How to Monitor Your Laptop or
PC’s CPU, GPU & FPS Stats
When watching a PC or a laptop review, you must have seen those tiny CPU, GPU, temperature, and FPS numbers showing on the screen when you are playing the game. The question that many people would ask themselves about these kinds of statistics is how the reviewers can show them and more importantly how they can view the same information on their own laptops to determine whether their device is doing well or there is a hidden problem.
The good news? All these performance measures can be easily viewed by yourself. And with new and improved tools and processors, the technique is even more trusted today. Here we have a step by step guide that will take you through the entire process.
MSI Afterburner
To keep a real-time track on your system performance you simply require the following tools:
MSI Afterburner
RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS)– this is included with MSI Afterburner.
HWInfo – necessary when Afterburner does not display some of the CPU/GPU specs on new CPUs/GPUs.
These three tools assist in showing temperatures, use percentages, power use, clock speeds and playing FPS during gaming.
Step 1: Install MSI Afterburner
Go to Google and write; MSI Afterburner.
Open an official MSI web site and download the tool.
You will have a ZIP file, just unzip it and install the application.
Select RivaTuner Statistics Server with RivaTuner do NOT unchecked during installation.
RTSS is needed to display on-screen statistics.
MSI Afterburner should then be opened.
Step 2: Configure GPU Monitoring
Inside MSI Afterburner:
Open Settings (the gear icon).
On the General tab, you will be able to see GPU 1, GPU 2 etc.
The most common GPU is the dedicated GPU (NVIDIA/AMD) which is GPU 1.
The integrated GPU is commonly in the form of GPU 2.
Choose your dedicated GPU – the one that you would like to monitor.
Now go to the Monitoring tab. Everything that is seen in game is controlled in this section.
Enhance the following significant GPU statistics (one after another):
GPU temperature
GPU usage
GPU memory usage
GPU core clock
GPU power (TGP)
For each stat:
✔ Select the item
Clicking:✔ Check in On-Screen Display.
Step 4: Monitor RAM & FPS
You should also enable:
RAM usage
Frame rate (FPS)
You can show:
Real-time FPS
Average FPS
Maximum FPS
Minimum FPS
1% low FPS
The majority of reviewers are fond of real-time FPS + 1% low FPS.
Click Apply → OK.
You can now open a game and you will see little statistics in the corner.
Step 5: Increase the Size and Style of the On-Screen Stats
If the stats appear too small:
Click the arrow to the taskbar (bottom right of your windows screen).
Open RivaTuner Statistics Server (the icon is that of a small blue monitor).
Adjust:
On-Screen Display zoom (size)
Font style
Colors
Position
This allows you to tailor the appearance of the stats in games large, readable and easy to view.
Step 6: If Some Stats Don’t Show — Use HWInfo
The newer CPUs and laptops tend to conceal some values, and not all of them are presented by default in MSI Afterburner.
To fix this:
Get on Google and search HWInfo and install the program.
Install and launch it.
Choose Sensors Only → Start.
HWInfo reveals all the information including:
Personal subcutaneous temperatures.
Power draw
Detailed clock speeds
Motherboard sensors
Storage temperatures
RAM timings
And more
Now turn on HWInfo communication:
In HWInfo → Configure Sensors
Go to Main Settings
Enable Shared Memory Support
Click OK
Step 7: Link HWInfo to MSI Afterburner
Open MSI Afterburner Monitoring tab Afterburner Settings.
Beside the graph of Active Hardware Monitoring, there are three dots.
Enable HWInfo.dll
Click Setup, then select Add
All HWInfo sensors are now displayed in MSI Afterburner.
Example:
In case you would like to get CPU Package Temperature (a composite temperature):
Tick CPU Package
Click OK
In order to arrange it, please specify the Group Name:
If it’s a CPU stat, type: CPU
In case it has to deal with the GPU: GPU 1 or GPU 2 (specific names).
This ensures that everything is well organized in the OSD.
You’re Done! Monitor Your System Like a Reviewer
Once everything is set:
Launch any game
On-screen you will see your FPS, CPU temperatures, GPU temperatures, usage, clocks, RAM usage, etc.
The presence of overheating, bottlenecks, bad performance or hardware problems can be diagnosed immediately.
You can use them to look at the full picture of performance on whether you are testing a new laptop or looking at the PC that you have assembled on your own.
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