This should get you started.
Open perfmon and under 'Performance Logs and Alerts' select 'Counter Logs'
Right click on the right pane and select 'NewLogSettings' enter 'Processor' for name.
Take note of the 'Current log file name'
Click 'Add Counters'
Here you have two choices. You can either monitor based on the executable, processors or combination of both.
Under 'Performance Object' select Processor. Enable 'Select counters from list'. Select '%Processor Time'. On the right you should have _total and numbers ranging from 0 - 3. This indicates processors 1-4. Best option is to use _total and click Add. This will show you what kind of processor usage you are experiencing on your server. If you want to be as complete as possible. Select each processor in the instances list and add them as well. You see the total option AVERAGES the usage across all the processors. So if one processor is buried at 100% and the others are at 0% then your chart/log will show only 25% usage.
Under 'Performance Object' select Process'. Now what you want to do is in the list of 'instances' highlight the specific process you wish to monitor and click add. In your case you mentioned three applications. Highlight the first and click on add and repeat for the next two.
Once you have those added click on close.
Next thing is to set the time interval. If you set it too short you will have an insanely large data log. Too long and you won't have enough data. Really this is up to you. Also remember that this logging is going to eat some of your processor and memory on a production machine as well. I would start the interval at 5 minutes and see if those results are ok for your. If you want you can always run it again and set the interval shorter.
Now we all know that as an admin you need to get your coffee in the morning so you don't want to sit down and get this started first thing. So click on the Schedule tab at the top and schedule when you want the log to run.
Once you have everything set click on Ok and you are off to the races. Your machine is now logging.
Next day open up perfmon again. This time you just open up the log file. Press Ctrl+L. Select Log Files. Press Add and navigate to your log file and click ok. Press Ctrl+I and then add the same performance counters you did when you setup the log.
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by: KCTSPosted on 2007-08-01 at 11:37:27ID: 19611608
Processor time cam be monitored for all processors (cores) together which is probably the best bet, this will effectivly show you how much of the CPU capacity is being used.
However a better counter in most respects is Processor Queue Length (under system), which shows how may instructions are waiting to be processed. If the Processor Queue Length is 1 for most of the time - occasionally jumps up a bit bit reverts to 1 again quickly then this indicates that the processor is executing the instructions as fast as they can be given to it (regardless of CPU % usage).
In these circumstances upgrading the processor will not result in any performance benefit since it it already handling instructions as fast as the rest of the system can fetch them.
if on the other hand Processor Queue Length is more than 1 for long periods then the processor is causing a bottleneck and is slowing down the system as it cannot execute the instructions quickly enough.