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I know of many ways to get a rough idea of my graphics card model. Here are two examples (instructions for Windows 7):

Method 1

1) Click start

2) Type dxdiag and press enter

3) Go to the Display tab and check the Name property.

Method 2

1) Click start

2) Right click on Computer and select Properties

3) Click on Device Manager

4) Expand the Display adapters to get a list of video cards

Problems

Unfortunately both these methods suffer from problems:

1) This is a very inaccurate measure. For example, if I have an ATI Radeon 4830, both methods will show that I have an ATI Radeon 4800 series i.e. there is no way to distinguish between different models within the 4800 series or any other series for that matter.

2) This is dependent on having the correct driver installed. If I have an incorrect driver installed, there is no way for me to find out what the correct driver should be.

Question

Is there any way for me to be able to determine the exact model of a graphics card without relying on having the correct driver installed. I realise there are ways to do this such as checking the documentation that comes with the computer or perhaps opening it up but I am interested in seeing if there is way of doing this with software.

Edit: Please note the requirements carefully. If the method relies on reading from the driver then it is ineligible.

If there is no program that can do this, is there a manual method? Some kind of website database etc?

Thanks!

Rupert Madden-Abbott
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9 Answers9

15

I use Speccy. Its an awesome little free tool that give you all kinds of information about your system. It has a really nice UI, and you can download a portable version so you can run it without installing.

Its made by the same people as CCleaner, website here.

Two or three years later, when it comes time to upgrade your computer, that tag or sticker may be long gone. Speccy was designed as a free electronic "what's inside" sticker for your PC.

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Hope that helps.

Connor W
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5

TechPowerup's freeware GPU-Z works for me.

boot13
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SIW or System Information for Windows provides more info on system, hardware and drivers than I know what to do with so may be what you need.

BrianA
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Have you tried Start-->Run-->dxdiag? It's an old school directx diagnostic tool, that is installed on most computers...

Hornbech
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I´m using a little tool called Everest. It isnt free but is has got a trial version and it displays the installed hardware, not the drivers ore something else.

Diskilla
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I use Glary Utilities to check system information. It comes as a free diagnostic tool and it's generally used to keep the computer free of errors and running smoothly through several cleaning methods. But you can also find a "System Status" menu where you can find all the system information you are looking for, and you can even save a report as a text file ->

enter image description here

It's not a heavy program since you may also find the portable version ->

http://download.cnet.com/Glary-Utilities-Portable/3000-18512_4-75450651.html

franz1
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0

Open an admin Powershell and type: 

(Get-CimInstance -ClassName CIM_VideoController).Name

# Output:  (there are two video cards)
# Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600
# NVIDIA GeForce GTX 850M
not2qubit
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If you lookup the vendor/dev using https://superuser.com/a/619427/39364 or https://superuser.com/a/184804/39364 then google that or look it up, it will show you the exact model, with generic drivers installed (like "AMD 7900 series") or with no drivers installed.

rogerdpack
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Yes, that's an old known problem where the snake bites its own tail. One way would be to shutdown, open your computer case and search for the physical GPU...but escpecially with build-in GPUs it would be troublesome.

Like rogerdpack said the manual smart solution would be to look it up in device manager this by the Hardware-ID and search it online: enter image description here

But there is a (portable) (free for non-commercial purposes) tool that can address your GPU with neither having the driver installed nor knowing the name or vendor: HWiNFO Its absolutely outstanding. It read out simply everthing: chipset, RAM modules, GPU (all if more than one), CPU, motherboard. You only have to open the tool, click on "Run", wait until it loaded and then copy the name of your GPU and insert it in your browser to search for latest driver of that model: enter image description here

But I'd rather argument against tools called like "Glary Utilities". Don't use it - they are scam and try to trick you into buying a license. Others like "Speccy", "GPU-Z", "dxdiag" won't work since they would report the current installed drivers name only (which is nonsense if you haven't found out the appropriate drivers name yet). "AIDA64" might work - I am not sure about it - but it seems a bit overcrowded for only looking up the GPU model in my opinion.

Dragodraki
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