How to Check What Graphics Card You Have on Windows, Mac and Linux

The fastest way to check which graphics card you have on Windows 11 is to press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open Task Manager, select Performance and click the GPU entry: the exact model name appears in the top-right corner. On a Mac, choose Apple menu > About This Mac, and on Linux run lspci | grep -i vga in a terminal. This guide walks through every built-in method, how to tell integrated from dedicated graphics, and how to find your video memory and driver version.

Why you need to know your exact GPU model

Knowing the precise model — “GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU” rather than just “Nvidia” — matters more often than you might think. Game system requirements list specific cards. Driver downloads ask for your product series. Support for new drivers varies by generation: Nvidia’s current GeForce 617.14 Game Ready driver, for example, supports GTX 16 series and newer cards but not the GTX 10 series. And if you plan to sell a PC, upgrade it or run local AI models, video memory (VRAM) is often the deciding spec.

Most PCs and laptops have at least one of two kinds of graphics:

• Integrated graphics built into the processor, such as Intel Graphics, Intel Arc graphics in Core Ultra chips, AMD Radeon graphics in Ryzen chips, or the GPU inside an Apple M-series chip. These share system memory.
• A dedicated (discrete) GPU, such as a GeForce RTX, Radeon RX or Intel Arc card, with its own video memory. Gaming laptops and desktops usually have one of these in addition to integrated graphics.

If your computer has both, every method below will list two GPUs. The dedicated one is the one that matters for gaming and GPU-heavy work.

Method 1: Task Manager (Windows 11 and 10)

Task Manager is the quickest check and also shows memory and live usage. Microsoft added GPU monitoring to Task Manager in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update; its DirectX team’s explainer on GPUs in Task Manager notes the data comes directly from the Windows graphics kernel and requires a WDDM 2.0 or later driver.

1. Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc (or right-click the Start button and choose Task Manager).
2. Select Performance in the left-hand menu. If you only see a small window, click More details first.
3. Click GPU 0. If there is a GPU 1, click that too — PCs with integrated and dedicated graphics list both.
4. Read the model name in the top-right corner, for example “NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070” or “Intel(R) Arc(TM) Graphics.”

At the bottom of the same page you will find Dedicated GPU memory (the card’s own VRAM), Shared GPU memory (system RAM the GPU can borrow), plus the Driver version, Driver date and DirectX version. An integrated GPU typically shows little or no dedicated memory, which is a quick way to tell the two apart.

Method 2: DirectX Diagnostic Tool (dxdiag)

The DirectX Diagnostic Tool gives a fuller report and can save everything to a text file, which is handy when a support agent or forum asks for your system details. Microsoft’s support page on running dxdiag describes the basic steps.

1. Type dxdiag into the Start menu search box and select dxdiag from the results. You can also press Windows + R, type dxdiag and press Enter.
2. If asked whether to check that your drivers are digitally signed, Microsoft recommends choosing Yes.
3. Open the Display tab. On PCs with two GPUs there will be Display 1 and Display 2, or a Render tab for the second GPU.
4. Under Device, the Name field shows the GPU model, along with the manufacturer and memory figures. The Drivers section lists the driver version and date.
5. To share the report, click Save All Information… and choose where to save the text file.

The System tab of the same tool shows your processor, installed memory and DirectX version. Microsoft notes that on Windows 10 and 11 you already have the latest DirectX, with updates delivered through Windows Update.

Method 3: Device Manager

Device Manager is the best place to check whether Windows has a proper driver installed. Intel’s guide to identifying Intel graphics in Windows 10 and 11 uses this method.

1. Press Windows + X and select Device Manager.
2. Expand Display adapters.
3. Every GPU in the system is listed by name.

If you see Microsoft Basic Display Adapter or Standard VGA adapter instead of a brand name, Windows is using a generic fallback driver, and Intel’s advice is to contact your computer manufacturer. In that state, games are likely to run poorly and some display settings will be missing. Intel also notes that if the entry reads only “Intel HD Graphics” or “Intel UHD Graphics” without a number, you should identify your processor first, because the integrated graphics model is tied to the processor.

Method 4: Settings and command line

Windows 11 Settings

Go to Settings > System > Display > Advanced display. Under Display information, Windows shows which GPU each monitor is connected to. This is useful on desktops with a graphics card, because a monitor plugged into the motherboard’s video port instead of the card’s own port will show the integrated GPU here.

PowerShell

For a quick text answer, open PowerShell or Windows Terminal and run:

Get-CimInstance Win32_VideoController | Select-Object Name, DriverVersion

This lists every display adapter with its driver version. It is also the easiest method to copy into a support ticket.

