Oct 25, 2013 All macs (except the Mac Pro) have a single processor (physical chip). They may have 4 cores (cpu) each is hyperthreaded. So it will look like there are 4 processors. Some physical chips have 6 or 8 cores. Each is hyper threaded, so can do 12 or 16 operations at a time. If you had 2 physical chips, then you'd be capable of 24 or 36 operations. Jul 01, 2014 Do you want to view a single graph showing the aggregate usage of all the four CPU cores in the main Activity Monitor window of your Mac® system? Feb 02, 2018 Monitoring CPU Frequency and other CPU-centric details With this in mind, an app like Intel Power Gadget allows you to keep a close eye on both base clock and turbo frequencies. The CPU is the main unit of your computer whether you are using a Mac or an Android. It does all the heavy lifting when you are gaming or just browsing. If your system has more cores, it means it can handle more processes at the same time. This will improve the performance of your computer significantly.
This article describes some of the commonly used features of Activity Monitor, a kind of task manager that allows you see how apps and other processes are affecting your CPU, memory, energy, disk, and network usage.
Open Activity Monitor from the Utilities folder of your Applications folder, or use Spotlight to find it.
Overview
The processes shown in Activity Monitor can be user apps, system apps used by macOS, or invisible background processes. Use the five category tabs at the top of the Activity Monitor window to see how processes are affecting your Mac in each category.
Add or remove columns in each of these panes by choosing View > Columns from the menu bar. The View menu also allows you to choose which processes are shown in each pane:
- All Processes
- All Processes Hierarchically: Processes that belong to other processes, so you can see the parent/child relationship between them.
- My Processes: Processes owned by your macOS user account.
- System Processes: Processes owned by macOS.
- Other User Processes: Processes that aren’t owned by the root user or current user.
- Active Processes: Running processes that aren’t sleeping.
- Inactive Processes: Running processes that are sleeping.
- Windowed Processes: Processes that can create a window. These are usually apps.
- Selected Processes: Processes that you selected in the Activity Monitor window.
- Applications in the last 8 hours: Apps that were running processes in the last 8 hours.
CPU
The CPU pane shows how processes are affecting CPU (processor) activity:
Click the top of the “% CPU” column to sort by the percentage of CPU capability used by each process. This information and the information in the Energy pane can help identify processes that are affecting Mac performance, battery runtime, temperature, and fan activity.
More information is available at the bottom of the CPU pane:
- System: The percentage of CPU capability currently used by system processes, which are processes that belong to macOS.
- User: The percentage of CPU capability currently used by apps that you opened, or by the processes those apps opened.
- Idle: The percentage of CPU capability not being used.
- CPU Load: The percentage of CPU capability currently used by all System and User processes. The graph moves from right to left and updates at the intervals set in View > Update Frequency. The color blue shows the percentage of total CPU capability currently used by user processes. The color red shows the percentage of total CPU capability currently used by system processes.
- Threads: The total number of threads used by all processes combined.
- Processes: The total number of processes currently running.
You can also see CPU or GPU usage in a separate window or in the Dock:
- To open a window showing current processor activity, choose Window > CPU Usage. To show a graph of this information in your Dock, choose View > Dock Icon > Show CPU Usage.
- To open a window showing recent processor activity, choose Window > CPU History. To show a graph of this information in your Dock, choose View > Dock Icon > Show CPU History.
- To open a window showing recent graphics processor (GPU) activity, choose Window > GPU History. Energy usage related to such activity is incorporated into the energy-impact measurements in the Energy tab of Activity Monitor.
Memory
The Memory pane shows information about how memory is being used:
More information is available at the bottom of the Memory pane:
- Memory Pressure: The Memory Pressure graph helps illustrate the availability of memory resources. The graph moves from right to left and updates at the intervals set in View > Update Frequency. The current state of memory resources is indicated by the color at the right side of the graph:
- Green: Memory resources are available.
- Yellow: Memory resources are still available but are being tasked by memory-management processes, such as compression.
- Red: Memory resources are depleted, and macOS is using your startup drive for memory. To make more RAM available, you can quit one or more apps or install more RAM. This is the most important indicator that your Mac may need more RAM.
