Bjango’s iStat Menus can take advantage of Intel software that can monitor your CPU frequency. There are a couple of steps you have to take to do it, but they’re easy. I’ll show you how.
Intel CPU Frequency Monitoring
Modern CPUs vary their frequency according to their device’s needs at the moment. Apple takes advantage of this with Macs (and iOS devices, but that’s a separate topic) in order to save power and reduce heat. The Intel Power Gadget is software that sits deep in macOS (or Windows and Linux) to report on everything your CPU is doing. There are all kinds of things you can do with it. but I’m focusing on iStat Menus with this piece.
Don’t miss the best of The Mac Observer
Set us as a preferred source and our Apple reporting ranks higher in your Google Search results and Discover feed — one tap, no account changes.
For the vast majority of users, there’s little need to enable CPU frequency monitoring unless you just want to. I’m in that camp, and if you’re reading this, you probably are, too.
Enabling iStat Menus CPU Frequency Monitoring
The first thing you need to do to enable CPU frequency monitoring on your Mac is to download the Intel Power Gadget and install it. After you install it, however, you also need to OK it in System Preferences > Security & Privacy. I didn’t get a screenshot when I installed it, but it will appear in the area indicated in the screenshot.
Once you’ve OK’d this, reboot your Mac. When it comes back up, you’ll find the new CPU frequency line as shown in the first screenshot. On my 4GHz iMac 5K (late 2015), I immediately saw my CPU frequency bouncing around between 3 and 4GHz, making my life that little bit more complete.
Yay me! And yay iStat Menus!
Anything that can do this with the new Apple Silicon? Even if not in iStat?
I imagine/believe that if it can be done at all, it will be included in a future iStats Menu update. I haven’t heard of another way of doing it.
Because, why wouldn’t you?
@John Kheit:
True, but you can see CPU frequency in the pulldown in the menu bar, which you need to do anyway in order to see the other CPU performance indicators.
2 points. iStat menu will not let you show the frequency up in your menu bar. WHY THE HELLs NOT!?!? Also, if you have multiple CPUs (not cores, actual real physical multiple chips), multiple CPU packages are not supported. Why the HELLs NOT!?!?!