Monitoring GPUs on Linux with NVtop: Real-Time Insights at Your Fingertips

Vatsal
2 min readMar 12, 2023

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NVtop: A Command-Line Utility for Monitoring NVIDIA GPUs on Linux

If you’re a Linux user with an NVIDIA GPU, you’re likely interested in monitoring your GPU’s performance. Fortunately, there’s a handy tool for doing just that: NVtop. In this blog post, we’ll take a closer look at NVtop and explore its features and benefits.

What is NVtop?

NVtop is a command-line utility for monitoring NVIDIA GPUs on Linux systems. It provides real-time information on GPU usage, memory usage, temperature, power consumption, and more. NVtop is open-source software and is available on GitHub under the GPLv3 license.

NVtop is built on top of the NVIDIA Management Library (NVML), which is a C-based API for monitoring NVIDIA GPUs. NVtop is written in C++ and uses the ncurses(toolkit for developing GUI like apps into terminal)library to provide a customizable interface.

Why use NVtop?

There are several reasons to use NVtop. Here are a few:

  1. Real-time monitoring: NVtop displays real-time information about your GPU’s performance. This can be useful for diagnosing performance issues and optimizing your system.
  2. Customizable interface: NVtop provides a customizable interface that you can tailor to your needs. You can choose which metrics to display, adjust the layout of the interface, and more.
  3. Low overhead: NVtop is designed to have low overhead, so it won’t interfere with your GPU’s performance.
  4. Multiple GPUs: NVtop can monitor multiple GPUs at the same time, so it’s useful for systems with multiple GPUs.

Customizing NVtop

One of the strengths of NVtop is its customizability. You can customize NVtop in a ways including:

  1. Changing the colors: You can change the colors of the interface by editing the nvtop.colors file. This file is located in the ~/.config/nvtop directory.

Conclusion

If you’re a Linux user with an NVIDIA/AMD GPU, NVtop is a powerful tool for monitoring your GPU’s performance. With its real-time monitoring, customizable interface, and low overhead, NVtop is a great choice for anyone who needs to keep an eye on their GPU’s performance. Give it a try and see what insights you can glean from your GPU’s metrics!

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Vatsal

Hi 👋, I’m Vatsal. A passionate Software Developer | Fun fact: Funny, Anime-addict, EDM, Binge Watcher. | Follow Me on GitHub: https://github.com/codeArtisanry