- Physical Memory: The amount of RAM installed in your Mac.
- Memory Used: The total amount of memory currently used by all apps and macOS processes.
- App Memory: The total amount of memory currently used by apps and their processes.
- Wired Memory: Memory that can’t be compressed or paged out to your startup drive, so it must stay in RAM. The wired memory used by a process can’t be borrowed by other processes. The amount of wired memory used by an app is determined by the app's programmer.
- Compressed: The amount of memory in RAM that is compressed to make more RAM memory available to other processes. Look in the Compressed Mem column to see the amount of memory compressed for each process.
- Swap Used: The space used on your startup drive by macOS memory management. It's normal to see some activity here. As long as memory pressure is not in the red state, macOS has memory resources available.
- Cached Files: Memory that was recently used by apps and is now available for use by other apps. For example, if you've been using Mail and then quit Mail, the RAM that Mail was using becomes part of the memory used by cached files, which then becomes available to other apps. If you open Mail again before its cached-files memory is used (overwritten) by another app, Mail opens more quickly because that memory is quickly converted back to app memory without having to load its contents from your startup drive.
For more information about memory management, refer to the Apple Developer website.
Energy
The Energy pane shows overall energy use and the energy used by each app:
- Energy Impact: A relative measure of the current energy consumption of the app. Lower numbers are better. A triangle to the left of an app's name means that the app consists of multiple processes. Click the triangle to see details about each process.
- Avg Energy Impact: The average energy impact for the past 8 hours or since the Mac started up, whichever is shorter. Average energy impact is also shown for apps that were running during that time, but have since been quit. The names of those apps are dimmed.
- App Nap: Apps that support App Nap consume very little energy when they are open but not being used. For example, an app might nap when it's hidden behind other windows, or when it's open in a space that you aren't currently viewing.
- Preventing Sleep: Indicates whether the app is preventing your Mac from going to sleep.
More information is available at the bottom of the Energy pane:
- Energy Impact: A relative measure of the total energy used by all apps. The graph moves from right to left and updates at the intervals set in View > Update Frequency.
- Graphics Card: The type of graphics card currently used. Higher–performance cards use more energy. Macs that support automatic graphics switching save power by using integrated graphics. They switch to a higher-performance graphics chip only when an app needs it. 'Integrated' means the Mac is currently using integrated graphics. 'High Perf.' means the Mac is currently using high-performance graphics. To identify apps that are using high-performance graphics, look for apps that show 'Yes' in the Requires High Perf GPU column.
- Remaining Charge: The percentage of charge remaining on the battery of a portable Mac.
- Time Until Full: The amount of time your portable Mac must be plugged into an AC power outlet to become fully charged.
- Time on AC: The time elapsed since your portable Mac was plugged into an AC power outlet.
- Time Remaining: The estimated amount of battery time remaining on your portable Mac.
- Time on Battery: The time elapsed since your portable Mac was unplugged from AC power.
- Battery (Last 12 hours): The battery charge level of your portable Mac over the last 12 hours. The color green shows times when the Mac was getting power from a power adapter.
As energy use increases, the length of time that a Mac can operate on battery power decreases. If the battery life of your portable Mac is shorter than usual, you can use the Avg Energy Impact column to find apps that have been using the most energy recently. Quit those apps if you don't need them, or contact the developer of the app if you notice that the app's energy use remains high even when the app doesn't appear to be doing anything.
Disk
The Disk pane shows the amount of data that each process has read from your disk and written to your disk. It also shows 'reads in' and 'writes out' (IO), which is the number of times that your Mac accesses the disk to read and write data.
The information at the bottom of the Disk pane shows total disk activity across all processes. The graph moves from right to left and updates at the intervals set in View > Update Frequency. The graph also includes a pop-up menu to switch between showing IO or data as a unit of measurement. The color blue shows either the number of reads per second or the amount of data read per second. The color red shows either the number of writes out per second or the amount of data written per second.
To show a graph of disk activity in your Dock, choose View > Dock Icon > Show Disk Activity.
