How to check your computer specs

Most people assume they know what’s in their machine. They bought it, they use it every day, how mysterious can it be? But ask someone whether their laptop’s RTX 5090 is performing like a desktop RTX 5090, or why their brand-new 1TB drive shows up as 931GB in Windows, and the certainty starts to fade. Specs on a label and specs in practice are not always the same thing, and the gap between them is where a lot of troubleshooting time goes to waste.

Knowing how to read your hardware accurately (not just what the box said) matters whether you’re matching a game’s requirements, diagnosing a bottleneck, or deciding whether a machine is worth upgrading. This guide covers every major method across Windows, macOS, and Linux.

What your specs actually tell you

The short answer is: almost everything, as long as you’re using the right tool. Your operating system exposes a wide range of hardware data, such as:

• Processor family
• Clock speed
• Core count
• RAM capacity and speed
• Storage type and capacity
• GPU model and VRAM
• BIOS version

Third-party utilities go further still, surfacing voltages, memory subtimings, fan RPMs, and thermal data that the OS collects but doesn’t bother to show you by default.

The longer answer has a few caveats. Some hardware simply doesn’t communicate with the OS:

• Most power supplies have no data interface, so there’s no telemetry to read and you won’t find wattage draw or rail voltages through any software tool
• Case fans and CPU coolers will often report RPM, but brand and dimensions aren’t exposed because there’s no hardware logic transmitting that information
• Enterprise and OEM devices sometimes deliberately lock or hide firmware-level details

Game compatibility

One place where specs translate directly into a decision is game compatibility. Publishers provide minimum and recommended requirements so buyers know whether their hardware can run a title as intended:

• Meeting only the minimum means the game will run, but you’ll likely need to compromise on graphical settings and overall performance
• Falling short of the minimum means it may not run at all

In practice, the GPU tends to be the determining factor more often than any other component.

Storage capacity

A 1TB drive will show up as roughly 931GB in Windows. It’s not because something is wrong, but because drive manufacturers count in decimal (1,000,000,000,000 bytes) while Windows counts in binary (1,099,511,627,776 bytes per terabyte).

The gap scales with drive size: a 4TB drive appears as approximately 3.6TB. Neither figure is incorrect, they’re just measuring different things, but it’s something that people don’t often realize.

Laptop vs. desktop naming conventions

A mobile RTX 5090 and a desktop RTX 5090 share a name and a general architecture, but they operate under completely different thermal and power constraints.

Laptops are limited to small fans and heatpipes, while desktop systems can run large air coolers or full liquid cooling loops. A high-end desktop GPU under load typically draws more power than an entire gaming laptop.

The practical result is that the mobile version of a top-tier GPU often performs on par with the desktop equivalent from two generations prior. If you’re checking specs to verify whether a machine meets a requirement, the model name alone isn’t enough. You need the full picture.

How to check your specs on Windows

Windows gives you several built-in tools for pulling hardware information, and they’re not interchangeable. Each one surfaces different data, and knowing which to reach for saves you the frustration of opening the wrong tool for the job.

System Information (msinfo32)

System Information is the most comprehensive of the built-in options and the right starting point when you need a broad snapshot of a machine across multiple component types.

1. Press Win + R, type msinfo32, and press Enter

   

2. Review the System Summary, since this view surfaces your OS version, processor model, installed RAM, and BIOS details immediately

   

3. Navigate the tree on the left to drill into specific component categories, including display adapters, storage, and network adapters

Task Manager

Task Manager gives you more info than msinfo32, including live performance data alongside hardware details. Reach for this when you need to understand not just what’s in a machine, but how it’s behaving right now.

1. Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open Task Manager, or right-click the taskbar and select Task Manager

2. Switch to the Performance tab

   

3. Click any component (CPU, Memory, GPU) to view its model information alongside current utilization, clock speed, and temperature where applicable

   

A processor that looks adequate on paper but is running at 95% utilization under a light load tells a different story than the spec sheet alone.

DirectX Diagnostic Tool (dxdiag)

The DirectX Diagnostic Tool has a narrower focus than the other two. It’s the right call when you’re troubleshooting display issues, verifying DirectX compatibility for a game or application, or checking driver details on a machine with multiple GPU configurations.

1. Press Win + R, type dxdiag, and press Enter

   

2. Review the System tab for a quick overview of processor and memory

   

3. Switch to the Display tab to see detailed GPU information like display memory, driver version, driver date, and DirectX feature levels. If multiple monitors are connected, you’ll see a separate Display tab for each

   

4. Click Save All Information to export a full diagnostic report as a text file, useful for documenting a system’s configuration or sharing details with a vendor

   

» Drivers outdated? Here’s how to update PC drivers and the best driver updater software

How to check your specs on macOS

macOS keeps hardware information close to the surface. The two tools you need are built in and accessible within a few clicks of each other.

1. Click the Apple icon in the menu bar at the top of the screen and select About This Mac

   

2. Review the overview panel, which surfaces your processor, graphics card, memory, storage, and display at a glance

   

3. Click More Info to open the corresponding System Settings section for any category

4. Click System Report to open the full System Information app, which provides a comprehensive breakdown of every hardware and software component on the device

   

The overview panel is enough for quick spec checks. System Report is where you go when you need the full picture with firmware versions, bus speeds, PCI device details, connected peripherals, and more.

» Learn more about firmware updates

How to check your specs on Linux

Linux hardware visibility depends on your distribution, your desktop environment, and how deep you need to go. The graphical tools vary by distro, while the terminal commands are consistent across almost all of them.

» Not sure what you have? Here’s how to check Linux version

Graphical tools

The naming and menu hierarchy differs depending on which distribution and desktop environment you’re running. For example, on Linux Mint, there are two routes to the same place:

1. Press the Start button and search for System Information

   

2. You can also open System Settings, scroll to the Hardware section, and click the System Information icon

   

3. Review the summary panel, which typically shows processor, graphics card, memory, and storage at a high level

   

The information displayed is often minimal compared to what terminal tools expose.

For more detail without dropping into the terminal, open-source tools like hardinfo or its successor hardinfo2 are available across most distributions and surface considerably more component data than the built-in system panels.

Terminal commands

The terminal gives you the most complete picture on Linux, and a small set of standard commands covers the majority of what you’ll need.

lshw is generally available across all distributions and provides a full hardware inventory. Run sudo lshw -short for a condensed summary of all hardware organized by path and class:

lscpu is purpose-built for processor information. Run lscpu to get a detailed report on your CPU, such as architecture, core count, thread count, clock speeds, cache sizes, and virtualization support.

Run free -h for a human-readable report on total, used, and available RAM.

Run lsblk to list block devices and partition structure, and df -h for filesystem-level storage usage.

For a more structured output similar to lshw but with cleaner formatting, inxi is worth installing, though it isn’t available by default on most distributions. Run inxi -Fxz for a full system summary covering CPU, memory, graphics, storage, and network in a single output.

Specs visibility across your fleet

Checking specs on a single machine is a skill. Knowing the specs of every machine in your environment is a different problem entirely, and running around with msinfo32 open on 200 endpoints isn’t exactly a viable workflow.

For IT teams and MSPs managing devices at scale, Atera’s RMM platform surfaces hardware details across your entire fleet from a single pane of glass. Device profiles pull motherboard type, BIOS version, processor, and more without a script in sight, and AI Copilot can go deeper on demand to generate PowerShell scripts that you can deploy remotely across devices when you need data the OS doesn’t surface by default.

» Interested? Try Atera for free