AIDA64 Extreme Edition

When asked about his video card or mother board, a novice user would rather open up the computer and read these details on the board itself. Windows provides you with this information, but you have to go through a labyrinth of options to get it. A system information utility will let you know what computer hardware or software you have in your system. It is not hard to find such a tool on the Internet, but it can be difficult to find one that matches the potential of AIDA64 Extreme Edition. It displays all the relevant statistics you need, for both hardware and software. Furthermore, it can perform various benchmark or system stability tests, generate detailed reports and much more.

The software can be installed right away and you will not have to make complex configurations while going through the setup process. It supports all 32 or 64-bit versions of MS Windows, including later ones, like Win 7 or Win Server 2006 R2.

AIDA64 Extreme Edition lets you view general information about your computer and operating system, installed software and hardware, peripheral devices, configurations, security settings and measures, databases and much more. Everything is categorized in a tree structure, so you can access any information the same way you would access a folder in Windows Explorer. Regardless of which item you select, a very broad range of information will be displayed on the larger area of the interface. For example, if you want to overclock your processor, you can find information regarding the CPU VID, temperatures for each core, voltage values, the speed of the cooling fans and more. You can even find properties for the sensors themselves.

AIDA64 Extreme Edition is not limited to showing you statistics. You can also use it to perform various tests. If you look in the software's Tools menu, you will find options for disk or cache and memory benchmarks, displaying detailed information about the CPU or accessing a monitor diagnostics tool. If you are not satisfied with your display, you can run a series of tests, included in the monitor diagnostics feature, to calibrate your monitor's brightness and contrast, colors, gamma and much more. You will appreciate the fact that both LCD and CRT monitors are supported.

The software comes with a system stability test as well. This will stress one or more components of your choosing, including the CPU, FPU, cache, system memory, local disks and GPU. While the software is testing your hardware, you can access a series of graphs, under separate tabs, which illustrate information about temperatures, cooling fans and voltages.