Table of Contents
Introduction
MSI Afterburner is a powerful tool that can help you overclock your computer. It is one of the most popular overclocking apps on the market, and it has been downloaded by millions of people worldwide. The reason for its popularity? MSI Afterburner makes overclocking easy – all you need to do is click a button to increase your clock speeds! However, there are some things you should know before using this app.
In this blog post, we will discuss everything from how to use MSI Afterburner correctly to which programs are compatible with it, so let’s get started.
What is The MSI Afterburner?
The MSI Afterburner is a hardware overclocking utility for graphics cards. It allows you to boost the performance of your GPU and make it look better than ever before by tweaking settings such as core clock frequency, thermal limits, memory clocks, voltages and fan speeds using real-time graphs.
And that’s not all! The afterburner also adds an overlay with your current GPU temperature and voltage. It also notifies you when a new version is available, so it’s always up-to-date!
MSI Afterburner is also a power user’s dream in this scenario. This graphics utility includes tabs for monitoring the GPU temperature, frequency and other settings as well as tweakable presets that can be applied on-the-fly during gameplay to overclock your system without needing to restart your computer or do anything else except choose which preset you want to use.
It includes tabs for monitoring the GPU temperatures, frequency and other settings as well as tweakable presets that can be applied on-the-fly during gameplay to overclock your system without needing to restart your computer or do anything else except choose which preset you want to use. If overclocking isn’t enough out of these settings, you can also manually adjust the settings of your GPU.
The MSI Afterburner has a wide array of features like the following below:
Overclocking
The MSI Afterburner is after all an overclocking utility. This means that you can overclock your GPU, CPU and memory for example with a click of the mouse! The program also has an integrated benchmarking tool so it’s easy to see which settings give the best performance.
Monitoring
With MSI Afterburner, you can also keep track of your system’s temperature, hashrate and voltage.
You can also change the update interval for data gathering (default is 30 seconds) to save power when not gaming or benchmarking.
The program features a large variety of alarms which you can enable depending on what parameters you want to keep an eye on so that it alerts you if they surpass certain thresholds set by yourself
It monitors core frequency with support for AMD Ryzen CPUs as well! The MSI Afterburner has been designed from ground up avoid any pitfalls in terms of compatibility – It supports all graphics cards from both Nvidia and AMD.
There are more advanced settings available like setting fan speed profiles per game or application, customizing hotkeys, task scheduling and much more!
Benchmarking
Benchmarking is an important task in the world of overclocking. Benchmarking is a process by which you measure and compare performance between two different settings or configurations to determine, where possible, the superior one.
The good thing with MSI Afterburner is that it can be used as benchmarking software. Not only does this provide a more accurate measure of overclocking performance, but also gives you the opportunity to make your own custom benchmarks and compare them with others!
Video Capture
MSI Afterburner can also be used to capture video of your gameplay. This is a great feature for gamers who love streaming their games live on Twitch and want the best quality possible! MSI Afterburner has a built-in video encoder which allows you to capture videos of any length, while still being able to have the audio and graphical quality.
Afterburner can also be used for capturing screenshots from games. This is another great feature that many gamers love! Again, it has an inbuilt screenshot function which will allow you to make captures without having to take out your graphics card or install external software. Screenshots are captured with high resolution rather than low resolutions like on other programs such as Fraps. Not only does this provide a clearer image but saves space too!
FPS Counter
The MSI Afterburner has a built in FPS counter that is accessed through the “MSI Afterburner” tab in the sidebar. This allows you to see the FPS and monitor your in game performance without having to alt-tab and open a different program.
This is also helpful for people who use multiple monitors as it allows them to switch back and forth between their games, chat clients or other programs on their secondary monitor with ease.
FPS Counter panel has many uses but it’s mostly used to monitor performance changes over time while playing games like CSGO without having to alt+tab every few minutes (very tedious).
What is Overclocking?
Overclocking is the process of making a component run faster than its stock speed. Typical examples are increasing the frequency of CPU cores or GPU core clock speed, and memory clock speed. A typical goal is to maximize performance while remaining stable for long periods of time under heavy load
Overclocking tweaks can be done on most components, but the most common examples are CPU and graphics card, and in this article, the focus will be on the GPU
There are three major methods used to overclock graphics cards: manual configuration (manual fan control), offset configuration (setting an increased target temperature limit) or automated mode with MSI Afterburner software tool in most recent releases of MSI Afterburner OC Engine
The most stable overclocking settings will vary greatly between products so it’s worth doing some research before you start tweaking anything!
