How to Check the Clock Speed of a Laptop

A laptop’s clock speed shows how fast a CPU can process data and it’s measured in GHz.

You’re probably curious about how to check the clock speed of a laptop because you have a task in mind and want to figure out if your CPU is up to it.

This article shows how to check the clock speed of your laptop in three major operating systems (Windows, macOS, and Linux). You’ll find screenshots for each method so they’re easier to follow.

Ready to find out the clock speed of your laptop? Let’s do it!

You may also want to check out our other article that provides a more detailed explanation of what is clock speed and why it matters.

How to Check CPU Clock Speed on Windows 7, 10, and 11

There are multiple ways to check CPU clock speed on Windows, and the quickest would be through the System Information Tools method. You can also check from the Settings, Command Prompt, and Task Manager in nearly the same amount of time.

All of the following methods are the same, regardless of the Windows version you have installed. The only difference you’d find between Windows 7 and 10 is the design interface.

Let’s look at each method for Windows 10:

Check CPU Clock Speed with Task Manager

Open the Task Manager by:

Pressing the Windows key (or clicking on the search bar) and searching for Task Manager, or right-clicking on the Task Bar (located at the bottom by default) and clicking on the Task Manager.

In the Task Manager, click on the Performance tab. You should see the CPU performance by default. The CPU name tells you the default speed of each core in the CPU, which in this case is 1.60 GHz.

As you can see here, the base speed is higher at 1.80 GHz. This is because of overclocking, where we set the clock speed higher than the default one to make the processor work faster.

Check CPU Clock Speed with Settings

Simply open Windows Settings from Start Menu, or by pressing the Windows key, and then select System.

Scroll down to the menu on the left, and click About. You’ll find the clock speed beside the CPU model.

Check CPU Clock Speed with Command Prompt

The command prompt can be a handy tool and a quick way to find your CPU speed if you know what commands to use. 

First, simply type cmd in Windows Search bar. You can also press Win + R, type cmd and hit enter to open the command prompt. 

To get the name of the CPU, which also mentions the speed (along with the max speed) type wmic cpu get name, maxclockspeed and hit enter.

Check Clock Speed with System Information Tool

A quicker way is to simply search for System Information in the Windows Search bar. Clicking it will open the System Information Tool. You can also press Win + R, type msinfo32 and hit enter. 

The base speed is shown against the Processor field:

How to Check Clock Speed on MacOS

On older Macs, the process is pretty simple: Click on the Apple menu button and select About This Mac.

This should then open the system details with the clock speed mentioned next to the Processor:

However, with the new M1 and M2 chips, Apple no longer shows the clock speed, as you can see on the screenshot below.

For these systems, you can look up the specs online for the model you have and find the advertised clock speed. Or, you could also use the command line with commands such as sudo powermetrics — though that may be advanced for some users.

How to Check Clock Speed on Linux

Linux OS, depending on the distro, is more or less reliant on the command line. But that also makes it quick and easy to get to the specs you need.

There are multiple commands you can use, and we will look at two: 

1. Open up the terminal and type sudo lscpu and hit enter. This command will show you the CPU details: its architecture, cores, and clock speed. 
2. On the terminal, run sudo hwinfo –cpu. This should give out CPU information similar to lscpu with the Model and the Clock speed in their own fields. 

Conclusion

We’ve covered some of the easiest ways on how to check CPU clock speed on Windows, macOS, and even Linux. 

However, clock speed is just one part of the puzzle. Depending on the usage, other laptop specs — like multiple cores and more RAM — can also be crucial for your laptop’s performance.

If speed is a concern, you could also speed up a Windows laptop or get a high-performance laptop to meet your demands.

Are you wondering if you can upgrade the CPU in a laptop? See this article for the answer.

Discover which components of your notebook can be upgraded.