MSI Afterburner is an overclocking software for graphics cards and HDDs. It comes in two versions: the new beta (released on December 29th, 2011) and the old classic version. The classic version can be used with AMD or NVIDIA gfx cards while the new version is exclusive to NVIDIA GFXs only.
MSI Afterburner has a sleek and easy-to-use interface. It enables the user to customize clocks, fan speeds and voltages, test stability and power draw, save different profiles with hotkeys which can be loaded on startup, benchmark gfx cards OC abilities, etc. For people who don’t want to use MSI Afterburner, it also comes with a small application named MSI On-Screen Display Server that displays various information about the gfx card in a very nice and customizable overlay.
How to set fan curve in msi afterburner
MSI Afterburner comes with a preset fan curve. If the user wants to use another one, he has to create a custom fan curve in a 3DMark or MSI Kombustor benchmark run (in order to make the card heat up). Then, when this is done, click on “Fan Settings”, select second tab and set the desired curve.
How to save custom fan curve in msi afterburner
MSI Afterburner lets you save up to 4 custom fan curves with different settings (e.g.: for different ambient temperatures). To do so, go to “Fan Settings”, click on 2nd tab and select any of those four curves.
How to set voltage in msi afterburner
MSI Afterburner allows the user to set voltage for three types of cards: NVIDIA reference cards, MSI Lightning and non-Lightning cards. For NVIDIA reference cards, go to “Settings” tab, click on 2nd sub-tab and select corresponding option (NVVDD). For MSI Lightning or non-Lightning cards, click on 3rd sub-tab and select corresponding option (VGPU).
What MSI Afterburner is
It is not a free overclocking software. MSI Afterburner doesn’t offer voltage control for NVIDIA cards, nor does it allow user to adjust memory clocks (e.g.: if the user has an HD7970 and wants to set memory clock at 1500 MHz), or any other overclocking features which can be found in free softwares like ASUS GPU Tweak.
MSI Afterburner doesn’t offer any hardware monitoring node in the taskbar, nor does it come with a PC benchmarking software or anything which can potentially damage your gfx card over time (e.g.: FurMark).
The benefits of using MSI Afterburner
It doesn’t use the card’s hardware monitoring node, so it won’t interfere with anything. For example, when you’re running MSI Kombustor (for benchmarking purposes), its hardware monitoring node will be blacklisted in Afterburner settings (you can do this either under “Settings” tab or by double clicking on an empty space in a taskbar which comes with Afterburner).
MSI Afterburner is very lightweight and doesn’t take up much memory or CPU power. It doesn’t have any other performance impact on the system, so you can run it alongside any other overclocking programs without worrying about system instability. MSI Afterburner also comes with a built-in frame limiter for benchmarking, so you don’t have to use FRAPS anymore.
Who can benefit from using MSI Afterburner
Anybody who wants to overclock his gfx card can benefit from using MSI Afterburner. It is also recommended for people who don’t want to use third-party benchmarking softwares like FurMark or 3DMark11 since it has a built-in FPS limiter that works great with most games out there. MSI Afterburner is also great for people who want to overclock the memory but don’t have any experience with hardware overclocking. Click on Memory Clock and set desired clock speeds, then save it under a different name (e.g.: “OC DDR3-1600”) which can be loaded on startup or by pressing F4 hotkey after restarting the PC.
