Informer

We like this -- It sits on your desktop and you can set it to show you when a program executes or exits. Plus Informer gives to you information about: current systen activity - CPU usage, number of running processes and threads, available memory, a full list of running processes with detailed information about each process, and fully qualified information about your computer system. Informer has no window. This is a text string dynamically showing information about current system load. You can place it at the desired location on screen, change font and color. Unlike many others system monitors Informer takes very little screen space.

http://informer.russia.webmatrixhosting.net/

Intel Application Accelerator

The Intel Application Accelerator is a software package that replaces the native Windows drivers with drivers optimized for desktop PCs using select Intel chipsets.

http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/IAA/