Getting both the hardware and software details of your system typically requires using multiple apps. You’d have to peruse through the device manager, jump on over to the Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel, and then if you want to run some diagnostics or benchmarks you’d have to go hunt down some apps to do that as well.
PC Wizard 2010 is the all-in-one Swiss Army knife when it comes to that kind of stuff. It can provide a detailed breakdown of both the hardware and software on your computer, and can even be used to run some benchmarks. The included benchmark tools will let you test out the performance of your CPU, cache, RAM, hard drives, DVD drives, video, and more.
To top it all off most of the data can be saved off to a text file so that it can be referenced again later on. If you look at all the information PC Wizard provides (which I’ve put at the end of this article) you’ll likely see the value in being able to export some of the data to a simple archivable format. And did I mention that it’s not only free but also portable? Yeah, it’s an all-around worthwhile app to have in your collection.
PC Wizard 2010 download (Windows only; 32/64-bit; Freeware/Portable)
Hardware Information
- Mainboard / Bios (Connectors, ID String, MP Support …)
- Chipset (FSB Frequency, Norhtbridge, Hub, Direct Media Interface, XMB, NSI, …)
- Main Memory (FPM, EDO, SDRAM, DDR SDRAM, DDR-2 SDRAM, DDR-3 SDRAM, RDRAM, FB_DIMM, Timings …)
- Memory Profiles : EPP (SLi Ready), Intel XMP.
- Cache Memory (L1, L2, L3, Size, Frequency …)
- Processors (Type, Speed, Multiplier coeff., Features, Model Number, Vanderpool Technology …)
- Coprocessor
- APM & ACPI
- Busses : ISA, PCI, AGP (2x, 4x,8x), SMBus/ i2c, CardBus, Firewire, Hyper-Transport … )
- DMI / SMBIOS
- Mainboard Sensors, Processor, Hard Disk & Battery (Voltage, Temperature, Fans)
- Video (Monitor, Card, Bios, Capabilities, Memory, Integrated Memory, Frequencies …)
- OpenGL & 3Dfx
- DirectX (DirectDraw, Direct3D, DirectSound (3D), DirectMusic, DirectPlay, DirectInput, DirectX Media)
- Keyboard, Mouse & Joystick
- Drives (Hard Disk, Removable, CD-ROM, CDRW, DVD …)
- SCSI (Card, Controller, Adapter, Devices …)
- ATA/ATAPI & S-ATA (Devices, Type, Capabilities, S.M.A.R.T. Features, RAID)
- Ports (Serial, Parallel, USB, IEEE-1394)
- IDE & SCSI Devices
- Twain & WIA Devices
- PCMCIA (PC Card) Devices
- Bluetooth Devices
- Biometric Sensor Devices
- Sound Card (wave, midi, aux, mix, AC’97 codec, High Definition Audio)
- Printers (Local & Network)
- Modem (Features, Speed …)
- Network (Server, Connexion, Firewall …)
- Security (Scan Ports …)
- PocketPC & SmartPhone Devices
- Virtual Machines
- MCI Devices (mpeg, avi, seq, vcr, video-disc, wave) & ACM
- SAPI
- Passwords (Outlook, Internet Explorer, MSN Messenger, Dialup …)
- DOS Memory (base, HMA, UMB, XMS, EMS, DPMI, VCPI)
- Windows Memory
- Windows (Version, Product Key, Environment, Desktop, XP Themes …)
- Windows UpTime (Boot, Shutdown, BlueScreen, System Restore Points …)
- TrueType & OpenType Fonts
- WinSock (Internet), Telephony et Remote Access
- OLE (Objects, Servers …)
- Microsoft® Applications
- Activity (Process, Tasks, Threads)
- Modules (DLL, DRV, 32 & 16-bits) & NT Services
- Internet Navigator (Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, FireFox)
- .NET Global Assembly Cache (GAC)
- ODBC
- CMOS/RTC
- Resources (IRQ, DMA, E/S, Memory)
- System files (.ini, .log, .bat, .nt, .dos …)
- Processor (Dhrystone (MIPS), Whetstone (MFLOPS), Mandelbrot fractal …)
- L1, L2, L3 Cache, RAM (Bandwidth, Latency …)
- Main Memory (Bandwidth, Latency …)
- Hard Drives
- CD/DVD Rom
- DirectX
- Video
- Removable/Flash Support
- MP3 Compression
- VISTA Experience Index
PC WIZARD is also an utility designed to analyze and benchmark your computer system. It can analyze and benchmark many kinds of hardware, such as CPU performance, Cache performance, RAM performance, Hard Disk performance, CD/DVD-ROM performance, Removable/FLASH Media performance, Video performance, MP3 compression performance.
