The Task Manager gets more improvements in version 2004

Mar 13, 2020 10:33 GMT  ·  By

The Task Manager continues to be one of the most-used applications in Windows 10, and it happens for a good reason, as it allows users to get a quick look at how everything’s running on their devices, while also offering options to quickly kill a process.

And because Task Manager continues to be such an essential tool in Windows, Microsoft has released several improvements in the last few Windows 10 feature updates – as a matter of fact, the app still lacks a dark mode, which is one of the things users are drooling after, but sooner or later this one should be released as well in a Windows update.

In the upcoming Windows 10 version 2004, however, Microsoft isn’t bringing a dark mode to Task Manager, but a GPU temperature indicator.

While the purpose of this feature is pretty straightforward, it’s important to keep in mind this only works if you have a dedicated GPU card. Otherwise, there’s no temperature to display in Task Manager.

Microsoft says this is one of the most requested features in Windows 10.

“One of the longstanding requests we’ve been tracking for Task Manager is to add temperature monitoring support, and with today’s build we’re making progress on that ask. If you have a dedicated GPU card, we will now bubble up the current temperature next to its listing in the Performance Tab,” it says.

So once you install version 2004, you can head over to the Performance tab to see the new GPU temperature indicator in place.

What you also need to know is that the temperature details might not be available unless you install the latest graphics drivers. And this is quite a problem, as some companies are slower than others when it comes to shipping updates that support the latest Windows features, so just make sure that you reach out to your graphics card manufacturer for more information on this.

Windows 10 Task Manager with GPU info

Microsoft explains that you need to be running drivers that support version 2.4 or high of WDDM. If you don’t what this means and what version you’re running, figuring out the whole thing is quite easy.

What to you need to know to determine the version of WDDM is to click the Start menu and then type:


dxdiag
Launch the app, give it a few seconds to scan the device, and look in the Display tab for the WDDM version next to the Driver Model. If the version isn’t at least 2.4, you need to update the driver to see the new GPU temperature information in the Task Manager.

Windows 10 version 2004 also comes with some limitations regarding this new feature, so for example, only Celsius is displayed for the time being. Most likely, it’s all just a matter of time until Fahrenheit is added as well, especially because a simple convertor isn’t such a big deal after all.

Of course, if you have more than just dedicated GPU cards installed in your device, Task Manager will display the temperature for all of them.

Windows 10 version 2004 is expected to go live for everyone in April or May. People close to the matter said the update was feature-locked in late 2019, so Microsoft is now only working on the final polishing before the public rollout. As it happened in the case of other feature updates, version 2004 will go live in stages, which means that not everyone would get it at the same time. Alternative download methods, like the Media Creation Tool, will also be offered.

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Windows 10 Task Manager
Windows 10 Task Manager with GPU info
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