PerfMonitor: Monitor Your Processor Performance

PerfMonitor is a processor performance monitoring tool. It allows to track the frequency of 4 events choosen in a set of model-specific list.

PerfMonitor can be used to identify the performance bottlenecks of a system, or to monitor a program for cache-miss rate or mis-predicted branches. But PerfMonitor can also be used as a hardware-level CPU comparison tool, comparing the key parameters of different CPUs runnning the same benchmark.


Install PerfMonitor

Unzip all files in the same directory and run perfmonitor.exe. You can run as many instances of PerfMonitor as there are physical CPUs in your system (see below for the particular case of CPUs that use HyperThreading technology). The first instance will be attached to CPU #0, the next one to CPU#1, and so on. The application settings will be saved in a file named PerfMonX.ini (where X refers to the CPU number) stored in your temporary account path (typically : C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Local Settings\Temp).


Select monitored events

PerfMonitor allows to track up to 4 events, depending on the CPU model. Each event is attached to a graph. In order to change the monitored event, put the mouse cursor on a graph then click on the left button to make the events menu selection appear (note that the currently monitored event is checked in the menu).

Because of hardware limitations (namely the number of available counters), it is possible that all the desired events can't be monitored in the same time than other events. If a requested event is not available for monitoring, the graph will appear in grey color. Note that the events are created from the top to the bottom, consequently the events on the top graphes have more chance to be allocated. Note also that some events need two counters, especailly the ones that tracks a cache level success rate.
If the change of an event frees a counter that allows a non-available event to be monitored, it will be started automatically.


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