If Piriform sounds familiar, you may have heard of some of the company’s other popular freeware, like CCleaner (a system/registry cleaner), Defraggler (a defrag software tool), and Recuva (a free data recovery program).
Speccy Basics
Speccy, like all system information tools, lists information it gathers from your computer regarding your CPU, RAM, network, motherboard, graphics card, audio devices, operating system, peripherals, optical drives, and hard drives. Piriform’s tool works with 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP. A 64-bit version is included in the download.
Thoughts on Speccy
Like all software from Piriform, this one looks, feels, and performs better than its competitors, which is why it tops our list of free system information tools. We’ve used many programs that report on the hardware and software components of a computer, and none of them have been as easy to use and read as Speccy. It’s easy to create and share reports as well as read every section of the program. Some hardware details are normally only understood if you open the computer and read the information directly off of the component. It’s fantastic that this software includes so many details so you don’t have to open a computer just to see the number of available motherboard slots or a device’s model number. We also like that there is a portable option available. This makes Speccy ideal for carrying on a flash drive, helpful for troubleshooting or diagnosing computer issues for your friends and family. Without a doubt, this is the program we would recommend to someone who wants a good look at their computer’s information, but not such an overwhelming look that it’s hard to use.
What Speccy Identifies
Here’s all the great stuff about your computer’s setup that Speccy will tell you about:
The number of cores and threads for a CPU, as well as the name, package, code name, specification, model, stepping number, revision number, current fan speed, stock bus, current bus speed, and the data cache size Total number of memory slots on the motherboard with the RAM type, size channels (like dual), DRAM frequency, CAS latency, RAS to CAS delay, RAS percentage, cycle time, bank cycle time, command rate, current memory usage, as well as the total and available physical and virtual memory Network settings like DNS servers, the adapter that’s being used, the public and private IP address, live network speed, computer name, subnet mask, remote desktop settings, gateway server, Wi-Fi information, DHCP information, sharing and discovery settings, network shares, and a list of all the currently active TCP connections Motherboard’s manufacturer, model, chipset & southbridge vender/model/revision number, BIOS brand and date, open PCI slots, PCI bus width and data lanes, and live voltage information for the CPU core/DDR/+12V/+5V/+3.3V/CMOS battery Graphics information like the monitor name, resolution, width, height, frequency, and color depth. Also shows video card information, such as the manufacturer, model, device ID, shaders clock speed, revision number, die size, release date, live temperature, bus interface, memory, GPU, driver version and clock speed, noise level, BIOS version, and memory clock speed Brief audio details like the name of playback devices, the sound card, and recording devices, as well as the type of speaker configuration (e.g., stereo) Operating system information, such as the Windows version, installation date, serial number, computer type (laptop or desktop), security center and antivirus software information, group policy security settings, Windows Update’s auto-update status, Internet Explorer/JRE/.NET Framework/PowerShell version number, currently running services and processes, active Task Scheduler tasks, user and machine environment variables, last boot time, current uptime, and a list of system folders Information on peripherals with the device’s name, kind (portable device, mouse, etc.), vendor, and the driver’s location, date, and version number Information on optical drives, such as the media type (e.g., DVD writer), device name, capabilities (supports writing/removable media etc.), drive letter, port number, if media is currently loaded, and read/write capabilities (CD-R, DVD-ROM, DVD+RW, etc.) Storage details, which include a hard drive’s manufacturer, form factor, brand, number of heads/cylinders/tracks/sectors, serial number, LBA size, power on count/time, features (such as S.M.A.R.T., AAM, NCQ), maximum transfer speed, capacity, RAID type, and S.M.A.R.T details (if supported), such as the current temperature, spin-up time, read error rate, power-on hours, seek error rate, and more
