Knowing what hardware is present inside your computer by using just the tools present inside Windows might give you some idea, but it won’t be terribly informative. Something like MSInfo32 would offer some useful snippets of information about several different system components although it’s by no means complete. For instance, if you want to know the important details about your processor, graphics card, memory speeds, motherboard chipset and BIOS etc, it has to be obtained from somewhere else.

Kind of a dumb question, yet I've never seen it in a forum. Are serial numbers of identical brand and model GPUs different? If a second hand GPU dealer had 100 evga 1080ti ftws would each one have an unique serial number that you could use to distinguish one from another?

It can be frustrating when you’re troubleshooting and ask someone if they can tell you something like how much or what speed RAM they have installed, or what graphics chip is present and they don’t have a clue what they have or how to get you the relevant information. For a much better idea relating to the specification of yours or somebody else’s computer hardware, a 3rd party utility is the way to go.

Thankfully there are several around that can handle this and can range from giving you a general overview of the system components, to comprehensive in depth details of a single component such as the CPU or graphics card. Here’s a selection of freeware tools to help you extract the information you’re looking for.

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1. Speccy

Piriform’s Speccy does exactly what it’s other tools like CCleaner, Defraggler and Recuva do, and that’s to give you relevant information and not over complicate things. In addition to displaying easy to read yet informative details about your system’s hardware, any related clock speeds and frequencies are also present, as are active temperature readings for components with a thermal sensor. Clicking any animated green bar pops up a larger graph for more accuracy.

Speccy is available with installer and portable versions and works on Windows XP to 8 32-bit and 64-bit. Download the Slim version from the Builds page to avoid the installer that comes with a toolbar option.

Download Speccy

2. System Spec

System Spec displays a lot of the basic hardware information on its main window, and by clicking on the icons across the top, more in depth details are available for components such as CPU, memory, sound, USB etc. There are also a number of convenient menus with quick access to Control Panel functions and system tools such as System File Checker and Device Manager etc. The main window details can also be exported to an HTML file to quickly display the basic information.

The program is a standalone portable executable and is compatible with Windows 98 up to Windows 7. Note that hard drive SMART information is not available in Windows 7.

Download System Spec

3. HWInfo

HWInfo is definitely one of our favorite free system and hardware information tools because there really is enough in it to suit everybody. There are in fact 3 different screens you can get your information from and you will be asked on startup; the Summary screen displays useful information about the core system components of processor, memory, graphics and motherboard. The Sensors window displays every temperature, voltage and frequency your system has available.

The main interface is very similar to the popular shareware Everest/AIDA64 system information tool and displays all the hardware components in a tree like structure. The information is comprehensive but easy for most people to understand. There is also a powerful report option which is configurable as to what hardware trees you want to include. The 32-bit version does have an advantage over the 64-bit version because the latter doesn’t include the CPU, memory and disc benchmarking feature. There is also a DOS based version for old systems.

Download HWInfo

4. PC Wizard

CPUID’s PC Wizard is one of the most comprehensive free hardware information tools available. And in addition to the highly detailed and easy to understand information provided about hardware, it also scans several areas of your Windows system and can even pull things like your browser or instant messaging usernames and passwords.

There are some other valuable features such as several different benchmarks to test various parts of the system, a processor stress tester to check for stability, and also a monitoring window where you can check the temperatures, voltages and and fan speeds for various hardware components. Do note that PC Wizard is ad supported and will display an ad in the bottom left corner of the main window.

Download PC Wizard

5. System Information Viewer (SIV)

SIV is absolutely jam packed with text information and provides so much of it, average users could be put off by all the seemingly incomprehensible numbers and statistics. But if you’re looking for truly comprehensive statistics and details about all your hardware components, System Information Viewer is a good tool to use. All the usual basic detail about CPU voltages and temps etc and memory clocks are in the main window, clicking the buttons across the bottom takes you to numbers loaded windows about almost everything you could eve wish to know about your hardware.

System Information Viewer works on everything from Windows 95 upwards and comes as a portable zip file, make sure to run the specific x86 or x64 version for your operating system.

Download SIV

6. System Information for Windows (SIW)

SIW is another comprehensive information tool and as well as displaying a good amount of hardware detail, there’s an equally large amount of information about Windows or other software components, and also information about several parts of your network. Some useful tools are also present such as a broadband speed tester, a window password revealer, MAC address changer, a simple monitor tester and CPU, memory and network monitoring windows.

It’s highly recommended to download the portable version of SIW from PortableApps.com because the official website only hosts an installer for the free version complete with opencandy adware.

Download SIW

7. CPU-Z

CPU-Z has long been one of the techies favorite tools because it simply focuses on providing useful information relating to the 4 core component areas of your system; processor, motherboard, memory and graphics. The supplied information is clear and concise and CPU-Z is a tool that’s often recommended when overclocking because of the accuracy when reading the CPU or RAM frequencies.

There are separate 32-bit and 64-bit portable versions available, and an installer version containing both. Asus or Gigabyte fans can also download a themed version for their systems.

Download CPU-Z

8. GPU-Z

This is a good complimentary tool to CPU-Z because where it displays your CPU information in great detail, GPU-Z does a similar thing concerning your graphics subsystem. Everything from the cards architecture to its capabilities are displayed, and there’s also a couple of useful icon buttons, one to take or upload a screenshot of the window, and one to save or submit the graphics card BIOS to the online database.

The Sensors tab has all the graphics card’s currently available clock speed frequencies, fan speeds, GPU load and voltages and includes a logging facility and small bar graph for each reading. GPU-Z is a standalone executable and compatible with Windows XP and above.

Download GPU-Z

9. Mitec System Information X

Gpu Z Serial Number