Gamer's hands on a PC keyboard
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All computers have graphics hardware that handles everything from displaying your desktop and decoding videos to rendering demanding PC games. Almost modernistic PCs accept graphics processing units (GPUs) fabricated by Intel, NVIDIA, or AMD, only remembering which model y'all accept installed tin exist difficult.

While your reckoner'due south CPU and RAM are also important, the GPU is usually the most critical component when it comes to playing PC games. If yous don't have a powerful enough GPU, you can't play newer PC games—or you may have to play them with lower graphical settings.

Some computers accept depression-power "onboard" or "integrated" graphics, while others have powerful "dedicated" or "discrete" graphics cards (sometimes called video cards.) Here'due south how to run into what graphics hardware is in your Windows PC.

On Windows 10, you lot can check your GPU information and usage details right from the Task Director. Correct-click the taskbar from the bottom of your screen and select "Job Manager" or printing Ctrl+Shift+Esc to open the task manager.

Option to open Task Manager from Windows 10's taskbar

On Windows 11, you tin also press Ctrl+Shift+Esc or right-click the Start button and cull "Task Managing director."

From at that place, select the "Performance" tab at the meridian of the window—if y'all don't see the tabs, click "More Details." Choose "GPU 0" in the sidebar. The GPU'due south manufacturer and model name are displayed in the top-right corner of the window.

You'll besides run into other data, such as the corporeality of dedicated memory on your GPU, in this window. Windows 10's Chore Manager displays your GPU usage here, and you can also view GPU usage by application.

If your system has multiple GPUs, you'll also see "GPU 1" and so on here. Each represents a different concrete GPU.

Name of computer's GPU shown in Windows 10's Task Manager

On older versions of Windows, such as Windows 7, you tin can find this information in the DirectX Diagnostic Tool. To open it, press Windows+R, type "dxdiag" into the Run dialog that appears, and printing Enter.

Launching dxdiag from Windows 10's Run dialog

Click the "Brandish" tab and await at the "Name" field in the "Device" section. Other statistics, such as the corporeality of video retention (VRAM) congenital into your GPU, are as well listed here.

DirectX Diagnostic Tool showing name of computer's graphics card

If you have multiple GPUs in your system—for instance, equally in a laptop with a low-power Intel GPU for use on battery power and a loftier-power NVIDIA GPU for use while plugged in and gaming—you tin control which GPU a game uses from Windows 10's Settings app. These controls are also built into the NVIDIA Control Panel.

RELATED: How to Monitor GPU Usage in the Windows Task Manager

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