# nvidia-smi cheat sheet

> Source: <https://gist.github.com/omerfsen/8ecb620675525ac724a92bdf5a31a4b3>
> Published: 2025-11-06 11:58:31+00:00

nvidia-smi
(NVIDIA System Management Interface) is a command-line tool that provides monitoring, management, and diagnostic information for NVIDIA GPU devices.
It communicates directly with the NVIDIA driver and GPU, and can:
- Monitor GPU performance, temperature, and utilization
- Manage power, clock speeds, and ECC
- Control persistence mode and compute modes
- Query detailed metrics for automation and monitoring
nvidia-smi
Shows a summary table with:
- GPU index, name, and UUID
- Driver & CUDA versions
- GPU & memory utilization
- Power consumption and temperature
- Active processes using the GPU
nvidia-smi -l 5
nvidia-smi -lms 500
nvidia-smi --filename=/var/log/gpu.log -l 5
nvidia-smi dmon
Example:
# gpu pwr temp sm mem enc dec mclk pclk
0 85 64 23 5 0 0 405 1110
nvidia-smi --query-gpu=index,name,uuid,temperature.gpu,utilization.gpu,memory.used,memory.total --format=csv
Output:
index, name, uuid, temperature.gpu, utilization.gpu [%], memory.used [MiB], memory.total [MiB]
0, NVIDIA RTX A6000, GPU-02afcc1a-…, 58, 72 %, 13456 MiB, 49152 MiB
nvidia-smi --query-gpu=memory.used,memory.total --format=csv
nvidia-smi --query-gpu=temperature.gpu,power.draw --format=csv,noheader,nounits
nvidia-smi --query-gpu=name --format=csv,noheader
nvidia-smi pmon -c 1
nvidia-smi pmon
Example output:
# gpu pid type sm mem enc dec command
0 3024 C 23 5 0 0 python3
Terminate a process:
sudo kill -9 <pid>
sudo nvidia-smi -pm 1
sudo nvidia-smi -pm 0
sudo nvidia-smi -pl 250
sudo nvidia-smi --lock-gpu-clocks=900,1500
sudo nvidia-smi --reset-gpu-clocks
sudo nvidia-smi --lock-memory-clocks=405,1215
sudo nvidia-smi -i 0 --gpu-reset
nvidia-smi -q -d ECC
sudo nvidia-smi -e 1
Example:
sudo nvidia-smi -c 3
nvidia-smi -q -d SUPPORTED_CLOCKS
nvidia-smi -q -d PERFORMANCE
nvidia-smi -q -d PCI
nvidia-smi -q -d FAN
nvidia-smi --query-gpu=name,utilization.gpu --format=csv,noheader
nvidia-smi --query-gpu=temperature.gpu --format=csv,nounits
nvidia-smi --query-gpu=index,uuid,temperature.gpu,power.draw --format=csv -l 10 --filename=gpu_stats.csv
- Use
--query-gpu
with--format=csv,noheader,nounits
in scripts. - Use GPU UUIDs for consistent identification.
- Combine with
watch
:watch -n 2 nvidia-smi
#!/bin/bash
LOGFILE="/var/log/nvidia_smi_monitor.csv"
echo "timestamp,gpu_index,uuid,utilization.gpu,memory.used,memory.total,temperature.gpu,power.draw" > $LOGFILE
while true; do
nvidia-smi --query-gpu=timestamp,index,uuid,utilization.gpu,memory.used,memory.total,temperature.gpu,power.draw --format=csv,noheader >> $LOGFILE
sleep 5
done