PC WIZARD can be distributed freely (ftp, archives, CD-ROMs...).
Hardware Information
- Mainboard / Bios (Connectors, ID String, MP Support ...)
- Chipset (FSB Frequency, Norhtbridge, Hub, Direct Media Interface, XMB, NSI, ...)
- Main Memory (FPM, EDO, SDRAM, DDR SDRAM, DDR-2 SDRAM, DDR-3 SDRAM, RDRAM, FB_DIMM, Timings ...)
- Memory Profiles : EPP (SLi Ready), Intel XMP.
- Cache Memory (L1, L2, L3, Size, Frequency ...)
- Processors (Type, Speed, Multiplier coeff., Features, Model Number, Vanderpool Technology ...)
- Coprocessor
- APM & ACPI
- Busses : ISA, PCI, AGP (2x, 4x,8x), SMBus/ i2c, CardBus, Firewire, Hyper-Transport ... )
- DMI / SMBIOS
- Mainboard Sensors, Processor, Hard Disk & Battery (Voltage, Temperature, Fans)
- Video (Monitor, Card, Bios, Capabilities, Memory, Integrated Memory, Frequencies ...)
- OpenGL & 3Dfx
- DirectX (DirectDraw, Direct3D, DirectSound (3D), DirectMusic, DirectPlay, DirectInput, DirectX Media)
- Keyboard, Mouse & Joystick
- Drives (Hard Disk, Removable, CD-ROM, CDRW, DVD ...)
- SCSI (Card, Controller, Adapter, Devices ...)
- ATA/ATAPI & S-ATA (Devices, Type, Capabilities, S.M.A.R.T. Features, RAID)
- Ports (Serial, Parallel, USB, IEEE-1394)
- IDE & SCSI Devices
- Twain & WIA Devices
- PCMCIA (PC Card) Devices
- Bluetooth Devices
- Biometric Sensor Devices
- Sound Card (wave, midi, aux, mix, AC'97 codec, High Definition Audio)
- Printers (Local & Network)
- Modem (Features, Speed ...)
- Network (Server, Connexion, Firewall ...)
- Security (Scan Ports ...)
- PocketPC & SmartPhone Devices
- Virtual Machines
- MCI Devices (mpeg, avi, seq, vcr, video-disc, wave) & ACM
- SAPI
- Passwords (Outlook, Internet Explorer, MSN Messenger, Dialup ...)
- DOS Memory (base, HMA, UMB, XMS, EMS, DPMI, VCPI)
- Windows Memory
- Windows (Version, Product Key, Environment, Desktop, XP Themes ...)
- Windows UpTime (Boot, Shutdown, BlueScreen, System Restore Points ...)
- TrueType & OpenType Fonts
- WinSock (Internet), Telephony et Remote Access
- OLE (Objects, Servers ...)
- Microsoft© Applications
- Activity (Process, Tasks, Threads)
- Modules (DLL, DRV, 32 & 16-bits) & NT Services
- Internet Navigator (Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, FireFox)
- .NET Global Assembly Cache (GAC)
- ODBC
- CMOS/RTC
- Resources (IRQ, DMA, E/S, Memory)
- System files (.ini, .log, .bat, .nt, .dos ...)
- Processor (Dhrystone (MIPS), Whetstone (MFLOPS), Mandelbrot fractal ...)
- L1, L2, L3 Cache, RAM (Bandwidth, Latency ...)
- Main Memory (Bandwidth, Latency ...)
- Hard Drives
- CD/DVD Rom
- DirectX
- Video
- Removable/Flash Support
- MP3 Compression
- VISTA Experience Index
PROCESSOR : These benchmarks measure performance in terms of Integer Millions of Instructions Per Second (Integer MIPS) and Millions of Floating Point Operations Per Second (MFLOPS). The code behind these benchmarks method is written in Assembly (x86, x87, MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, 3DNOW!). Processor benchmarks are HyperThreading, multi-processor (SMP) and multi-core (CMP) aware.
Tools
- Can save, print, e-mail a report
- Can save a TXT, RTF, HTML, PDF or CSV report
- Can export any graphics as BMP file
- Can export text and graphic with the clipboard
- Web update Wizard
- Communicate with Motherboard Monitor
- Dump (Hardware registers, System BIOS, video BIOS ...)
- Dutch
- English
- French
- German
- Greek
- Italian
- Russian
- Serbian
- Slovak
- Spanish
"Speccy" is a similar application. It may have a few features less and maybe is less-detailed. But has a very intuitive user-friendly interface (good for a newbie who would prefer having only the basic system info). The best part is that it is a freeware, too.
ReplyDeleteCheck it out:
http://www.piriform.com/speccy