How to check what gpu i have windows 10

What to Know

• To check which GPU is installed: Right-click Start. Then click Device Manager -> expand the Display Adapters menu -> select the GPU to get details.
• To check the card model: Either open your case and review the card's sticker for the number or use a third-party program.

If you've delved at all into PC gaming, you've heard talk about graphics cards. Graphics cards are made by a variety of manufacturers, but everything you see on your screen is generated by a chip on that card, called a graphics processing unit (GPU).

If you want to learn a bit more about graphics cards, you've come to the right place. Here is how you check your graphics card on Windows 10, and a bit more on understanding how it all works.

How to Check Your Graphics Card Using Device Manager

Finding out what GPU you have installed on your Windows 10 computer is pretty simple; it will take a bit more work to find the model of the actual card you have.

1. Right-click the Start Menu on your Windows toolbar and select Device Manager.

2. A list of components in your PC will be listed under the appropriate categories.

3. Expand Display Adapters by selecting the arrow next to it, or by double-clicking.

4. Double-click your display adapter to see more details on it, like the port it is currently plugged into.

How to Check Your Graphics Card Model

In general, knowing your chipset is what you'll need when dealing with the basics of a graphics card. If you need to go more in-depth and figure out the model of the actual card, you'll have to do a bit more leg work. There are a few ways to do this.

How to Check Your Graphics Card by Opening Your PC

If your PC is easily accessible, the easiest way to figure out your graphics card is to open your PC and look at it.

Take care when dealing with the insides of your PC. Power everything down and discharge any static electricity to avoid accidental frying of parts.

Your graphics card should be easy to spot, since it plugs into the motherboard and has at least one fan attached to it. There should be a sticker on it that tells you the model number, though you may need to unplug it from your motherboard to get a better look at it.

If you unplug it, make sure to be careful and take note of where it plugs back in, otherwise you'll be treated to a blank screen next time you turn your computer on.

Download a Third-Party Program to Check Graphics Card

There are a few third-party programs that can give you all sorts of specs on your PC hardware. They all work a bit differently, but two that are both free and safe are Speccy and CPU-Z.

If you download a third-party app, make sure you only download it directly from the manufacturer's website.

These programs can give you a variety of details about the different hardware inside your PC, including your graphics card. Once you've downloaded the program and run it, select Graphics, find the name of your GPU, and look for the Subvendor or manufacturer name to determine who actually made your graphics card.

To reiterate, in most instances, you'll be fine just opening the device manager to figure out your GPU. However, you may need the actual card information if there's a warranty issue or other hardware problem you need to sort out.

What's the Difference Between a Graphics Card and a GPU?

You'll often see "GPU" and "Graphics Card" used almost interchangeably, but they are a bit different. The GPU is the actual chip that does the heavy lifting; they are generally made by one of two designers: Nvidia or AMD. The GPU is the powerful and expensive piece of hardware that delivers the actual graphics to your monitor.

A graphics card has a lot of other aspects to it besides the GPU, including cooling fans, voltage regulation, etc. They're also made by a variety of companies with plenty of small differences, but you will often see the chipset (e.g. "Nvidia GeForce 1080" or "AMD Radeon 560") displayed as prominently, if not more so, than the model of the card itself.

Thanks for letting us know!

Get the Latest Tech News Delivered Every Day

Subscribe

What graphics card do I have?

To find out what graphics card you have, open the Start menu or desktop search bar on your PC, start typing Device Manager, and select it when the option appears. You’ll see an entry near the top for Display adapters. Click the drop-down arrow and the name and model of your GPU will appear right below.

If you double-click the icon next to the name of the driver, you can view device properties, inspect the details of your driver, and identify any driver updates available.

5 ways to check your GPU on Windows

Ensuring you’ve got the right graphics specs is critical, especially when it comes to gaming, video editing, and running other graphics-intensive applications. Thankfully, there are a number of easy ways to detect graphics hardware on Windows.

