Gee's Blog World: CoreTemp is a tiny, portable application for monitoring CPU temperature

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

CoreTemp is a tiny, portable application for monitoring CPU temperature

CoreTemp is one application that falls into the "I can't believe we've never covered it" category. It's a tiny, free and portable CPU temperature monitor. It's a single executable weighing in at around 500KB, and it's my go-to whenever I suspect my CPU is starting to overheat.

You can download either a 32-bit or 64-bit version. The whole thing is very minimalistic. It doesn't have a temperature graph, but it does log temperature information so you can graph it with another application. It has very few bells and whistles; one useful feature is the System Information dialog, which exposes a wealth of information about your CPU. You can gawk at nerdy stats such as the exact voltage any of your CPU's core is getting (should be identical, I think). One thing I noticed with this dialog is that my CPU speeds up one core, while leaving the other core at a lower clockrate. That happens even when the computer is not doing much; I find it kind of interesting, but maybe it's the hour.

At its core, this is a simple application which does one thing, and does it well. Highly recommended.