The redesigned Windows 8 Task Manager is just one example of how Microsoft is rebuilding its operating system as a more user friendly experience. Some people are concerned Microsoft's going too far with the Metro UI and theeradication of the Start Menu. The Task Manager, at least, won't be an oversimplification--Microsoft's latest Building Windows 8 blog shows off an improved Performance tab for tracking the workload of logical processors.
If you're running an Intel processor with Hyperthreading, you'll be able to see how all of those logical processors are being put to work. But that's the bare minimum of what the Task Manager can show off--Microsoft's changes target servers and crazy computer rigs running 64, 256 or the maximum 640 logical processors Windows supports.
The Windows 7 Task Manager's Performance tab gets the job done on dual- or quad-core systems. It's not great--it just displays small graphs for each processor core that can be expanded with a double click. When you start adding logical processors, though, everything breaks down. Microsoft's example of 160 logical processors shows that you can't glean anything from Windows 7's breakdown:
The Windows 8 Task Manager switches to the heat map view Microsoft already showed off for program memory, CPU, network and disk usage.
More active logical processors show up in a darker color, and hovering over each icon reveals the processor ID. From there you can set processor affinity for certain programs if you really want to micromanage your system. That's not a new feature in Windows 8--you can set CPU affinity in earlier versions of the OS--but Windows 8 makes it much easier to see how processors are being allocated by default.
http://www.tested.com/news/windows-8-simplifies-cpu-load-monitoring-with-heat-maps/3097/
A welcome change as multicore CPUs become ever more common
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