If you want to know what graphics card your computer has, but don’t know how, don’t worry, we’ll explain it in this article how you can do it in a simple way and in seconds, even if you are a very basic user.

First we will see the fastest and easiest way which does not require any type of third party program and we can do that directly from the operating system. Then I will give you the second option, in which we will use GPU-Z, which is one of the best programs in its class, because it is light, safe, free and very easy to use.

There are cases in which it is also possible to find out what graphics card we have look directly into the PC, but this is not always the case, as not all graphics cards clearly mark the exact model on their chassis and are almost always limited to including a GeForce RTX or Radeon RX screen print.

As always, if you have any questions at the end of reading this article you can leave it in the comments and we will help you solve it. Make yourself comfortable, let’s get started.

Why is it important to know what graphics card I have?

It is very important because this component is one of the main pillars of any PC. The graphics card is responsible for generating the pixels we see on our monitor and from it It will also depend on the capabilities of your team when working with certain workloads such as games and editing, design, and content creation programs.

Depends on what graphics card you have will you be able to run next gen games or not You will get some performance (it can be higher or lower depending on its performance) and this will also determine whether you will be able to optimally move certain applications and programs that are heavily dependent on the GPU.

Find out what graphics card you have installed in your computer will allow you to be clear on these points:

• The exact model and its features.
• Its power in games, applications and programs that depend on the GPU.
• The generation, series and manufacturer to which it belongs.
• Its compatibility with APIs and advanced technologies.
• Does it still have official driver support.
• Compatible apps, games and programs.
• Drivers you will need to download.
• Its consumption, used connectors and recommended power supply.
• The temperature it can reach and when it is normal or not.

All these points can vary greatly depending on the graphics card we have. I will give you a simple example to understand better if we have a GeForce RTX 3090 Ti FE It will be normal that this graphics card can exceed 80 degrees temperature at full load, but if we have a GeForce RTX 4060, it would no longer be normal, since the said graphics card is in the range of 60 degrees C.

How to find out what graphics card my computer has through Windows

We’ll start with the fastest and easiest option, which is to use the operating system itself. We can see what graphics card our PC has and its basic characteristics by typing “Task Manager” and clicking on performance tab. To do this, just follow these steps:

• We press the Windows key and type “Task Manager”. Click on the first result.
• We click on Performance and let’s move on to the GPU.
• A section with very useful information will appear, as we can see in the image. On the left we will see the name of our graphics card and the current temperature, and on the right details such as the amount of dedicated graphics memorydriver date, usage percentage and DirectX support.

As we can see in the picture, a list of components will appear on the left side. if yes click on “GPU” We will enter the section dedicated to the graphics card and in the upper right corner we will have the name of the model we are using.

We can also display some important things like GPU usage rate, the amount of graphics memory you have and current temperature. This option is the simplest, but at the same time it offers us the least information.

How to find out the full specifications of my graphics card

If you want to get more information about the graphics card that your computer has, you can use GPU-Z, a very light and completely reliable application, which is also free. Through it, you will be able to discover all the functions of your graphics card, which include things as important as:

• GPU production node.
• Release date of the graphics card.
• The number of shaders, textures, and raster units it has.
• DirectX support level.
• Bandwidth, amount of memory and its speed.
• Working speed.
• If it makes ray tracing faster.
• PCIe interface you can use.

If you have more than one GPU installed in your computer, something can happen, for example, if we have an integrated GPU and a dedicated GPU, you can click the drop-down menu at the bottom, where in addition to the name of the main graphics card, and select the integrated GPU. This will allow you to view the other model’s key specifications as well.

How to get GPU-Z

• Download GPU-Z from the official TechPowerUp website. Do not download it from other sources as it might contain malware and damage your computer.
• Find the location where it was downloaded and proceed with the installation. This is a very lightweight program, so it won’t take you more than a few seconds.
• Once the installation is complete, double-click on the GPU-Z icon and that’s it. You can open it multiple times to have different instances displaying different information in parallel.
• GPU-Z is continuously updated and will notify you when new versions are released. It also contains a small stress test that is activated by clicking on the question mark. It serves to slightly saturate the PCIe bus and verify the configuration.

How to find out what graphics card I have in Linux

It is very easy for you because you can discover it both directly through the console how to use third party applications, The latter are the ones that you would expect to offer you the most information. If you prefer to use the console, just:

• Enter the console.
• We enter the command “lspci” (without quotes) to get a list of installed devices, among which is the graphics card.
• We can also filter to get the graphics card with the command “lshw -C display” (without quotes).

If we installed Inx We can directly use the command “inxi -Gx” (without quotes), and we can also use applications such as hardinfo, which will also allow us to view other important details of the hardware we have installed on the computer.

What if I use macOS?

It’s also very simple and won’t take you more than a few seconds. Click on apple icon, go to “About this Mac” and that’s it, a summary will appear with basic information about your Mac at the hardware level, including the processor and amount of available memory.

If you have a Mac with SoC M1 or higher, the name of the GPU will not appear in this first window, you will have to enter it “System Message” and click the subsection “Graphics/Display” to identify the exact model of integrated GPU your computer has. If you want, you can also use third-party applications such as AIDA64.