GFX: MSI Afterburner
When it comes to GPU overclocking software,
MSI’s Afterburner is easily one of the best. If you have an MSI graphics card
then you shouldn’t hesitate to get it installed, but voltage aside, it’s usable
with all other card manufacturer too.
Like all the best OC software, Afterburner
offers some very advanced features in an interface. A lot of the settings are
tweaked using sliders that offer a quick visual guide to how much you’re asking
of your hardware, which can give you a much better idea of how the overclocking
is going compared to a simple list of digits in the BIOS.
One of Afterburner’s big selling points is
the triple overvoltage feature, which adjusts the core, memory and PLL voltage,
which is sadly limited to MSI kit. This can be a risky setting to change but
the software makes it much easier to understand, helping you gain a performance
boost through settings you might otherwise avoid. The core clock, shader clock
and memory clocks can all be tweaked via sliders too and fan speeds can be set
to keep the temperature low.
Afterburner also has in-depth charts for
monitoring the graphics card that ensure that the hardware is handling any
overclocking. If you want to see how the graphics card is handling the extra
load in-game, MSI Afterburner can display real-time information on screen as
you play.
Once you’re happy with your overclocking,
you can set Afterburner to apply the settings when Windows starts or when the
computer boots up. A built-in benchmarking program, like the one found in AMD
Overdrive, is another great feature that can help you get the most out of your
overclocking adventures.
Afterburner
is great for overclocking graphics cards – even if they’re not MSI ones
As we don’t really need our GPU running at
full whack when we’re checking our emails, the ability to assign up to five
profiles and switch between them through keyboard hotkeys is a welcome
addition.
While the large interface might not be to
everyone’s taste – and there are skins available to change it – MSI Afterburner
offers a level of complexity presented with a clarity that pushes it ahead of
its competitors such as ATITool and RivaTurner.
Motherboard: Republic of gamers
Asus Maximus III Gene Republic of Gamers Motherboard
You can tell from the company website that
the guys and girls at Asus take their overclocking very seriously – one of the
most popular tutorials for its Republic of Gamers motherboards involves
overclocking at sub-zero temperatures with dry ice and liquid nitrogen.
If you know you stuff then a Republic of
Gamers board is definitely a good investment. We’re not here to extoll the
virtues of the hardware though, we’re looking at software to help with the OC
process.
Even without Windows, RoG boards lend a
hand through a skinned version of UEFI, which replaces the BIOS. This change on
its own makes overclocking easier, with pre-loaded profiles, in-depth settings
and a system monitor all included to help but there are also some handy tools
that can be accessed for some real-time overclocking.
Asus
come up with another innovate overclocking the OC Key
One tool is called OSD TweakIt and while
it’s not quite as accomplished as MSI Afterburner, it has a much wider scope.
This means that while it lacks the precision of dedicated CPU or GPU
overclocking software, it makes up for it with a range of options that can get
to the very heart of how your system runs. OSD TweakIt isn’t as user-friendly
as Afterburner, with some settings that aren’t clearly explained. It’s assumed
that you’ll know what most of them are but if you come across one that you’re
not sure about, the RoG website (http://rog.asus.com)
has plenty of guides, and a very active community that can help you out.
Coupled with OSD TweakIt is OSD Monitor,
which gives you a real-time overview of your PC’s health, including the voltage
and temperature of the CPU – all essential when you’re overclocking your
machine.
Unlike other OC software, OSD Monitor and
OSD TweakIt don’t run in Windows. Instead they run off a piece of hardware
called the OC Key, which plugs into the DVI port of the graphics card. This
means the software doesn’t need an OS to run, as long as the motherboard is
powered up. As the OC Key interfaces directly with the mobo, no system
resources are taken up by either OSD Monitor or OSD TweakIt, which means it can
be used while playing games or running benchmarks without any impact on
performance.