Using MSI Afterburner for Overclocking
MSI Afterburner utilizes two core design philosophies – “Simplicity” and “Sophistication.” Simplicity refers to the ease-of-use principle that makes it possible for novice users to overclock their graphics card without breaking a sweat. Sophistication refers to the rich set of features that expert users can utilize for extra performance tweaking, perfecting the art of overclocking and pushing your graphics card beyond its limits
These core design philosophies make MSI Afterburner a versatile graphics tweaking tool, capable of serving both novice and expert users.
Moreover, MSI Afterburner offers a number of powerful features that can be used for overclocking, such as:
- Memory clock frequency
- Core clock frequency
- Core voltage
- Fan speed and temperature monitoring
MSI Afterburner also features the OC Scanner, a tool that will find the most stable overclock settings for your graphics card with just a few mouse clicks.
MSI Afterburner is a fantastic overclocking software – it’s free, easy to use, and offers plenty of powerful features for both novice or expert users who want to push their hardware beyond limits.
And while there are a plethora of other graphics tweaking tools on the market, MSI Afterburner stands out from the rest through its user interface. The UI is both intuitive and unobtrusive – it does not get in the way or inconvenience users with any unnecessary options. Instead, all necessary information is consolidated into two panels (a “General” tab and an “Advanced” tab), making navigation easy even when dealing with complicated settings. In this article we will go over how to use these two tabs effectively so you can start overclocking your
Download MSI Afterburner
Downloading Afterburner is easy. To get started, visit the MSI Afterburner website and click on “Download Afterburner”
Install MSI Afterburner
After you download MSI Afterburner, perform a normal install and make sure to include the RivaTuner in the installation
Understanding the MSI Afterburner Interface
The MSI Afterburner interface is divided into two main tabs which are:
The Main Tab
This tab includes all of the settings that you can adjust to overclock your computer like memory clock speed, core clock speed, or core voltage. It also has some other useful information such as power state usage if you’re not using an iGPU (integrated GPU), whether or not Virtual Reality Check is enabled in a gaming application, and how much time there was between wakeups from sleep mode when it last booted up.
Core Voltage
The core voltage is the voltage that is supplied to the processor core. The higher the CPU clock speed, the more power it needs and in turn, a faster core voltage will be required for overclocking purposes as well.
Power Limit
The power limit in the MSI Afterburner shows the power limit of the cores. If you increase or decrease it, then it will have an effect on your performance because more voltage is needed for overclocking if the limits are lower.
Temp Limit
The temp limit in the MSI Afterburner shows the temperature limit of the cores. If you increase or decrease it, then it will have an effect on your performance because more voltage is needed for overclocking if the limits are lower.
Memory Clock Speed
The memory clock is the clock speed that is supplied to the memory. The faster the memory clock, the more games will be able to use it without significant performance loss and at a higher resolution with better graphics settings.
Core Clock
The core clock is how many GHz your CPU core operates at when executing instructions from RAM or other storage devices connected directly to it (without involving any of the CPU cache). In order for overclocking in applications like MSI Afterburner, you’ll need a high-end cooling system such as an aftermarket heat sink or fan and thermal paste applied evenly across all surfaces of the heat sink or else your computer may overheat and shut down due to overheating.
The Monitoring Tab
This tab shows the visual representation of your PC’s temperature, as well as the CPU and GPU load, which is interesting to see if you’re overclocking these items as well. There are also details about whether or not MSI Afterburner puts an idle tempcap on each core before it starts monitoring it (both cores need to have this enabled for any results), as well as how many degrees Celsius above/under 60 Degrees C the system is running when in power saving mode so that there isn’t too much of a strain put on your computer while its idle.
The MSI Kombustor
The MSI Kombustor is a system stability testing tool that can be used to test the performance of your PC. This software is available in both an MSI Afterburner and EVGA Precision interface, but for this article I will show you how to use it with MSI Afterburner.