Network
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The Network pane shows how much data your Mac is sending or receiving over your network. Use this information to identify which processes are sending or receiving the most data.
The information at the bottom of the Network pane shows total network activity across all apps. The graph moves from right to left and updates at the intervals set in View > Update Frequency. The graph also includes a pop-up menu to switch between showing packets or data as a unit of measurement. The color blue shows either the number of packets received per second or the amount of data received per second. The color red shows either the number of packets sent per second or the amount of data sent per second.
To show a graph of network usage in your Dock, choose View > Dock Icon > Show Network Usage.
Cache
In macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 or later, Activity Monitor shows the Cache pane when Content Caching is enabled in the Sharing pane of System Preferences. The Cache pane shows how much cached content that local networked devices have uploaded, downloaded, or dropped over time.
Use the Maximum Cache Pressure information to learn whether to adjust Content Caching settings to provide more disk space to the cache. Lower cache pressure is better. Learn more about cache activity.
The graph at the bottom shows total caching activity over time. Choose from the pop-up menu above the graph to change the interval: last hour, 24 hours, 7 days, or 30 days.
Learn more
- Learn about kernel task and why Activity Monitor might show that it's using a large percentage of your CPU.
- For more information about Activity Monitor, open Activity Monitor and choose Help > Activity Monitor. You can also see a short description of many items in the Activity Monitor window by hovering the mouse pointer over the item.
You can buy a ready-to-ship Mac at any Apple Store, reseller, or online vendor, but if you want something custom, you have to go to Apple's website and build it to order (BTO). That way, if any of the standard configurations aren't enough for you, you can bump up the CPU, add more memory, and even go with faster storage. Not every Mac has every option, of course, but for the ones that do, it's worth asking — which upgrades are worth the price?
Are CPU upgrades worth it?
The CPU — central processing unit — is the engine that makes your Mac go. Currently provided by Intel, they range from the ultra-low-power Core i3 to the ultra-powerful quad-core Core i9 in high-end MacBook Pro and iMac, to the Xeon workstation chips in the Mac Po.
Generally speaking, faster cores let you do single things faster. More cores let you do more things at once. So, getting a faster core is like upgrading from a regular car to a race car. Going from dual to quad-core is like getting a second car.
Since you can't change a CPU after you buy your Mac, you want to make sure you buy the right one — not just for your needs now, but for your needs next year and the year after that.
- MacBook Air 13-inch: The baseline is a 1.1 GHz dual-core i3 processor, but that's a bit slow unless you're just looking for a couch browser or travel computer that's not an iPad. You can upgrade to the i5, which really is the sweet spot for most people. If you're doing a lot of intensive work, though, the quad-core 1.2GHz 10th-generation Intel Core i7 processor is worth the upgrade.
- MacBook Pro 13-inch: All 13-inch MacBook Pro models come with either 1.4 or 2.4GHz quad-core i5 processors. Most people are going to be happy with one of these. If you need a little extra bump, choose the 2.4GHz model. If you do a lot of graphics editing, VR or AR app developing, or otherwise use graphics-heavy programs, it may be worth it to you to spend the extra $300 on the 2.8GHz quad‑core 8th‑generation Intel Core i7 processor upgrade.If you are testing an app that’s for Apple Watch only, tap Install or Update from the Apps list. If the app is an iOS app that includes an Apple Watch app, install the iOS app first, then from the App Details page under the Information section, you will see a Watch section. Mar 09, 2020 Apple is testing new iMessage features internally, according to information obtained by MacRumors. While these features could potentially arrive as early as iOS 14, they could be held back until a. Jun 19, 2020 The app, which has been dubbed COCOA, for COVID-19 Contact-Confirming Application, will use the standard Apple-Google exposure notification system. Testing an apple app on a mac. Mar 24, 2020 Securing iPad or Mac for testing with a supported app requires no additional setup or management, such as Mobile Device Management (MDM). Apps with Assessment Mode lock iPad or Mac into the single app automatically, which means that while Assessment Mode is active, users can't switch to another app.
