Skip to main content

What graphics card do I have? How to find out what GPU is in your system

Knowing what graphics card you have makes it much easier to know what games you can play and what settings to play them at. A high-end graphics card will unlock any game you like with advanced settings like ray tracing, while a weaker GPU might leave you unable to even start some newer AAA games. You'll need an upgrade.

Here's how to find out what graphics card you have in your PC, so you know whether what you have is enough, or you need something more powerful.

Difficulty

Easy

Duration

5 minutes

What You Need

  • A desktop PC or laptop

Check what graphics card you have on Windows

If you're running Windows, the easiest and quickest way to check what graphics card you have is through the Task Manager. The screenshots below are from Windows 10, but the instructions work the same from Windows 7 right through to Windows 11.

Step 1: Press Ctrl *+ *Alt + Delete on your keyboard, then select Task Manager from the screen that pops up.

Alternatively, you can right-click the task bar and select Task Manager from there.

Opening Windows 10 Task Manager.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Step 2: If your task manager is in its minimized form, select More details at the bottom to unlock the full Task Manager.

Step 3: Select the Performance tab at the top of the screen. This is where you'll find all kinds of information on your processor, memory, storage, and graphics.

Windows 10 task manager.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Step 4: Scroll down the list on the left-hand side until you find GPU 0. Listed underneath that heading in the left-hand menu will be your graphics card.

If the name is truncated, as in this example, select it and you'll see the full name of the graphics card or GPU in the top right. In this case, it's an Nvidia RTX 3070 Ti.

Windows 10 task manager performance tab.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Step 5: If you're interested in learning more about your computer, you can also use Task Manager to look at details of your processor, memory, and storage, by selecting the individual elements along the left-hand side. This can be particularly handy if you're looking to upgrade, or build yourself a new computer.

Find your Mac's Graphics information.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

How to find out what graphics card you have on a Mac

You might not be able to upgrade your Mac in the same was as a PC, but if you want to optimize your Mac for gaming, then you'll want to know what graphics card you have. Here's how to find out what it is.

Step 1: Select the Apple icon in the upper-left side of the screen.

Step 2: From the menu that appears, select About this Mac.

Step 3: The window that appears will contain all the basic information about your Mac, including its processor, memory, storage drive, and its graphics card or GPU.

Editors' Recommendations

Jon Martindale
Jon Martindale is the Evergreen Coordinator for Computing, overseeing a team of writers addressing all the latest how to…
This mysterious Nvidia GPU is an absolute monstrosity — and we just got another look
Two Nvidia GPUs side by side.

The beast is back. Several new photos of what appears to be a quad-slot Nvidia GPU emerged today, revealing a monstrous prototype that's still yet to receive a name. In this iteration, it's more of a cooler than a GPU, as it doesn't appear to have a PCB.

Today's leak brings a lot of questions about what could one day be Nvidia's best GPU ever. Is Nvidia really working on a Titan GPU, or is this the RTX 4090 Ti?

Read more
Why Nvidia’s brand new GPU performs worse than integrated graphics
Four Nvidia H100 HPC GPUs side by side.

One might think that a GPU that costs over $40,000 is going to be the best graphics card for gaming, but the truth is a lot more complex than that. In fact, this Nvidia GPU can't even keep up with integrated graphics solutions.

Now, before you get too upset, you should know I'm referring to Nvidia's H100, which houses the GH100 chip (Grace Hopper). It's a powerful data center GPU made to handle high-performance computing (HPC) tasks -- not power PC games. It doesn't have any display outputs, and despite its extensive capabilities, it also doesn't have any coolers. This is because, again, you'd find this GPU in a data center or server setting, where it'd be cooled with powerful external fans.

Read more
Everything you need to know about buying a GPU in 2023
RTX 4090.

The graphics card, also known as the GPU, is arguably one of the most exciting components in any PC build. Alongside the processor, your graphics card often has the greatest impact on the overall performance of your PC. That makes it a pretty high-stakes purchase, especially if you consider that GPUs can get pretty expensive.

The GPU market has a lot to offer, and that's regardless of your needs and your budget. Whether you're aiming for something super cheap to support some light browsing or a behemoth to handle the most GPU-intensive games, you have lots of options. In this guide, we'll show you what to look out for so that you can pick the best GPU that fits your budget and needs.
Nvidia, AMD, or Intel?
Consumer graphics cards are generally split into two categories -- integrated and discrete graphics. Since you're here, you're most likely looking for a discrete (or dedicated) GPU, and that's what we're going to focus on in this article.

Read more