At one point or another, you might need to find the specifications – or specs – of your Windows 11 PC. It can be useful for troubleshooting if you’re having issues, or maybe you just want to know if your laptop is compatible with a certain app or able to run a specific game. If you’re more tech-savvy, of course, you probably already purchased your PC based on the specs, but that’s not the case for everyone.
Thankfully, finding the specs after the fact isn’t that hard, and there are a few ways you can do it. These methods vary in complexity and how much information they provide, so you can choose whatever fits your specific needs the best. We’re here to help, and we’re going to show you how you can find the specs of your Windows 11 PC using a few different methods.
- Using the Settings app
- Using the DirectX Diagnostic Tool
- Using System Information
- Using Windows Terminal
Find specs using the Windows 11 Settings app
The first and easiest method to find the specs of your Windows 11 PC is to use the Settings app. This will give you a fairly basic rundown of the specs – including the processor and RAM, as well as information about your version of Windows.
To do it, simply open the Start menu, then find the Settings app. By default, it should be in the pinned area, but you can also find it in the All apps list. Alternatively, you can start typing “Settings” in the search bar to find it. Once in the Settings, scroll down to the bottom and click About. Here you’ll see your system specs, which includes your processor model and the base clock speed, as well as the amount of RAM your computer has.
Just below that, there’s also a setting for Windows specifications, so you can see what version and build of Windows you’re running. You may be running the original release of Windows 11, or maybe you already have Windows 11 version 22H2, for example. If you’re seeing some software issues, they can be related to a specific version of Windows, so this is also useful to know.
Still, this is a very limited set of specs, and you may want to know more. Let’s explore some other methods.
Find specs using the DirectX Diagnostic Tool
If you’re mostly focused on specs related to gaming, or anything around the CPU, GPU, and audio devices, the DirectX Diagnostic Tool is a great way to find out more about your system’s hardware and the features it supports.
Finding the DirectX Diagnostic Tool just by browsing through Windows would be a nightmare, but thankfully, you can easily search for it. Simply open Windows Search (or the Start menu) and type dxdiag, then hit Enter. Alternative, you can press the Windows key + R to open the Run window, then type dxdiag there. You may be prompted to confirm you want to run the tool, so simply agree to it, and you’ll eventually be greeted by this window.
This main page – the System tab – shows you basic system information, including your version and build of Windows, the BIOS version, and some information about your processor and RAM. The most interesting part of this, however, is the Display tab – there may actually be more than one if your PC has more than one GPU, as with many gaming laptops.
This shows you information including the name of your GPU, the amount of memory available to it, your driver version, and what DirectX features it supports. DirectX is essential for running games on your PC, so support for specific features may determine if some games can run well or not.
You also have the Audio tab with information about your audio drivers, and the Input tab lists connected input devices like a keyboard, mouse, and others.
Find specs using System Information
If you want to get more detailed information about the specs on your Windows 11 PC, another great option is the aptly named System Information. This is an older tool that’s been around for a while, so it’s a bit harder to find, but it does give you a lot more information.
The easiest way to open this is to simply open the Start menu or Windows Search, and simply type System Information until it shows up in the search results. If that doesn’t work for you, you can also go to the Start menu, head into the All apps list, and scroll down to Windows Tools. From there, click System Information to open this window.
The System Information window opens by default into a system summary, which includes information about your processor, including the base clock speed, the number of physical cores, and the logical processors (also known as threads). You can also find your RAM on this page.
If you want more information about other hardware inside your PC, expand the Components section on the side menu. There, you can find information about the display (including the GPU/graphics card), sound devices, storage, and more. Some sub-sections can also be expanded, so there’s a lot you can find here.
Not every section here will be super useful to everyone, but this is one of the more detailed breakdowns you can get.
Find specs using Windows Terminal
If you’re someone who simply works better with command line-based tools, you can also use the Windows Terminal app to find your system specs. Now, Windows Terminal is a console host that can run both Command Prompt and Windows PowerShell, and both of these tools let you find the specs of your PC, though with different commands and slightly different outputs. Command Prompt provides a slightly cleaner-looking output.
To use this method, first open the Start menu and type Windows Terminal until it shows up in the search results. If you press Enter, Windows Terminal will launch with its default profile, which is Windows PowerShell, unless you’ve changed it already. If you want to use Command Prompt, select that option from the search results, just under the Windows Terminal icon.
If you’re using the Windows PowerShell profile, enter the command Get-ComputerInfo, then press Enter on your keyboard. After a few seconds, you should see a long list of specs, including information about your Windows version, the BIOS, the processor, and more.
If you’d like to refine the search results, you can use the command Get-ComputerInfo -Property, followed by the name of the property you want to look for. You can also use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard, so you can search for all the arguments that start with a specific string. For example, Get-ComputerInfo -Property "Os*" will get you all the properties whose name starts with Os.
If you’d rather use Command Prompt, you can enter the command systeminfo instead, and you’ll get a slightly more organized and filtered set of specs.
These methods don’t include a ton of information about things like your GPU, but it’s yet another way to find the specs on your PC.
And that’s all you need to know to find the specs on a Windows 11 PC. Out of these methods, we’d say the DirectX Diagnostic Tool and System Information offer the most detailed information, but you might always prefer one of the other options. Once you know what you’re looking for, any of these is a good way to get more information about your PC.
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source https://www.xda-developers.com/how-to-find-specs-windows-11-pc/