- MacBook Pro 16-inch: The baseline 16-inch with Touch Bar comes with a 2.6 GHz 6-Core i7 or 2.3GHz 8-core 9th-generation Intel Core i9 processor. Upgrading the processor will make your MacBook Pro absolutely scream, but all those cores and all that speed comes at the expense of battery life. Still, if you're going high-end, $200 isn't a lot more to add on.
- iMac 4K 21.5-inch: The lower-end iMac starts with a 2.3GHz dual-core 7th-gen Intel Core i5 processor and goes up to a 3.0GHz 6-core 8th-gen Intel Core i7 processor. You can ramp that up to a 3.2GHz 6-core 8th-generation Intel Core i7 processor for $200. If you're buying the 4K Mac for budgeting purposes, that extra money may not be worth it. The 3.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i3 processor model is a good middle ground. It's $200 more than the baseline model, but a solid investment.
- iMac 5K 27-inch: You can get a 3.0GHz 6-core 8th-gen Intel Core i5 standard and up to 3.7GHz 6-core 9th-gen Intel Core processor. For $400 more, you can bump it up to a 3.6GHz 8-core 9th-generation Intel Core i9 processor. At this point, for the price, however, I recommend you start looking into the iMac Pro. The standard model is going to give you more of what you're looking for.
- iMac Pro: You're really upping your game by starting with the iMac Pro. It comes standard with 3.2GHz 8-core Intel Xeon W processor. For $800 more, you're going to get a 3.0GHz 10-core Intel Xeon W processor, but you can max out the CPU to a 2.3GHz 18-core Intel Xeon W processor for $2,400. Your pro needs are going to determine what suits you best, but if you need an iMac Pro, you probably need a little more than the baseline. I recommend bumping up to 2.5GHz 14-core Intel Xeon W processor to max out your efficiency. It's the best value for your money. It's worth pointing out, however, that the silicon in the iMac Pro is a few years old at this point, so it may be smarter to either go with a Mac Pro or wait for the iMac Pro to receive a processor update.
- Mac mini: The Mac mini comes standard with a 3.6GHz quad-core 8th-generation Intel Core i3 processor and jumps up to a 3.0GHz 6-core 8th-generation Intel Core i5 processor. For $200 more, you can bump it up to a 3.2GHz 6‑core 8th‑generation Intel Core i7 processor. Depending on your needs, I'd say the i7 may be unnecessary. Stick with the 6-core i5 model or go with the baseline if you don't plan on putting too much strain on your DIY Mac. Remember, you can stack these babies, so it may be smarter to spend the money on multiple Mac minis.
- Mac Pro: I don't even know where to start with this one. It comes standard with a 3.5GHz 8‑core Intel Xeon W processor, but if you're buying a Mac Pro, you probably need something a little faster. For $7,000, you can upgrade to a 2.5GHz 28‑core Intel Xeon W processor, but that is overkill for a lot of your needs. Most pros recommend upgrading to either a 3.3GHz 12‑core Intel Xeon W processor for $1,000 more or a 3.2GHz 16‑core Intel Xeon W processor for $2,000. This level is suitable for CPU rendering, compiling large projects, running multiple virtual machines, and similar tasks.You are providing your consent to Epson America, Inc., doing business as Epson, so that we may send you promotional emails. You may withdraw your consent or view our privacy policy at any time. To contact Epson America, you may write to 3840 Kilroy Airport Way, Long Beach, CA 90806. Epson v600 software download mac.
Are RAM upgrades worth it?
The more memory your Mac has, the bigger the images and videos you can work with, the more apps you can keep live, and generally, the better performance you'll get. Modern Macs are more memory efficient than ever. But if you want to work with a lot of files, and a lot of big files, RAM can still make your experience smoother.
Increasingly, Mac memory is also soldered right to the board, just like the processors. The 27-inch iMac still lets you change memory after purchase but, with MacBooks, what you buy is what you're stuck with. So, again, don't buy for today. Buy for tomorrow.