To use Kombustor with Afterburner, select “MSI Kombustor” as your testing device and click the Launch button (K).
Using the Overclocking Feature of MSI Afterburner
First of all, keep in mind that overclocking your system poses a huge risk to the stability of your system. This is because overclocking a CPU and/or video card will increase its core clock speed, which can lead to instability in some programs that may not be compatible with the higher speeds.
If you are aware of the risks and are still interested in overclocking your system, then you can proceed with the insructions below to use the overclocking feature of MSI Afterburner.
TIP: If you are not sure how to overclock your computer, please do some research before trying it on your own. You may find helpful information in this article “How To Overclock Your Computer”
Also before you do any overclocking tweaks, it is recommended that the Kombustor is running in the background for testing purposes (for making sure if there aren’t crashes) and possible power usage reading as well. This will allow you to test your system to make sure it is not unstable and that any overclock settings are working correctly.
Step 1: Click the gear icon, then on the General tab, check the box beside “Unlock voltage control” and “Unlock voltage monitoring”. After that, click OK then run MSI Afterburner again.
Step 2: If you have multiple GPUs, select the card from the Master Graphics Processor Selection that you wish to overclock
Step 3: Set the Power Limit and the Temperature Limit to maximum. With the power and temperature limits maxed out, the GPU will have no other choice but to increase in speed.
Step 4: Increase core clock slider gradually until you find an appropriate stable level. Do not increase the core clock speed slider by more than 50 MHz at a time, as this could be dangerous and cause instability in your system. The recommended increase is around 25 MHz.
Step 5: As you gradually increase the core clock, you will experience graphical issues in the GPU’s performance which means you have reached the limit of your graphics card. When this happens, lower the core clock in small increments until you find a stable level. The recommended clock speed decrease is around 17 MHz.
Step 6: Next is to play around with the memory clock speed using the same increase and reduction as the core clock until you find the stable settings.
Step 7: Once you are satisfied with the overclocked settings, save the overclocking profiles so you can load it in the future. Make sure to give a new name for your newly created overclock settings, or else this will overwrite all of your current overclocked settings with no warnings
Using the OC Scanner
Another way to overclock using Afterburner is by using the OC scanner. The OC scanner is a powerful tool to find the highest stable overclock for your computer. To use it, click on “OC Scanner” in Afterburner’s main menu and then click “Scan”.
After doing this, you will be given a list of overclocks that are compatible with your hardware configuration.
On Screen Display Benchmarking
The On Screen Display benchmarking tool is an excellent way to get a better idea of how your computer performs in certain applications as it allows you to show system statistics like FPS, GPU clock, GPU Temp while in game.
To activate the On Screen Display, make sure to install RivaTuner Statistics Server alongside Afterburner, then follow the steps below
Step 1: Click the gear icon to access the settings window then select the Monitoring tab
Step 2: Locate the Active Hardware Monitoring Graphs, click on the parameters that you want to show on the On Screen Display tab then check the box beside “Show in On Screen Display”
Step 3: When finished. Click Ok
You can now see the performance statistics of your system when you run a game
Fan Profile Setup
The fan profile setup in Afterburner is a personal preference. The default fan profile sets up the fans to ramp up when your computer is under load or over 60 degrees Celsius, and then slow down as things cool off again.
This setup might not be for everyone because it means that you will hear from time-to-time (though in most cases) some heavy duty cooling noise while gaming. To avoid this, there are two options: a balanced option that keeps the CPU at around 50% utilization without exceeding 60 degrees Celsius, or an aggressive one where the CPU never exceeds 90%.
Both of these alternatives provide enough cooling power so that all we would need is to change out our stock cooler with something more powerful like a liquid cooler – however if you decide on how aggressively you want your CPU to be cooled, you may have an issue with the size of the cooler.
The MSI Afterburner also has a built-in log that keeps track of all changes made by users and logs them for future reference.
Conclusion
Afterburner is a handy tool for any overclocking enthusiast. It allows you to monitor your system’s performance in order to find the perfect balance of stability and speed, all without having to give up on MSI hardware! We’re always interested in hearing about what others’ experience with Afterburner has been so feel free to share your thoughts below. What are some other tips that you know work well when using MSI afterburner? Share them with us in the comments section below!
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