What is the best CPU/RAM meter for OS X?

December 3, 2005 5:52 PM

What is the best (small, simple, and efficient) CPU/RAM meter for OS X?

One of the best ways to keep OS X running fast and smooth is through constant monitoring of system resources. I'm using the Activity Monitor and like the way it displays a pie chart in the dock. What I'd like is something that can show both RAM and CPU use at the same time with a fairly frequent update or the ability to set the time between updates.

Requirement summary:

• Must show overall RAM and CPU usage in dock, small floating window, or menu bar. (No widgets please - want to see meter without switching views.)
• Must use very few resources. (Some of the more popular meters tend to be memory or CPU hogs. How ironic.)
• Prefer no visible UI of its own. (Don't want it to act like a foreground process occupying my cmd-tabby switcher.)

Thank you so much for your recommendations.

posted by Typographica to Computers & Internet (13 answers total)

Best answer: MenuMeters
Description:
Can be customized to display memory & CPU usage only. Best part, it's free...

Description:
MenuMeters is a set of CPU, memory, disk, and network monitoring tools for MacOS X. Although there are numerous other programs which do the same thing, none had quite the feature set I was looking for. Most were windows that sat in a corner or on the desktop, which are inevitably obscured by document windows on a PowerBook's small screen. Those monitors which used the menubar mostly used the NSStatusItem API, which has the annoying tendency to totally reorder my menubar on every login.
posted by Sagres at 6:01 PM on December 3, 2005

Best answer: MenuMeters.
Free, highly customisable preference pane that can display CPU, RAM, disk and/or network usage in the menu bar.
posted by nowonmai at 6:02 PM on December 3, 2005

Heh. My link is better :-P
posted by nowonmai at 6:02 PM on December 3, 2005

Response by poster: Thanks guys. Trying MenuMeters now. Isn't pretty, but gets the job done. Wish I could put it all in a floating window.

Also, could anyone describe the difference between "wired", "active", and "inactive" memory?
posted by Typographica at 6:32 PM on December 3, 2005

Response by poster: And on the CPU tip: "nice load"?
posted by Typographica at 6:33 PM on December 3, 2005

Best answer: This document is a pretty good (if high-level) explanation of what wired / active / inactive mean.
posted by xil at 7:11 PM on December 3, 2005

"Wish I could put it all in a floating window."

Don't know if you're onto the widget wagon but SysStat has good reviews (and passable style points).
posted by jeremias at 8:14 PM on December 3, 2005

I really like iPulse if you're into the floating window thingy. A little non-traditional but cool.
posted by kindall at 9:24 PM on December 3, 2005

iPulse chews up a LOT of processor.
posted by ikkyu2 at 11:16 PM on December 3, 2005

I use Activity Monitor, showing CPU in the dock, and Memory Montor, also showing in the dock.
posted by stoney at 6:57 AM on December 4, 2005

If you have Tiger, the MiniStat widgets are useful. The dashboard can be a resource hog, but if you've already got it running, these widgets add very little.
posted by Popular Ethics at 9:14 AM on December 4, 2005

X Resource Graph does floating windows, plus it shows temperatures of various internal sensors.
posted by jaimev at 12:33 PM on December 4, 2005

I use some shell commands and geek tool to have these stats always going on my desktop.
posted by 31d1 at 1:08 PM on December 4, 2005