The Complete Guide to Using MSI Afterburner

GPU overclocking is, for lots of people, a scary idea. But it does not really need to be one. As lengthy as you understand how to do it and the place to restrict your self, you’ll be able to push the envelope a bit bit and get higher efficiency with out truly harming your {hardware}.

MSI Afterburner isn’t solely among the finest GPU overclocking instruments on the town, however an awesome useful resource for your entire GPU tuning wants, whether or not these embrace overclocking, underclocking, undervolting, and a protracted etcetera.

Still, it may be exhausting to get into at first, particularly if you happen to’re a newbie on this complete overclocking theme. What’s MSI Afterburner precisely, and the way do you employ it?

What is MSI Afterburner?

MSI Afterburner is, fairly presumably, probably the most used GPU overclocking instruments accessible right now for Windows. The first model of MSI Afterburner was launched in 2010 and is developed by MSI, or Micro-Star International, a Taiwanese expertise firm specialised in laptop {hardware}.

And sure, it is that MSI, the one who makes PC gaming gear, graphics playing cards, motherboards, and whatnot. So does MSI Afterburner solely work on MSI-made graphics playing cards?

Not in any respect.

MSI’s instrument prides itself on being an all-in-one overclocking utility that works on any graphics card, irrespective of if it is an Nvidia card or an AMD Radeon card, and in addition works on graphics playing cards not made by MSI. And better of all, it is fully free and has quite a lot of further performance moreover simply being an overclocking instrument.

Related: MSI Stealth 15M: Should You Buy a Thin Gaming Laptop?

The overclocking a part of MSI Afterburner is definitely primarily based on a fairly outdated overclocking utility referred to as RivaTuner. That one truly got here out in 1997, nevertheless it was final up to date in 2009. RivaTuner supplies the spine for a number of overclocking utilities, together with EVGA Precision X and ASUS GPU Tweak, but in addition MSI Afterburner.

Back in its day, RivaTuner was the bee’s knees, however most individuals have settled on MSI Afterburner by now. RivaTuner continues to be round—whereas the primary RivaTuner software program is unmaintained (though nothing technically stops you from utilizing it), RivaTuner Statistics Server, a body charge and {hardware} monitor instrument that was initially a companion to the primary RivaTuner instrument, continues to be actively maintained, and even ships with the MSI Afterburner installer.

How Do I Install MSI Afterburner?

You can seize the newest model of MSI Afterburner from MSI’s web site. You do not want to search for any particular variations or something of the kind—simply seize the installer and go to city. If you occur to want an older model of this system, you’ll be able to seize older variations from FileHorse.

From there, run the installer. It will ask you in order for you to set up MSI Afterburner and RivaTuner Statistics Server, or RTSS, which comes bundled with the installer. RTSS is definitely not important to the software program’s performance, nevertheless it does permit you to present statistics and body charges overlaid throughout video games, which is a fairly cool performance you have got, particularly if you happen to’re making an attempt to doc one thing. That’s actually up to you.

Once you have chosen them, simply run the installer, undergo the remainder of the directions, and wait till it is completed. Congrats! You’ve now put in MSI Afterburner in your laptop.

How Do I Use MSI Afterburner?

MSI Afterburner can do quite a lot of stuff. Here are a number of the issues you are able to do with it, and the way you are able to do them.

When first opening this system, you will be greeted by a UI that kinda appears like a automotive dashboard. It has a heavy theme on prime of it, which kind of jogs my memory of the sorts of themes Windows 98-era Windows Media Player used to have.

On prime, you are going to see stats in your GPU—the clock velocity it is presently operating, and what temperature it is operating at. The backside half has some sliders, which we’re going to get into in deeper element in a bit bit, however principally, these sliders are what is going to permit you to overclock and underclock your GPU, and do different issues to it.

Related: How to Safely Stress Test Your Overclocked CPU, GPU, and RAM

On the left facet, you are going to see a number of buttons. The spaceship-looking emblem will open the Afterburner web site, the “Okay” emblem will open MSI Kombustor, the data button will present you details about your CPU and GPU. From there, we’ve the OC Scanner instrument, which is supposed to robotically scan your GPU (utilizing an algorithm made by Nvidia for RTX 20 collection playing cards) and search for the best attainable overclock and apply that to your GPU. From there, we’ve the settings button and the “monitor” button, which can present you a graph of your graphics card’s temperatures.

Then, the proper facet has a bunch of numbers. Those are referred to as “profiles.” Basically, no matter tweaks you do to your GPU, it can save you them as a profile so you’ll be able to simply click on it and shortly apply it at any time.

If the default structure isn’t adequate for you, you can too change that. Just go to Settings, User Interface, and choose one of many many pre-loaded themes.

How to Overclock Your GPU With MSI Afterburner
There are two methods to overclock your GPU utilizing MSI Afterburner. The first one includes utilizing the OC Scanner characteristic. As we stated earlier, this can be a instrument that can robotically scan your GPU for the most effective overclocking settings.

First, click on on the OC Scanner button, and faucet on the Scan button. This course of will take a number of minutes, so sit down and have some espresso whilst you anticipate it to be carried out. Once it is carried out, it will apply what it considers as the very best settings in your GPU.

You can even manually tweak sliders to overclock your GPU. For that, transfer the Power Limit/Temperature sliders up so as to permit for headroom for overclocking (each sliders are pinned to one another by default, so shifting one up will transfer the opposite).

Then, tweak the Core Clock (MHz) slider up. You can even tweak the Memory Clock. While doing this manually, it is good observe to do very mild tweaks and mess around to discover a good stability between system stability and efficiency—with out damaging your {hardware}.

How to Modify Your Fan Curve
You can even use this system to modify your fan curve. You can tweak the velocity your fan will go, and at what temperatures it’ll go off. To do that, simply go to Settings, and click on on the Fan tab. Then, toggle Enable consumer outlined software program computerized fan management on. This will make the fan curve graph present up.

You can add up to eight nodes within the fan curve and tweak it nevertheless you want. A steeper fan curve will maintain GPU temperatures decrease, however it will probably additionally put further put on and tear on the followers themselves, so you will want to discover a good center floor in order for you to manually modify it.

How to Limit Your GPU by Power Consumption/Temperature
We talked about earlier that you should utilize the Power Limit/Temperature sliders for overclocking functions. But you can too use it for maintaining energy consumption or temperatures on examine at not quite a lot of efficiency loss.

For doing this, as a substitute of shifting the sliders up, you will need to transfer them down as a substitute. For instance, if you don’t need your graphics card to eat quite a lot of energy, you’ll be able to transfer the Power Limit slider down to one thing like 75%, so the cardboard will not go up from no matter limits you are establishing.

MSI Afterburner Opens the Overclock Floodgates

MSI Afterburner is a cool piece of software program that I’d say each PC gamer should have on their laptop. It’s mild, and it permits you to not solely overclock your GPU however tweak it to hell and again so it runs simply the way in which you need it to run.

We simply gave you a number of recommendations on how are you going to use it, however actually, that is just about a tinkerer’s instrument. It may need a slight studying curve to it at first, nevertheless it’s meant for you to mess around and determine what you want to do with it.

3 Ways to Check If Your CPU or GPU Is Overclocked
If your {hardware} is overclocked, you will want higher cooling or you possibly can wreck your system.