GPU monitoring applications in Linux / Ubuntu

Little list of applications for GPU load monitoring

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GPU load monitoring applications: nvidia-smi vs nvtop vs nvitop vs KDE plasma systemmonitor.

Here we have just some screenshots and descriptions of linux apps useful for GPU monitoring.

nvidia-smi

nvidia smi screenshot - for gpu monitoring in linux

Right away we can see the load is 2%, VRAM used: 356MiB / 16376MiB, and the power drawn 11W / 320W We can also see how much memory each process is using.

to display nvidia-smi with auto-refresh:

nvidia-smi -l

nvidia-smi is a very helpful program, you can set among other things a limit on power drawn by your GPU by calling

# set a power limit of 200W use (-i 0 apples to only the 1st gpu)
sudo nvidia-smi -i 0 -pl 200

nvtop

Another nice application for monitoring GPU load in linux is nvtop.

nvtop screenshot - for gpu monitoring in linux

We can see how much VRAM used in total, GPU Load overall, then CPU and load and VRAM/RAM usage per process, and some diagram. To have some visuals is always very nice.

nvitop

nvitop has an interface a step above nvtop. Just look at this screenshot:

nvitop screenshot - for gpu monitoring in linux

Temperature, RAM/VRAM usage and the GPU load - everything is clearly visible and accessible.

kde.plasma-systemmonitor

Even though I’m using standard Ubuntu (Gnome based), I can still install kde.plasma-systemmonitor and use it.

sudo apt-get install kde.plasma-systemmonitor

plasma-systemmonitor

kde plasma systemmonitor - for gpu monitoring in linux

KDE plasma systemmonitor has a GPU section which is showing current GPU load. It is not useful in relation with VRAM used but still something.