Graphics Card Overclocking Software [Extra Quality]

Jarred Walton is a senior editor at Tom's Hardware focusing on everything GPU. He has been working as a tech journalist since 2004, writing for AnandTech, Maximum PC, and PC Gamer. From the first S3 Virge '3D decelerators' to today's GPUs, Jarred keeps up with all the latest graphics trends and is the one to ask about game performance.

So I recently upgraded my GPU to a MSI GeForce GTX 1060 6GB and and i'm thinking about overclocking it, not because I have a problem with it as stock but I want to get out as much of its potential as I can. My CPU is a AMD FX 4130 Quad-Core Processor and its about 3+ years old. I know I need to upgrade it but for now it'll have to do. But if I do overclock my GPU, will it affect my CPU/my CPUs life span at all since its a bit older? And will it affect anything else in my computer in a negative way?

Graphics Card Overclocking Software

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For GPU overclocking, MSI Afterburner is the ideal choice for almost anyone. The software allows for in-depth customization of GPU settings that are presented in an easy-to-understand manner. Gamers can use it to adjust clock frequency, voltage, and fan speed while monitoring key GPU performance indicators to watch for any problems. It can also adjust voltages and power limits, making it a breeze to overclock just about any GPU.

Asus also brings a powerful overclocking app to the table. The UI for the GPU Tweak II is particularly friendly, dividing choices between an overclock mode, gaming mode, silent mode (for music and video performance without a noisy fan), and a My Profile section for saving all your customizations.

We just got another round of leaks surrounding the rumored Nvidia RTX 40 Super lineup. This time, the sources speak about the amount of memory these new GPUs might serve up. Nvidia may be making progress toward rivaling some of AMD's best graphics cards, which typically have a lot more VRAM. But is this upgrade really going to be as significant as some speculate? Not all reputable sources agree.

A third source has just weighed in on the matter of the rumored RTX 4080 Super, RTX 4070 Ti Super, and the RTX 4070 Super. Benchlife cites its own sources at Nvidia's board partners as it claims that the RTX 4080 Super might come with 20GB of memory, whereas the RTX 4070 Super might be boosted to 16GB. Doing so would definitely require chip changes for both cards. The RTX 4080 Super would now share the same AD102 GPU as the flagship RTX 4090, and the RTX 4070 Super would be bumped up to the AD103 chip found in the RTX 4080.

The GPU shortage is over, and gamers around the world can breathe a sigh of relief. For those in the market for one of the best graphics cards, we closely looked at graphics card prices and availability to see where the GPU market is headed and to figure out the best time to buy.

Hi, I've noticed that many in this subreddit are interested in overclocking/undervolting but are confused about the terminology, how to do it, and when to do one over the other. I'm a pretty avid overclocker and have guides posted in many Discords. I've written an extensive GPU overclocking/undervolting guide as there's a lack of proper guides. This will be helpful to anyone who has questions about overclocking/undervolting or want a place to get started.

With the ongoing slate of Nvidia's Ampere graphics cards, overclocking has changed quite a bit from past generations. You can't expect as much out of it anymore, or at least not so much that you can be a few generations behind and get your card to compete with the latest ones. Now, overclocking lets you pull out a bit more performance to give yourself room to work with, especially if you're trying to hit the demands of a high refresh rate monitor.

That said, it's a smart thing to do if you want to get the most out of graphics card and aren't looking to face the constant supply issues right now. Instead of refreshing inventory pages or paying three times the price for a GPU, you can give your card a solid overclock.

CPU overclocks are nice too, but a good GPU overclock might have a stronger impact on the games you play. The best graphics cards still struggle at higher resolutions like 4K and 1440p on monitors pushing refresh rates past 60Hz. There's no real downside to giving it a shot and seeing what your card can do. Take a few hours and set your GPU up to max out its performance and don't look back.

If you're looking to overclock a card you've already installed, then it's probably time to crack the case and clean up in there. Make sure cables are routed clear of fans and don't obstruct case airflow. If the card itself has gotten dusty, carefully blow it clean with a can of compressed air. If you opt to remove the card for a full clean-up and overhaul, don't forget to release the locking tab at the forward edge of the slot that secures the card to the motherboard.

