A lightweight CPU and GPU monitor for Windows
Short answer
If you want to watch CPU, GPU, memory, disk, and network usage without a heavy third-party suite, a lightweight monitor is enough. AppRig shows live readouts of each of these plus your busiest processes in a small tray panel, sampling only while it is visible, so you get an at-a-glance view of system load without a resource-hungry background app.
The manual way
Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) already covers a lot of ground: its Performance tab shows CPU, memory, disk, GPU, and network, and Resource Monitor goes even deeper if you need per-process detail. Both are built into Windows and cost nothing.
The catch is that they are full windows, not something you glance at while working. Opening Task Manager to check GPU load, then closing it again, breaks your flow if you want to do this often. Heavier third-party monitoring suites solve the always-visible part, but many of them come with more logging, alerting, and configuration than a quick glance actually needs.
The faster way with AppRig
AppRig’s System Monitor sub-tool shows live readouts of processor, memory, disk, GPU and video memory, and network throughput, along with your busiest processes, in a small docked panel or a pop-out window. It sits there while you work instead of requiring you to open anything.
It samples about once a second, and only while the panel is actually visible, so it is not running full-tilt in the background when you are not looking at it. Nothing is logged or sent anywhere: it is just a live readout, which is what keeps it light.
See the full AppRig how-to in the docs →
Related questions
AppRig does this and more, all in one local-first Windows app. See what AppRig does →