Piriform's freeware has impressed us with its value, and Speccy fits the form. We also like the ability to save and reload system 'Snapshots' as XML or text files, or even optional INI files. It accurately displayed sensor data from the CPU and two hard drives, offering reassuring proof that our disks and CPU were all operating well within their rated temperature range the dual-core Pentium 4 in our testbed ran at a frosty 37 degrees C. Our favorite function by far is the temperature display. The Help file links to a product Web page, but it's more than adequate, and Speccy's about as easy to use as any program out there it just shows you what's going on with your PC. Speccy has few settings beyond language and temperature (Fahrenheit or Celsius).

Clicking anything calls up a more detailed view of the component's operating conditions and statistics. The left-hand navigation window lists Summary, which gives a handy system overview, as well as CPU, RAM, and so on. Speccy's sleek dialog, gray tones, and small but crisp and colorful icons give a modern look to the familiar Windows interface.

It even displays the temperature of compatible hardware. It shows the brand, model, version, driver, file, location, capacity, operating condition, and other data about your system's CPU, motherboard, RAM, graphics card, disk drives, optical drives, audio, peripherals, network, and operating system. Its mission is to collect and display more-detailed information about your hardware and its performance than is offered by Windows, even the latest versions. Piriform's Speccy is a nifty little system information utility.

Speccy professional screenshot