In this post, I am sharing the use of sp_monitor which we can use to compare the SQL Server Statistics like CPU usage, Packets received/sent, total read/write for between the different query executions.

The sp_monitor is a very handy and you can note down the exact server usage between your executions.

How can I use?

The usage is straightforward,

First, execute the sp_monitor and save/note down the statistics information (e.g, you executed at 08:08:00)
Next, you can start your execution (e.g, your query took 10 minutes and completed at 08:18:00)
Now, you can execute sp_monitor to check the server statistics for that 10 minutes.

The statistic prints in the form number(number)-number% or number(number).
The number in parentheses refers to the number of seconds or total number since the last time sp_monitor was run. The percentage is the percentage of time since sp_monitor was the last run.

For example:
cpu_busy as 8860(626)-70%
the CPU has been busy 8860 seconds since SQL Server was last started up, 626 seconds since sp_monitor was the last run, and 70 percent of the total time since sp_monitor was the last run.

Sample execution:

USE master  
EXEC sp_monitor

Sample result:

last_run                current_run             seconds
----------------------- ----------------------- -----------
2017-08-18 12:57:51.687 2017-08-18 12:58:02.427 11


cpu_busy                  io_busy                   idle
------------------------- ------------------------- -------------------------
75462(0)-0%               2084(0)-0%                2913471(9)-81%


packets_received         packets_sent             packet_errors
------------------------ ------------------------ ------------------------
45941145(68)             48348029(97)             27(0)


total_read          total_write         total_errors        connections
------------------- ------------------- ------------------- ------------------
7819213(220)        5783135(2)          0(0)                7208992(23)

Aggressive check:
If you want to know about the usage of server statistics for your only single/dedicated execution, I would suggest to set your database in single-user mode and then check using sp_monitor. (This suggestion is only for your test server.)