How to see what kind of graphics card you have without opening your computer

By Konrad Krawczyk Published August 25, 2014

There may be a point where you want to know what graphics card is sitting in your computer. However, you may be too lazy/busy to open it up and find out. Or, even if the spirit and flesh are willing, you have difficulty tracking down a screwdriver that would help you end the mystery – if you even know where the magical device is hidden inside your PC.

Luckily for you, there’s an easy way to find out what kind of graphics card your computer has without ever getting up from your desk. Here, we’ll show you how.

Recommended Videos

Related: AMD will celebrate its history with new hardware announcements August 23

How to see what kind of graphics card you have without getting up

First, download and install CPU-Z, which is a free program. You can get it here. Once CPU-Z is installed, open the program. It will take a few seconds to load up.

CPU Z 1 — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Once CPU-Z is open, click on the Graphics tab at the top.

CPU Z 2 — Image used with permission by copyright holder

CPU-Z’s Graphics tab will give you the information you’re looking for (below). It will tell you which company made your graphics card (EVGA, here) who made the GPU (in this case, Nvidia did) what the model number is, how much memory your card has, as well as how fast the core and memory clocks run.

CPU Z 3 — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Anytime you want to find out what kind of graphics card you have, all you need to do is repeat these steps. Also, you never have to worry about CPU-Z slowing your computer down. As you can see below, CPU-Z consumers minimal system resources, and much fewer than what other Windows programs will eat up.

Related: AMD Radeon R9 295X2 review

Topics

Konrad Krawczyk

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Konrad covers desktops, laptops, tablets, sports tech and subjects in between for Digital Trends. Prior to joining DT, he…

Computing

How to overclock your graphics card GPU

Need to get a few more fps out of your GPU? Here's how to safely overclock it

graphics card shortage

Although upgrading to the best graphics card (also know as a graphics processing unit, or GPU) is arguably the best way to improve your PC's 3D rendering ability, you can eke out a little more performance from your existing card with overclocking.

Much like a CPU, a GPU contains chips that with the right tweaks can work harder and faster. That can mean better benchmark results and higher frames per second in your favorite games. Although still a little intimidating and certainly not friendly to your graphics card's temperatures, learning how to overclock your GPU is easier today than it's ever been. You just need the right tools, the right steps, and plenty of patience. Let us help show you how to overclock your graphics card GPU.
A word of warning
You can overclock a CPU, and you can overclock RAM. But overclocking anything has inherent risks. They are relatively low, but they are important to consider so that you're well informed before starting. Overclocking anything involves the process of forcing it to perform at a faster rate than it was manufactured to do so. That means you are pushing it harder and by working faster, it will get hotter and it may become less stable. That could result in crashes in the short term and over the long term, could reduce the lifespan of your particular hardware.

Computing

If you want to buy an RTX 4090, now might be your last chance

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 GPU.

There's no disputing that the RTX 4090 is one of the best graphics cards you can buy, but now might be your last chance to buy it. According to members of the Board Channels forum (via VideoCardz), Nvidia has discontinued the graphics card and will stop fulfilling new orders this month.

We saw this coming. Last month, members of the Board Channels forums signaled that Nvidia was getting ready to discontinue the RTX 4090 to make way for next-gen RTX 50-series GPUs. Nvidia hasn't said it's discontinuing the card, and it likely won't, but some regions are already experiencing shortages and increased prices. The German outlet PC Games Hardware writes: "It is now becoming increasingly clear that the GeForce RTX 4090 ... will soon have reached its end of lifetime," following high prices and "increasingly poor availability" in the region.

Computing

The viral ‘GPU purse’ costs $1,024 — but you can make your own for $40

A purse made out of a GT 730 GPU.

I never thought the best graphics cards would become a fashion statement, much less some of the worst, but here we are. Over the weekend, a website called GPU Purse went live with a listing for a discarded Nvidia GT 730 GPU -- a $20 used GPU -- that had been turned into a handbag. You'll just need to shell out $1,024 for the bag, which, according to the product page, fits a phone and comes complete with a long or short chain.

One look at the website sets off alarm bells, especially for a product that's over $1,000, but it appears there's some legitimacy behind it. Financial Times reports that the GPU Purse is the brainchild of Tessa Barton, a New York Times alum and current pretraining engineer at Databricks. Barton reportedly set up a Shopify store in haste after a post on X (formerly Twitter) went viral last week with over 1.4 million impressions.

nproxy.org