After clean-up is done, update the graphics drivers to make sure all the latest bug fixes and stability enhancements are in place. Occasionally, motherboard firmware updates that further improve stability or performance are also available. Consider installing these as well, to give your system a fresh foundation for your overclocking adventures.

Good news: overclocking your graphics card is actually really easy, and you don't even need to leave Windows to do it! While the motherboard BIOS is where most CPU overclocking takes place, graphics cards are tweaked via desktop software. Manufacturer-specific overclocking software exists, but most veteran PC enthusiasts stick to a few trusted packages that have been around for a while and work on most graphics cards no matter who makes them.

MSI's venerable Afterburner is the best place to start when it comes to overclocking your graphics card. In addition to a long history of stable releases, Afterburner is simple to use and provides a few extras including a built-in temperature graph along with voltage and real time clock speed monitoring tools. EVGA's Precision is another excellent graphics card overclocking suite, if MSI's Afterburner leaves you cold.

Now it's time to test the hardware and see how well your card currently performs. Find a few reliable, easy to use gaming benchmarks to run before, during, and after overclocking, both for stability testing and performance measurement purposes. One synthetic and one or two real-world benchmarks should be plenty. Try to pick real-world benchmarks that use engines relevant to the games you like to play. Our performance analysis articles on recent games can provide additional insight into what performance you should expect.

Nvidia's Ampere architecture, found in the 30-series cards, doesn't offer a ton of room for overclocking. The cards have hard power limits that cause them to drop voltage and therefore clock speeds. It's fairly common to see people argue for undervolting your Nvidia GPU to get a cooler card and slightly better performance.

Practically speaking, this means you can expect around a 10-15 percent boost from an overclock. The good news is all these safeguards make the process painless and reasonably safe. Although your mileage may vary, it's unlikely you'll brick your graphics card under these circumstances. Nevertheless, overclocking always includes risks, so keep that in mind before deciding to go forward.

With your card cleaned up and ready for overclocking, you can typically max out the voltage and power limits on most graphics cards. For Ampere cards, increasing the voltage doesn't seem to have much of an impact. They are power-hungry cards, so increasing the power limit will tax your PSU. Keep an eye on temperatures and clockspeeds when testing.

We recommend modifying your fan speed as well. By default most graphics cards are tuned to run reasonably quiet, but that can lead to uncomfortably high temperatures when overclocking. Depending on your card, you may be okay with maxing out fan speed, or you might want to aim for 40-50 percent fan speed on some blower cards. For the initial overclocking, you can also set a static fan speed with a noise level you find acceptable, like 80 percent. That should keep your GPU as frosty as practically possible, and you can tune the fan speeds later.

Don't worry if your system locks up, a driver error occurs, or some other issue rears its head. Just reboot, use a slower clock speed, and soldier on until you find the card's maximum stable core frequency. Test with a 10-minute benchmark cycle and record this overclock value. As with memory, dial it back just slightly and leave a 10-25MHz safety margin.

As an alternative, EVGA's latest Precision X1 utility supports a "scanner" mode that will attempt to find a stable overclock, using a non-graphics workload so that it can gracefully crash and recover. It tends to err on the side of caution, which isn't a bad idea. It takes about 20 minutes to run and eliminates a lot of the guesswork, though we still typically get better results with manually overclocking.

This is where the two sets of performance results gathered at the end of each of the above sections become useful. You'll likely see bigger gains from the GPU core than memory overclocking, so prioritize the core speed first and step back on your memory overclock.

While every card will yield different results, the broad consensus of 10-15 percent performance increases generally held true for all of the 30-series Nvidia cards. It's hard to pin down exact numbers for any one game, but you can look at some of these stock speeds to get a sense for how much of an improvement you can see. Certain games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Civilization 6, and Metro Exodus are great examples to compare against, like our MSI RTX 3060 benchmarks below.

Overclocking your graphics card can be a good way to improve performance, especially if you're running a card that didn't come with a factory overclock. A lot of current cards come modestly overclocked, but you can often squeeze out a bit more performance with a few tweaks.

One final caution is that just because an overclock appears to be stable during your initial testing and overclocking does not mean it will never cause problems. Hell, we've even seen factory overclocked cards have problems at their default settings, requiring a boost in fan speeds or even a drop of GPU clocks. It's a good idea to monitor your graphics card temperatures over the coming months. be457b7860