As My iStat Pro Menus 3 clearly shows, all 8 cores in my early 2008 Mac Pro with 2 2.8 GHz Quad-Core CPUs are at 100%. It isn’t very often I utilize my Mac to its fullest potential, but the other day I was encoding video and noticed all all 8 cores maxed out!

iStat Pro - MacPro CPUs at 100%

iStat Pro – MacPro CPUs at 100%

Love to see them all blue!

iStat Pro Menus is a great program for understanding what is going on with your system. Not only can you see the CPU usage you can also see memory, networking, and temperature of all they key systems in your computer. The statistics can help you understand performance issues with your computer.

For example, I was having very slow response on my Internet access for several months. I had Comcast out several times debugging it. They replaced the wire, I replaced the cable modem, nothing seemed to help. I had Comcast Tech support on the phone and they said to make sure no traffic was running over the connection. I had stopped all programs on my computer, when I looked at the Ethernet usage which was showing close to 100% upload. The Mozy backup program was using all of my upload which was the culprit in a month-long slow Internet issue. I pitched Mozy and went with CrashPlan which has better upload controls.

I have also found I was running out of memory so added more. iStat Pro is a great program for understanding the performance issues of your Mac.