Settings

System settings let you check your graphics card status and inspect its range of properties and compatibilities. In Windows 10, video card status and other information relating to your display can easily be found in the Settings app. You can also update Windows drivers or update audio drivers through a similar process.

Here’s how to check your GPU through Windows System Settings: 

1. Open Settings through the Start menu and click System.

   

2. Select Display from the System settings menu and click Advanced display settings.

   

3. Under Display information you can see which graphics card is installed on your PC, as well as other important metrics impacting your computer graphics, like your desktop resolution and refresh rate.

   

System information

The System information app is a great tool for looking under the hood of your machine to examine your graphics card and accompanying drivers. It’s also a great tool to check your RAM.

Open the Start menu or go to the desktop search bar, start typing System information, and select it when the option appears. Click the + symbol next to Components in the upper left, and then click Display on the expanded list.

You’ll see the name of your graphics card, its type, and device ID. You’ll also see details about your driver installation and how much RAM your GPU has to call upon.

Windows Task Manager

While a graphics card refers to the graphics hardware extension as a whole, the graphics processing unit (GPU) is the specific component that actually processes graphics. You can use Windows Task Manager to inspect your GPU chip in detail.

To launch Device Manager, open the Start menu or the desktop search bar, start typing Device Manager, and select it when the option appears. You can also press Ctrl + Alt + Del on your keyboard and click Task Manager on the list that appears. 

On the Task Manager window, click the Performance tab and select GPU from the list.

Along with displaying the graphics card that houses your GPU, Task Manager will show other details like GPU utilization (how hard your GPU is working at the moment) and GPU temperature. If you want to get more power out of your graphics chip, check out our guide to overclocking your GPU.

DirectX Diagnostic Tool

To check your video card, you can also use Windows’ built-in DirectX Diagnostic Tool, which troubleshoots video and sound-related hardware problems.

To launch the DirectX Diagnostic Tool, type dxdiag into the desktop search bar and hit Enter to run the command.

Click the Display tab for a full rundown of your graphics devices, as well as the graphics drivers that run them.

Control Panel

On the Windows Control Panel, you find out which graphics card is installed on your PC. And if you’re using an NVIDIA display driver, you can also use the Windows Control Panel to launch the NVIDIA Control Panel to inspect system information and configure settings.

Here’s how to launch the NVIDIA Control Panel via the Windows Control Panel:

1. Type Control Panel into the desktop search bar and click the option when it appears. Then, click Hardware and Sound.

   

2. Select NVIDIA Control Panel from the list of options.

   

3. When the NVIDIA graphics card control panel pops up, click System Information in the bottom-left corner.

   

The System Information window will appear, auto-detecting NVIDIA drivers, RAM memory, and displaying other details related to your graphics hardware.

What is a graphics card (GPU)?

Although often used interchangeably, GPUs and graphics cards are not the same. Also called video cards, display adapters, or graphics adapters, graphics cards generate and feed images to a computer’s display or monitor. To do so, graphics cards contain various components, including a GPU, or graphics processing unit.

The GPU is the nerve center of the graphics card, where the necessary processing to display images takes place.

The GPU is the nerve center of the graphics card, where the necessary processing to display images takes place . Having fetched texture data from the graphics card memory, the GPU performs rapid calculations to process the data. Once processed, the data is sent back to the RAM before being sent on to your screen where it appears as an image or a frame in a video or computer game.

Get sharper graphics with Avast Driver Updater

No matter how powerful your GPU or how much video RAM you’ve got to spare, your graphics card is only as good as the drivers running it. Outdated or buggy software can result in crashes, laggy gameplay, reduced FPS, and low-quality graphics textures. 

That’s why keeping your drivers fully optimized with a world-class driver updater is vital for ensuring optimal performance.

With Avast Driver Updater, it’s not just your graphics drivers that benefit from automatic detection, repairs, and updates — it’s all of them. Along with crystal clear images and silky smooth video rendering, Driver Updater unlocks peak performance across your entire PC. Get fewer freezes, richer audio, and faster browsing.

How do I check my Nvidia graphics card Windows 10?

How do I find what GPU I have Windows 10?