Last Updated on December 24, 2022
In Operation
CPU-X’s interface is a faithful reproduction of CPU-Z.
The utility displays information in a series of information tabs: CPU, Caches, Motherboard, Memory, System, Graphics, Bench, and About.
Let’s take a look at a few of these tabs: CPU, Memory, and Graphics.
In the CPU tab you get information about the system’s processor name and number, code name, specification, family, instructions, as well as information about the clock speed, and cache of the processor. The CPU usage % shows an averaged figure across all the CPUs’s cores.
As you can see from the image, the system running CPU-X sports an elderly Core i5 processor.
You’ll notice there’s a “Start daemon” button at the bottom of the window. This is ever-present on all the tabs. Running the daemon offers full information about the system. You’ll need elevated privileges. But if you haven’t got elevated privileges you can still run the program albeit with some information omitted.
On the right hand side, there’s a screenshot of the Memory tab.
The image shows that the motherboard offers 4 RAM slots of which 2 are populated. We are told the size of the RAM together with its DRAM frequency. Information is retrieved using the dmidecode utility.
Whereas the CPU tab of CPU-X is a pretty faithful reproduction of the information offered by CPU-Z, this isn’t the case for the Memory tab.
We’re missing lots of information such as the type of RAM, CAS latency, and more.
GPUs have sparked an AI boom, become a key part of modern supercomputers and continued to drive advances in gaming and pro graphics.
The Graphics tab is shown in the image to the left. It shows that our system is using a NVIDIA GTX 950 graphics card.
There’s information about the usage of the GPU, together with clock speeds.
The utility also reports in realtime the temperature of the GPU which is retrieved by accessing the nvidia-smi utility.
The software also offers a couple of simple benchmarking tests which you can run on a configurable number of threads.
Next page: Page 3 – Text-based user interface
Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Introduction / Installation
Page 2 – In Operation
Page 3 – Text-based user interface
Page 4 – Summary
Complete list of articles in this series:
| Essential System Tools | |
|---|---|
| Alacritty | Innovative, hardware-accelerated terminal emulator |
| BleachBit | System cleaning software. Quick and easy way to service your computer |
| bottom | Graphical process/system monitor for the terminal |
| btop++ | Monitor usage and stats for CPU, memory, disks, network and processes |
| catfish | Versatile file searching software |
| Clonezilla | Partition and disk cloning software |
| CPU-X | System profiler with both a GUI and text-based |
| Czkawka | Find duplicate files, big files, empty files, similar images, and much more |
| ddrescue | Data recovery tool, retrieving data from failing drives as safely as possible |
| dust | More intuitive version of du written in Rust |
| f3 | Detect and fix counterfeit flash storage |
| Fail2ban | Ban hosts that cause multiple authentication errors |
| fdupes | Find or delete duplicate files |
| Firejail | Restrict the running environment of untrusted applications |
| Glances | Cross-platform system monitoring tool written in Python |
| GParted | Resize, copy, and move partitions without data |
| GreenWithEnvy | NVIDIA graphics card utility |
| gtop | System monitoring dashboard |
| gWakeOnLAN | Turn machines on through Wake On LAN |
| hyperfine | Command-line benchmarking tool |
| HyFetch | System information tool written in Python |
| inxi | Command-line system information tool that's a time-saver for everyone |
| journalctl | Query and display messages from the journal |
| kmon | Manage Linux kernel modules with this text-based tool |
| Krusader | Advanced, twin-panel (commander-style) file manager |
| Nmap | Network security tool that builds a "map" of the network |
| nmon | Systems administrator, tuner, and benchmark tool |
| nnn | Portable terminal file manager that's amazingly frugal |
| pet | Simple command-line snippet manager |
| Pingnoo | Graphical representation for traceroute and ping output |
| ps_mem | Accurate reporting of software's memory consumption |
| SMC | Multi-featured system monitor written in Python |
| Timeshift | Reliable system restore tool |
| QDirStat | Qt-based directory statistics |
| QJournalctl | Graphical User Interface for systemd’s journalctl |
| TLP | Must-have tool for anyone running Linux on a notebook |
| Unison | Console and graphical file synchronization software |
| VeraCrypt | Strong disk encryption software |
| Ventoy | Create bootable USB drive for ISO, WIM, IMG, VHD(x), EFI files |
| WTF | Personal information dashboard for your terminal |
inxi is much better to be fair for sharing system information with others.
It’s what people usually recommend as far as I’ve seen. I’d have to check out how CPU-X differs before making any claims though.