MSI Afterburner

Introduction

Since the introduction of RivaTuner, which is a very common video card overclocking utility for Nvidia and ATI based video cards, a lot of computer manufacturers have been trying to come up with their own special program that gives us users the same abilities that RivaTuner does. A lot of times these special programs fail miserably, and one of the reasons for this is because they will only work on that manufacturers components, or they are still very limited on overclocking options.

Then EVGA came out with an overclocking program that works on a multitude of video cards and has no boundaries. Lets face it, EVGA's precision is based off the ever popular RivaTuner. But there is a draw back to this program. Sure it works perfectly on all manufacturers Nvidia based video cards, this program does not work on ATI cards at all. Being it is based on RivaTuners programming capabilties, one would think that EVGA Precision would be.

Now MSI came out with another RivaTuner spin off, but this time we have even more flexibility than RivaTuner could ever have. What is that extra that RivaTuner does not have? What we do get is the ability to add voltages to our video cards, giving us even more overclocking head room to snuff out our opponents in all out overclocking endeavors.

Lets see what the MSI Afterburner can do on a few different types of video cards. The ones we at Bjorn3D.com will be testing this program on are, ATI HD4870, ATI HD4870X2 video cards, these will be used in a crossfire configuration, and an Nvidia 275GTX.

1. Overclocking

ü  Up to 85% overclocking capability

ü  Over voltage function to significantly increase overclocking potential

ü  Core/Shader/Memory clock adjustment

ü  Core/Shader clock Link/Unlink capability

2. Monitor

ü  Clock/Voltage/Temperature/Fan Speed/Frame rate real-time monitor

ü  Maximum/minimum value for easy record of system condition

ü  Real-time On-Screen-Display information in games

ü  Real-time information in Windows Tray Icon

ü  Detach mode for hardcore monitor style

3. Profile

ü  5 Profile to easy save/load user customized setting

ü  Profile hot-key for easy and quick switch in games

ü  2D/3D automatic profile switching for difference scenario

4.Special Function

ü  Advanced fan speed control for different speed under different temperature trigger points

ü  Mutil-GPU independent or synchronous control for clock/voltage/fan speed

ü  Information button for graphics card driver version, BIOS version, identification, OSD status and update link

ü  User Customized skin function

ü  Apply overclocking setting at system startup

Competitors Comparison