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asitop

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Performance monitoring CLI tool for Apple Silicon

pip install asitop

What is asitop

A Python-based nvtop-inspired command line tool for Apple Silicon (aka M1) Macs.

asitop uses the built-in powermetrics utility on macOS, which allows access to a variety of hardware performance counters. Note that it requires sudo to run due to powermetrics needing root access to run. asitop is lightweight and has minimal performance impact.

asitop only works on Apple Silicon Macs on macOS Monterey!

Installation and Usage

asitop is a Python-based command line tool. You need pip to download and install asitop. macOS already comes with Python, to install pip, you can follow an online guide. After you install asitop via pip, you can use it via the Terminal.

# to enter password before start
# this mode is recommended!
sudo asitop

# it will prompt password on start
asitop

# advanced options
asitop [-h] [--interval INTERVAL] [--color COLOR] [--avg AVG]
optional arguments:
  -h, --help           show this help message and exit
  --interval INTERVAL  Display interval and sampling interval for powermetrics (seconds)
  --color COLOR        Choose display color (0~8)
  --avg AVG            Interval for averaged values (seconds)

How it works

powermetrics is used to measure the following:

psutil is used to measure the following:

sysctl is used to measure the following:

system_profiler is used to measure the following:

Some information is guesstimate and hardcoded as there doesn't seem to be a official source for it on the system:

Why

Because I didn't find something like this online. Also, just curious about stuff.

Disclaimers

I did this randomly don't blame me if it fried your new MacBook or something.