powerstat is a command-line utility for measuring power consumption and relating those measurements to system activity. Its output follows a vmstat-like format, making it useful for observing power draw alongside processor load and other operating statistics over a sequence of samples.
Power measurements can be derived from battery information or, on compatible Intel systems, from Running Average Power Limit interfaces. RAPL data can expose several processor-related power domains, while battery measurements are useful for estimating the consumption of a complete portable system.
The sampling interval and duration can be controlled to suit short comparisons or longer observations.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Measure power consumption using battery statistics.
- Use Intel RAPL power domains as an alternative measurement source on supported hardware.
- Display processor utilization alongside power readings.
- Calculate average, standard deviation, minimum and maximum power consumption over a run.
- Calculate a geometric mean for gathered measurements.
- Show individual RAPL power-domain readings when requested.
- Gather CPU C-state residency and transition information.
- Calculate frequency information across online CPU cores.
- Report available thermal-zone temperatures.
- Generate a histogram of collected power measurements.
- Report GPU frequency information for the primary graphics device where supported.
- Resample readings when the system is considered too busy for a representative idle measurement.
- Allow the CPU-idle threshold used for resampling to be configured.
- Detect process fork, execution and exit activity when run with suitable privileges.
- Log process activity at the end of a measurement run.
- Control the sampling interval, initial settling delay and number of measurements from the command line.
Website: github.com/ColinIanKing/powerstat
Support:
Developer: Colin Ian King
License: GNU General Public License v2.0

powerstat is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
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| LACT | Linux GPU Control Application |
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| ddogreen | Smart power management tool |
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