Mx Power Gadget
Menu bar readout of package power, core frequencies and efficiency-versus-performance core usage.
What it does
Mx Power Gadget is the Apple Silicon answer to Intel Power Gadget: real-time package and per-domain power draw, separate efficiency and performance core frequencies and utilisation, GPU and ANE activity, and thermal pressure — graphed, from the menu bar.
Its practical use is telling which kind of core work landed on. A process pinned to performance cores drains a battery differently from the same work spread across efficiency cores, and nothing in Activity Monitor distinguishes them.
Notes
Paid, with a trial. Apple Silicon only. Overlaps macmon; this one is a GUI and can sit in the menu bar all day, which the terminal tool cannot.
Alternative to
| Alternative | Type | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| macmon | Open source | Sudoless, the same data in a terminal |
| asitop | Open source | Python, over powermetrics |
| iStat Menus or Stats | Paid / Open source | Broader monitoring, shallower on power specifics |
Install
brew install --cask mx-power-gadget