As far as I know, there is no plugin available to get information about ATI/AMD Graphics cards without the need of running any other tool in background.
I did not like this idea (even though my system could easily handle it), so I wrote this plugin.
It uses AMD Catalyst dlls to get its information such as GPU temperature, clocks, fan rpm and GPU load percentage.
Since LCD Smartie runs in 32 bit mode on Windows x64 (and therefore plugins run in 32 bit, too) I experienced some problems while developing this plugin on Windows 7 64 bit.
The needed libraries are located in System32 folder, which is 64-bit-only on x64 Windows. Calls to this folder get redirected to SysWow64 if calling application is in 32 bit mode. And the library needed has a different name in this folder. It took me quite a while to figure out how to create a universal assembly for 32 bit and 64 bit Windows systems, but here it is.
I will quote the readme for further information.
Note z2 value when trying to get fan speed: I did not like the idea of returning 20% for the lowest fan speed possible, so this plugin calculates it to 0%. If you don't like this behavior, just change z2 value.--------------------------------------------------------------------------
atiinfo
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atiinfo - LCD Smartie plugin for getting information about
ATi and AMD Radeon GPUs without the need of any tool running
in background.
atiinfo requires AMD Catalyst drivers installed on the system.
AMD Catalyst drivers and the libraries used are
Copyright(c) 2008 - 2009 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Usage:
$dll(atiinfo,x,y,z1#z2)
x = mode
y = zero-based id of adapter (graphics card)
Caution: 1 graphics card might have more than 1 id!
(Zero-based means: First adapter has id value of 0)
z1, z2 = special parameter for certain modes
Modes (x):
1 - GPU temperature
2 - Fan speed
z1 = 0 (or undefined)
get speed in rpm if supported
z1 = 1 (or any other number != 0)
get speed percentage if supported
The following only works for GPUs reporting fan speed as rpm
z2 = 0 (or undefined)
fan percentage of 0% <=> minimum rpm (not 0)
fan percentage of 100% <=> maximum rpm
z2 = 1 (or any other number != 0)
fan percentage of 0% <=> 0 rpm
fan percentage of 100% <=> maximum rpm
3 - GPU clock
4 - Memory clock
5 - Core voltage
6 - Activity percent
7 - Special info
z = 0
Minimum fan percentage
z = 1
Maximum fan percentage
z = 2
Minimum fan rpm
z = 3
Maximum fan rpm
z = 4
GPU current performance level
z = 5
GPU current bus speed
z = 6
GPU current bus lanes
z = 7
GPU maximum bus lanes
I hope someone likes this plugin. Have fun!