Nvidia’s nvidia-smi

If you have an Nvidia GPU with the driver installed, typing nvidia-smi in a terminal prints the GPU name, driver version, supported CUDA version, memory usage and temperature. It works on both Windows and Linux.

Method 5: Your GPU maker’s app

Each GPU vendor’s own software shows the model and the installed driver, and doubles as the easiest way to update:

• Nvidia: The NVIDIA app’s Drivers tab shows your current driver and offers the latest Game Ready or Studio release. The classic NVIDIA Control Panel also has a System Information link in its bottom-left corner.
• AMD: AMD’s support article on identifying Radeon hardware and software points to the System section of AMD’s Radeon software, where the Hardware tab lists device IDs, video BIOS, graphics memory and clock speeds. AMD notes that its driver versions follow a year.month.revision numbering scheme.
• Intel: The Intel Driver & Support Assistant lists Intel Graphics under Devices and Drivers, according to Intel’s support guide.

How to check your graphics on a Mac

About This Mac

Choose Apple menu > About This Mac. Apple’s support note on checking which graphics processor is in use says the graphics cards currently in use appear next to Graphics. On Macs with Apple silicon (M1 and later) the GPU is part of the chip, so you will see the chip name, such as “Apple M4,” instead of a separate graphics line; the chip name tells you the GPU generation.

System Information

For the full detail, hold the Option key, open the Apple menu and choose System Information (or click More Info > System Report in About This Mac). Select Graphics/Displays under Hardware. The Chipset Model line names the GPU, and on Apple silicon Macs the Total Number of Cores line shows how many GPU cores your chip has — useful because the same M-series chip can ship with different GPU core counts.

Older Intel MacBook Pro models with two GPUs

Some Intel-based MacBook Pro models have both an integrated and a discrete GPU and switch between them automatically. Apple says you can see whether an app is using the higher-performance GPU by opening Activity Monitor and clicking the Energy tab, where a Graphics Card column appears on Macs with two GPUs. To watch GPU load over time on any Mac, open Activity Monitor and choose Window > GPU History, as described in Apple’s Activity Monitor guide.

How to check your GPU on Linux

Open a terminal and run:

lspci | grep -i -E "vga|3d|display"

The lspci tool lists every PCI device; filtering for VGA, 3D and display controllers leaves just the graphics hardware. To see which kernel driver is in use for each device, run lspci -k, which the lspci manual page describes as showing “kernel drivers handling each device and also kernel modules capable of handling it.” If the driver line shows nvidia, amdgpu, i915 or xe, the vendor driver is loaded; nouveau means the open-source Nvidia driver is in use instead of Nvidia’s own.

Desktop environments also show the GPU in their settings: in GNOME, go to Settings > System > About (or Settings > About on older versions) and look for the Graphics line.

Which method should you use?

A note on PowerShell: the AdapterRAM property of Win32_VideoController is a 32-bit value, so it cannot report more than 4GB correctly. Use Task Manager, dxdiag or nvidia-smi for video memory instead.

What if Windows will not show the GPU at all?

If no dedicated GPU appears anywhere but you are sure one is installed, work through these checks:

1. Check where the monitor is plugged in. On a desktop, the cable should go into the graphics card’s ports, not the motherboard’s.
2. Look for a generic adapter. “Microsoft Basic Display Adapter” in Device Manager means the vendor driver is missing; install it from Nvidia, AMD or Intel, or from your laptop maker’s support site.
3. Check the BIOS or UEFI. Some motherboards let you disable the integrated GPU or set the primary display adapter; a wrong setting can hide the card.
4. Read the card itself. The original retail box or the sticker label on the card names the exact model, and many cards also print it on the side or backplate.

What to do next

Once you know your GPU, compare it with the minimum and recommended requirements for the game or app you want to run, and make sure the driver is current. Nvidia owners can follow the steps in our GeForce 617.14 driver guide to update through the NVIDIA app. If you are shopping for an upgrade, our comparison of the RX 9070 GRE, RTX 5070 and RTX 5060 Ti lines up the current mid-range options, and knowing your current card’s VRAM will tell you how big a step up each one is.

Written byMara Lindqvist

Mara Lindqvist edits the hardware desk. She covers graphics cards, processors, memory and storage, the foundries and chip designers behind them, and what the numbers on a spec sheet mean for people choosing a PC. Specifications in her stories come from manufacturer spec pages and datasheets.

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