One of the most important aspects of maintaining the performance and longevity of your graphics card is monitoring its temperature. A graphics card that runs at too high a temperature can become damaged or malfunction, leading to a drop in performance or, in extreme cases, total failure. There are several ways to check the temperature of your graphics card, ranging from using stock software to downloading third-party programs.
The simplest and most straightforward approach is to use the built-in software provided by your graphics card’s manufacturer. Most modern graphics cards come with their own diagnostic software that reads data on their usage and provides useful information, such as their temperature or clock speeds. For example, NVIDIA’s GeForce Experience and AMD’s Radeon Software both include an overlay known as ‘Performance Monitoring’ which displays a real-time overview of your graphics card’s core temperature.
If you don’t have access to such software, you may need to check the temperature of your graphics card manually. This can be done through the Windows Device Manager, found in the Control Panel. Once inside, open the Display Adapters section, select your graphics card, and look for the ‘Temperature’ section. This should display information about the current temperature of your graphics card. Be aware that this may not always be accurate, however, as it often relies on sensors within your graphics card itself.
The readings you get from stock or manual monitoring can vary quite a bit depending on conditions such as airflow in your computer. If you want to get more accurate readings, you can download third-party software such as MSI Afterburner or EVGA PrecisionX. These programs provide access to more detailed monitoring of your graphics card, such as core clock speeds and fan speeds, in addition to temperatures. They also allow you to adjust settings to optimize performance, such as increasing your graphics card’s clock speed, or setting an upper temperature limit to keep your GPU cool.
Overall, it’s important to monitor the temperature of your graphics card, both to ensure good performance and to protect its longevity. Using the built-in software provided by the manufacturer is the simplest way, but if you want more detailed readings and control over your graphics card’s settings, downloading third-party programs such as MSI Afterburner or EVGA PrecisionX is the way to go.