CPU History 1.1

CPU History graphs your current CPU usage history in the Dock icon, and optionally in a floating window
CPU History is an application that graphs your current CPU usage history in the Dock icon, and optionally in a floating window. You can customize colors, update frequency, and bar thickness.

If you want a graph of CPU usage in the Dock and nothing more, Activity Monitor is doing much more work than necessary. CPU History is small to download, uses very little CPU time, and has a more customizable Dock graph than Activity Monitor.

In timing tests, Activity Monitor (and its sister process, pmTool) used a combined 18-20% CPU on an iBook G4. CPU History 1.0 used 1.2-1.8% CPU to graph the same information. On a MacBook Pro, Activity Monitor and pmTool used a combined 2.9% CPU, while CPU History 1.1 used 0.1% CPU.

CPU History offers full supports for multicore machines, has a floating window for the graph, lets you customize update intervals (0.1s – 60s), graph colors, and bar widths, and graphs as small as single pixel differences in CPU usage.