If you are an experienced gamer, you will know that overclocking your graphics card can improve your game experience. Today we will teach you how to use MSI Afterburner to overclock your graphics card and get a smooth game experience.
The MSI afterburner is a graphical tool that allows you to overclock most manufacturer graphics cards on the market. In simpler terms, it has an advanced feature that monitors and allows you to see the changes that occur on your GPU.
Note that MSI afterburner helps you detect the memory clock speeds, GPU temperatures, voltage, frames per second, and the usage percentage.
Overclocking enhances the performance of the graphic card. The drawback is that it may increase the chances of having hardware damage on your computer.
Install MSI afterburner
There are various steps to follow while installing the MSI afterburner. These steps include:
Step 1: On your browser, type in “MSI Afterburner Download for Windows”.
Step 2: Follow the link to MSI’s official website.
Step 3: The MSI official website will be displayed, and you will have to scroll to the bottom of the page to access the download link.
Step 4: There are three options to choose from: MSI Afterburner, MSI Afterburner App for Android, and MSI Afterburner Remote Server.
You are to click the “MSI Afterburner” download link.
Step 5: After a successful download, set up the application and let the Rivatuner and Afterburner install.
Step 6: Accept all the terms and conditions shown and the installation location you want.
Note that the Rivatuner is very important as it has some features that help improve the performance of the Afterburner.
Interface information
i. From left to right: Kombustor Toaster Program
This program is made to push the computer’s graphics cards to the limits to get the thermal and stability results. Note that this program is compatible with 3D APIs.
ii. The interface has the following features from top to bottom:
- Core voltage increment – this is enabled by the overvoltage function
- Power limitation –this feature lets the user adjust the amount of power that goes to the graphics card.
- Temperature limitation – this feature controls the Graphics Processing Unit on whether to boost performance or not through the temperature provided. It is recommended not to exceed 85 degrees to improve the lifespan of the GPU.
- The core clocks – this is the GPU speed on the graphics card.
- The memory clocks – this indicates the speed of the Virtual Random Access Memory on the graphics card.
- Fan Speed (bottom right corner Automatic Fan Control/Manual)
iii. The colored arrows indicate the following:
- White arrow– basic frequency
- Red arrow-Boost frequency
iv. Differentiate between The maximum number, which is the current core frequency, and the bottom number which is the video memory frequency.
v. The number above is the core voltage reading, and the bottom number is the temperature reading.
vi. From left to right side: the Settings, Restore default button, and Application Settings
vii. Automatic application Settings after boot
viii. Above is the name of the video card, Below is the driver version
ix. Preset solutions
x. Monitoring Tab: Real-time details regarding the computer hardware that is the RAM Usage.
Graphics overclocking
- The core voltage is locked and cannot be changed. Pull the power limit and temperature limit fully. The advantage of making the Graphics Processing Unit improve performance as it becomes power efficient.
- The most important one: Core clocks. Directly affecting the performance of the graphics card, it is recommended to increase slowly in units of 50. This helps boost the speed at which applications are running smoothly.
- Video memory frequency. The recommendation is also a slow increase, but it's not as good for the graphics card performance as Core Clocks. It is advisable to overclock GPU memory by 50 to 100 MHz to enhance stable performance.
- Save the overclocking program. Save your overclocking Settings in the default program and set it as an automatic application. This is time-saving when you want to change to a specific setting that you saved on your profile.
Fan speed control
Overclocking of hardware will increase temperature. If not adequate cooling, permanent hardware damage may be caused. Therefore, the fan speed should be increased according to the rise in temperature.
The higher the temperatures in the computer, the higher the rate of rotation in the fan. The lower the temperatures in the computer, the lower the rate of rotations in the fan. The most preferred fan settings for gaming computers are:
- 20% fan speed that is 0 to 40 degrees
- 20% – 35% fan speed that is 40 to 45 degrees
- 35% – 60% fan speed that is 55 to 70 degrees
- 60% – 85% fan speed that is 70 to 100 degrees
It is recommended you use Preset Fan Speed to set the fan speed depending on how your computer heats.
Benchmarking
The MSI Kombustor runs bulk processes to test how the graphics card will react to the heavy work done. This is also done after changing your overclocking settings, and you want to know the effect.
Other Settings
The Rivatuner statistics server is used by the on-screen display. This is applied while gaming, and you get on-screen updates from the most recent monitoring session.
Other parameters can also be set in the setting, such as:
1. Frame Rate Limit
Limiting FPS fixes screen tearing while gaming and makes the Graphics Processing Unit work within its set limits. Frame rate limiting enhances smooth gameplay and consistent response time. The steps to
Step 1: Open the MSI Afterburner
Step 2: Go to the settings and select the Monitoring tab.
Step 3: From the Active hardware monitoring graphs, select the Framerate to adjust the limit.
2. Video Capture
This feature records benchmark results, tutorials, and in-game videos. There are various formats to capture these videos, as well as different frame rates. This feature is important since you could use it to capture your winning scenes in different games that cannot be saved by the game itself.
3. Default skin
Skin, in this case, refers to the theme used in the MSI Afterburner interface. The default skin is “Default MSI Afterburner v2 skin”. You can change the skin to another skin through the following steps:
Step 1: Open the MSI Afterburner application.
Step 2: Go to settings.
Step 3: Press the User Interface tab.
Step 4: A list will be displayed showing skin properties and descriptions. The preview of each skin is shown, and adjustments such as transparency and composition mode.
Step 5: Select the skin of your preference and apply it.
4. Game screenshots
You can screenshot your games while playing by using MSI Afterburner. The steps to taking screenshots are:
Step 1: Open the MSI Afterburner application.
Step 2: Navigate to the settings to get to a smaller window that displays some functions.
Step 3: You are to select the “Screen capture” tab and set your screen capture key. The key set is supposed to capture a screenshot when pressed while playing the game.
Step 4: Select the location you want the screenshots to be saved.
5. Fault handling
When you realize there is difficulty in overclocking, the first thing to do is restart the computer. If it is still not responding, other alternatives could help solve the problem. Disabling the integrated graphics card could help resolve the overclocking issues.
The number of overclocked times might be your graphics card's absolute limits; it is recommended not to exceed that range.
These are the steps to follow to improve the MSI Afterburner performance:
Step 1: Open the MSI Afterburner application and go to Settings.
Step 2: Select the General tab.
Step 3: Activate “Enable hardware control and monitoring” and “Enable low-level IO driver” by checking their boxes.
Step 4: Apply the changes for better performance
Various factors cause your MSI Afterburner not to function properly. Some of these factors include:
- Numerous overlays running on your computer – errors ruin most operations when numerous overlays are running at a go. Some of these overlays must be disabled for the MSI Afterburner to function appropriately.
- On-board graphics card – the external graphics card comes in handy at this point. You are to disable the integrated graphics card in BIOS.
- Having an outdated MSI Afterburner- you should reinstall the recent version of this application. First, you should uninstall the existing application before installing a newer version. Ensure that you download the application from the official website.
- Compatibility mode – when installing MSI Afterburner for an older Windows version, you should run a compatibility troubleshooter. This is to remove the run program in the compatibility mode setting.
Conclusion
The major advantage of using MSI Afterburner is that it enables users to overclock the graphics card safely. MSI Afterburner also performs other functions such as undervolting and underclocking.
The application also provides gamers with a better gaming experience on their computers. Beware of scammers who put malicious applications on their websites to trick you into thinking it is the right application.
