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How can I check if my laptop is using NVIDIA or Intel graphics card so I know what drivers to download?

I notice this similar question
how to check if nvidia or intel graphics is being used but that user seems to have both installed, and is asking which a program is using, and that question is closed too. My question is of a system with one installed, and asking which is installed.

Often times a laptop model doesn't indicate whether it has an Intel or an NVIDIA graphics card installed, and the drivers page lists both.

I have had that in the past with a laptop, and the last time I was advised by the manufacturer, samsung, to install both, and then whichever driver was the correct one would work. But each one includes software, which I could I suppose experiment with uninstalling, but it doesn't seem ideal to me. This laptop happens to be an acer, but clearly this is a situation with various laptops from different manufacturers. So it's not peculiar to any one particular model, and model number won't help either with such laptops, in determining which make graphics card is installed.

I am wondering if there is a better way though. A way to check which graphics card is installed, intel or nvidia, so that I can then know which driver to install.

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barlop
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2 Answers2

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There are several ways to check what graphics options you have available to you:

System Information (msinfo32)

System Information output of Display info

Note: System Information shows details on the currently installed drivers for graphics adapters as detailed in this follow up screenshot from the same computer as above:

System Information output of Display info with IntelHD Driver removed

Device Manager (devmgmt)

Device Manager output of Display adapters

Popular 3rd party tools, such as CPU-Z:

CPU-Z output of Graphics tab showing multiple graphics options

Any of the above should be enough to determine if you have multiple graphics options, and, in the case of Device Manager, show if you are missing drivers.

Michael Frank
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There is an answer mentioned in the different similar but closed question linked to how to check if nvidia or intel graphics is being used that guy had a system with two graphics cards and wanted to know which a program was using. My one is a system with one graphics card and I want to know which is installed. But the answer that was given to his question(which may or may not be right for his question), is certainly right for this question.

That is, start msinfo32 then click display, and it shows e.g. if it's nvidia it says like in this picture(from the answer to that question), that it's nvidia.. see the first row,, Name: ... And if it's intel like in my case then it might say something like "Mobile Intel(R) 4 series express chipset family".. i.e. it says Intel if it's intel, or, as in the picture below, nvidia if it's nvidia.

e.g. enter image description here

or as in the case of this acer laptop , which has intel graphics card mentioned, twice.

enter image description here

Note, commenter Michael (with ramhound's correction) suggests that generally you have both an integrated intel one, and a non-integrated one that can be intel or can be nvidia. Looks to me that the acer laptop in question perhaps doesn't have nvidia. So the drivers page would then be for those of that model number that do.

barlop
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