- MacBook Air: Apple's ultra-light laptops come with 8 GB of RAM, but you can upgrade to up to 16GB for $200 more. If you plan on running a lot of processor-heavy apps at the same time, you're going to want to spend that extra money. I recommend investing here. The more RAM you have, the faster your apps will run when your MacBook Air gets overworked.
- 13-inch MacBook Pro: The smaller of the two Mac laptop powerhouses start with 8GB, and you can upgrade to 16GB for $200. It's a smart investment to spend the extra money to upgrade. Remember; the more programs you're running at the same time, the more RAM you want, keeping it going fast and strong.
- 16-inch MacBook Pro: The 16-inch MacBook Pro starts with 16 GB of RAM. You can jump that up to 64GB of RAM for an additional $800. That may be overkill for most people, though. If you're planning on running multiple processor-heavy applications, like video editing software, you should at least upgrade to 32GB of RAM, but max it out if you're doing most or all of your work on the MacBook Pro.
- iMac: 8 GB is the starting point for the 21.5-inch and 27-inch iMac, but you can upgrade the 2.3GHz dual-core 7th-generation Intel Core i5 processor model to 16 GB for $200. All other iMac models, 21.5 and 27-inch, can be upgraded to up to 32GB of RAM, and the two higher-end 27-inch iMacs can go as high as 64GB. For the 21.5-inch iMac, I recommend upgrading to at least 16GB, 32 if you're going to be running a lot of processor-heavy apps. For the 27-inch iMac, however, I recommend not buying your RAM from Apple. You can install additional RAM yourself at a later date using aftermarket RAM. It's easy to do and costs less.
- iMac Pro: The iMac Pro starts with 32GB of RAM and can be upgraded to 256GB of RAM (that's right, 256GB). You can't upgrade the RAM aftermarket in the iMac Pro, so you'll definitely want to add more. Do you need 256GB? If you're running multiple processor-heavy apps, like video editing programs, VR or AR development simulations, and the like, you should consider a decent bump of at least 128GB of RAM.
- Mac mini: The Mac mini comes with 8GB of RAM standard and can be upgraded to 64GB. Most people aren't going to need to go this far, however, especially since it comes with a fast processor and at least 256GB of storage. You can upgrade the RAM in the Mac mini yourself, however, so if you're willing to do it yourself with less-expensive third-party RAM, you'll save a few bucks.
- Mac Pro: The 2019 Mac Pro is capable of supporting up to 768GB of RAM, 1.5TB if you get the 24 or 28-core model. It comes with 12 physical DIMM slots, so you can add memory at any time aftermarket. Just keep in mind that, even though the Mac Pro supports both R-DIMM and LR-DIMM, you can't use both in the same system. I recommend purchasing RAM on your own from a third-party vendor so you can choose which type is right for your system. Bmw r1200c manual download free.
Best for iMac
OWC 64GB DDR4 RAM
Install your RAM aftermarket if you can. It's cheaper.
The most reliable company for producing Mac-based RAM is OWC, and you can get a 64GB upgrade for a fraction of what you'd pay by having it preinstalled by Apple. For Macs where you can install RAM yourself, this is the memory you need.
Are storage upgrades worth it?
Though computing storage has been freed up with cloud-based services, storage capacity is the one place where an upgrade is recommended, no matter what. Whatever you can afford when you purchase your new Mac, you should buy. If you can't afford any storage upgrades, however, don't be downhearted. Cloud storage and external hard drives are cheaper than ever and can help with your capacity needs.
- MacBook Air: The MacBook Air comes with either 256 or 512GB of built-in SSD storage and can be upgraded to up to 2TB of SSD storage. If you can afford it, I recommend going for 1TB. You'll probably never need that much, but having it will make you feel better. If 1TB is too expensive, you should, at least, go for 512GB.
- 13-inch MacBook Pro: The smaller MacBook Pro starts at 128GB, 256, or 512GB of SSD storage and can be upgraded to 2TB. If you're investing in the pro-model Mac laptop, it's likely you need a decent amount of storage. I suggest going for the full 2TB if you can afford it, but 1TB is good enough, especially if you use cloud-based storage and external hard drives.
