. CPU interrupts on macOS are shaped in intervals of 150 ms and much of this detail is public from WWDC 2013 and later on power management, App Nap (Session 209 in particular is both good and approachable) and battery life optimizations on macOS.
Since the code and each core of a CPU can and will change hundreds of times a second based on ephemeral load factors, power optimizations that consider what's visible on the screen, what network data arrives, the idea that a modern CPU even has one 'common' clock rate at any one point in time seems to vastly over-simplify reality. With 8 cores on many MacBook Pro and dozens of cores on the iMac Pro - you're boiling a ton of complexity down to one number.
The boosts when a single core can run over clocked are less likely to be easily measured, but you can measure thermal throttling very simply with the thermal logging of
pmset
.You can of course log the spontaneous changes to the thermal throttling of CPU with
pmset -g thermlog
and then map that to the CPU specifications if you can gather them elsewhere.bmike♦bmike
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Does anyone know of a utility to see the current speed of the processor?
To be clear, I'm not looking for the model/speed of the CPU, but rather what the CPU is currently clocked at (i.e. it will reduce speed if it overheats).
Kyle BrandtKyle Brandt
3 Answers
There is a tool that does that called Intel® Power Gadget.
It will show the current load and Frequency
And Version 3.5.3 on macOS:
RuskesRuskes
well there are two ways, if you want to see your processor load you can check activity monitor.
but if you want the actual frequencies here 'Intel Power Gadget' is what you are looking for:(thank Yevgeni for the link)
(UPDATE: APP MAY NOT WORK PROPERLY ON NEWER LAPTOPS os x froze on yosemite)
i just installed it to and it works GREAT
(side note, if you want super accurate readings, keep in mind, the intel application itself, uses some (altho minimal) power)
MacmanimanMacmaniman
If you open Activity Monitor (Applicantions > Utilities > Activity Monitor), you can do two things to get a visual of current processor performance:
1) You can set the Dock icon to display the performance:
In Activity Monitor, go to View > Dock Icon > Show CPU Usage. As a bonus, the performance bars are also shown while Option+Tab'ing through apps.
2) Go to Window > CPU History. This will display a floating window with CPU performance:
It can be set to to always stay on top of other windows too.
SamSam
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protected by bmike♦Jan 8 '15 at 18:57
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