How to check your GPU temperature

Knowing the temperature of your graphics card can be essential if your PC becomes unstable - overheating may be the cause. For light use, your graphics card's temperature may not be a big deal: your graphics card is mostly in charge of the display and typical emails, word processing, and web browsing barely utilizes the GPU.

If, however, you're doing intensive graphical tasks, such as playing games at high settings, streaming through the GPU, or doing 3D rendering calculations. Being able to monitor the temperature of your GPU can quickly become vital, Those who live in hot climates or without Air-Conditioning should pay particular attention

The good news? It's easy to check the temperature of your GPU, especially now that Windows includes a real-time temperature monitoring tool. However, there are many other tools available to accurately and quickly assess the temperature of your GPU. Let's go over a few of them today.

Since the Windows 10 May 2020 update, Task Manager includes a tool to monitor the temperature of the graphics card.

To find out the temperature of your graphics card, open Task Manager by pressing Ctrl + Shift + Esc. Once there, simply go to the Performance tab and look for your GPU's current temperature in the GPU section, as shown in the image above.

This is a rudimentary feature that only displays the temperature in real time, rather than tracking it over time. Keeping the Task Manager open while gaming is a basic way of checking temps. Luckily, there are more robust moethods.

CORSAIR iCUE software lets you monitor GPU temperature.

To do this, you need to add customization to the dashboard, click on the circled icon in the top right-hand corner, then search for your GPU in the list and activate the options you're interested in, taking advantage of the opportunity to add the other components you wish to track.

If you need to track and save your temperatures on a longer period, you can activate this option in the settings.

If you own an Nvidia GeForce graphics card, like 75% of PC gamers according to Steam. Nvidia's GeForce Experience software allows you to track your GPU's critical temperature and other information about your graphics card. There are a few extra steps, though.

It's not enabled by default, so you need to need to activate it by clicking the gear icon next to your name to open the settings. Enable the "In-Game Overlay" option

Click on the Settings button and in the window that appears, select HUD Layout > Performance > Advanced, then choose where you want the overlay to appear on the screen. The overlay will appear in the selected location and will display several readings, including the GPU temperature.

Then you just have to press Alt+R to toggle the GFE performance window on and off once configured.

If you're using an AMD Radeon graphics card with a recent version of the drivers, it's easy to monitor your graphics card's temperature. AMD's Radeon Overlay includes a performance monitoring tool that displays your GPU's temperature and other important information as you play.

To activate this tool, access the Radeon Overlay by pressing Alt+R and select the aspects of performance you want to monitor in the Performance Monitoring section of the overlay. Once the tool is configured, you can launch it by itself by pressing Ctrl + Shift + X.

Many graphics card manufacturers also offer specialized software for GPU overclocking. These tools usually include on-screen display (OSD) options that show the key metrics of your graphics card, such as AMD's Radeon Overlay.

And if you want a complete third-party software package, you can use GPU-Z which provide GPU info only or HWInfo, which provides an overview of virtually every aspect of your PC (click the sensors icon to see the temperatures). HWInfo's sensor information includes GPU and CPU temperatures, and much more.

If your GPU is getting too hot too often, upgrading to a high-airflow case should help. Alternatively, those who want the absolute best temps might opt for a custom cooling loop integrating the GPU.