- 16-inch MacBook Pro: The larger MacBook Pro starts at 512GB or 1TB of SSD storage and can be upgraded to up to 8TB, which is definitely a lot. Of course, you should always get as much storage as you can afford, but 1TB is good enough for most people, especially if you take advantage of cloud-based storage and external hard drives.
- 21.5-inch iMac: The two least expensive 21.5-inch iMacs come with SATA drives, standard. I highly recommend upgrading your storage to at least a Fusion drive, but preferably an SSD. Money is obviously a factor here, but SATA drives are far less reliable because of their many moving parts. They're also slower. The very cheapest 21.5-inch iMac, at $1,099, will only cost you an additional $200 to upgrade to an SSD drive. If you spend any money on one upgrade, make it this. It's worth it.
- Best app to download landingpage mac. 27-inch iMac: This is probably where your most difficult decision making will be. Fusion or SSD? More storage capacity or a speedier drive? A Fusion drive is a hybrid HDD and SSD. It's less expensive than an SSD, but it also does have that pesky spinning plate drive. The cool thing about a Fusion drive, however, is that macOS manages what gets stored where. Files that don't get accessed very often get relegated to the hard drive and oft-used files stay on the SSD. A Fusion drive is slower than an SSD, but most people won't really notice the difference. I recommend, for most people, to stick with the Fusion drive and get as much capacity as possible (up to 3TB). If you're a power-user; if you edit videos, run virtual machines, build VR apps, and the like, you may want to switch to SSD, but because it's so much more expensive for less storage, you should also build up a stock of external hard drives to store media that you don't need to access regularly.
- iMac Pro: The iMac Pro starts with 1TB of SSD storage, which is plenty for a lot of people, but if you're buying an iMac Pro, you probably have higher storage capacity needs. You can bump that up to up to 4TB of storage for an additional $1,000. Since you can't upgrade aftermarket, I recommend maxing out your storage capacity if you can afford it.
- Mac mini: Apple's DIY Mac comes standard with 256 or 512GB of SSD storage and can be upgraded to up to 2TB. The Mac mini has plenty of ports to add external hard drives, but it's still a good idea to upgrade to as much storage as you can afford here. Lego batman 3 dlc download. I recommend at least 1TB.
- Mac Pro: The Mac Pro starts with just 256GB of SSD storage, but is fully customizable after you purchase it. It might be smart to upgrade to 1TB right out of the gate, depending on how soon you'll be able to add third-party capacity upgrades, but don't spend too much money here, since you'll be able to find lower-priced SSDs on your own.
Who should upgrade their Mac's processor?
Of all the upgrades, CPU configurations offer the most questionable benefit. A bump in overall processor speed is nice, but is it worth paying a couple of hundred bucks more to get another 10 or 30 percent improvement?
For people working with apps that can benefit from more processor cores — computationally-intensive operations that are optimized for multiprocessor computers, like math and science apps, video, 3D, video compression and other similar things, going from a dual-core to a quad-core can quite literally double performance and should be considered.
Who should upgrade their Mac's memory?
8GB of RAM is standard on most Mac laptops and desktops, which is plenty for most people. If you run a lot of powerful programs at the same time, however, you should bump that up where possible. 32GB of RAM is the sweet spot for you. Download vmware virtual machine for mac.
Upgrading after the fact is only possible on a very few Macs, so keep that in mind when deciding whether to upgrade. You may be stuck with what you have for years to come.
Who should upgrade the SSD?
Undercutting yourself with storage space right off the bat will cause you problems, but take a long hard look at your current storage footprint and see what you can't live without. If you're like many people, you'll discover that you don't actually need everything you have and that you'll be able to offload some of it to a server, external device or archive system.
SSD is expensive, but the performance is spectacular - especially since has Apple incorporated PCI Express (PCIe)-based flash storage. Pay for as much as you can afford, but see what you can live without and try to save yourself some money.
Still undecided?
There's a lot to think over, so if this hasn't helped you sort it out, please turn to our Apple Hardware forums and post your question there. Our legion of helpful forum posters will give you their expert feedback. You're also welcome to post comments here.
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