MSI AfterBurner

Author svl, November 09 2009. Published in MSI Afterburn

As follows from the license agreement attached to the program, the use of this utility is free for the end user, but the distribution right belongs exclusively to MSI, as its name eloquently hints at. That is, its appearance in file archives of third-party sites without the company’s permission is not legal.

Why did we pay attention to this fact? In the vast expanses of the former USSR, the phrase “intellectual property right” falls into the category of “obscure puns.” It is currently unknown whether MSI will strictly control third-party sites in terms of distribution of the program. We respect intellectual property and to write a review we downloaded the program from the official website :).

In addition to distribution from the official website, MSI Afterburner will also be present on software discs included with video cards from this manufacturer. At the moment, there is no “binding” to cards exclusively manufactured by MSI and you can freely use it on video cards of any brand. We hope that this practice will continue in the future.

By the way, the only technical support forum is not the company’s website, as would be quite logical to expect, but a completely different resource - the Guru3D.com portal. Unfortunately, users who do not speak the “great and mighty” English language will be left without support.

The program supports all current OS versions Windows (except server solutions), GeForce 8X00 and newer graphics cards for NVIDIA and R3000 and newer for AMD. As you can see, unlike EVGA Precision, owners of older GeForce 6- and 7-series graphics cards are out of business. Users Windows Vista and Windows 7, using User Account Control (UAC), you will have to allow the program to start every time you start it (including when it boots up with the system), as for RivaTuner, but at least there are no warnings about installing unsigned drivers.

A new item immediately attracts attention - “Core Voltage”. Yes, this is nothing more than controlling the voltage supplied to GPU. The option itself is not new, and advanced RivaTuner users can already control the voltage through the command line tool, but the output of this setting in the user interface for products based on RivaTuner technologies has been implemented for the first time. Below we provide a list of cards on which voltage control GPU can be implemented:

AMD RADEON HD 5970 reference design with VT1165 voltage regulator;
AMD RADEON HD 5870 reference design with VT1165 voltage regulator;
AMD RADEON HD 5850 reference design with VT1165 voltage regulator;
AMD RADEON HD 5830 reference design with VT1165 voltage regulator;
AMD RADEON HD 5770 reference design with VT1165 voltage regulator;
AMD RADEON HD 5750 reference design with VT1165 voltage regulator;
AMD RADEON HD 5670 reference design with VT1165 voltage regulator;
AMD RADEON HD 5650 reference design with VT1165 voltage regulator;
AMD RADEON HD 4870 reference design with VT1165 voltage regulator
AMD RADEON HD 4890 reference design with VT1165 voltage regulator;
AMD RADEON HD 4870 reference design with VT1165 voltage regulator;
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 (dual-board models only) reference design with VT1165 voltage regulator;
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 reference design with VT1165 voltage regulator;
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 (only models with GPU
Graphic Processor Unit

Designation of modern video card graphics processors. The concept was originally introduced by NVIDIA as a designation for GPUs with hardware acceleration function for geometric calculations (Geometric Processing Unit), but this interpretation did not take root.

, made using 65 nm technology) reference design with a VT1165 voltage regulator;
MSI N275GTX Lightning with uP6208 voltage regulator;
MSI N260GTX Lightning with uP6208 voltage regulator
NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 465
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480

It’s nice that the list includes video cards based on GPUs from both NVIDIA and AMD. Subsequently, the list of cards on which such settings will be possible will probably expand, including due to new MSI video cards.

Of course, it should be mentioned that modification of the recommended board design by some manufacturers is quite widespread, and in such cases this setting may not work correctly or not work at all. By the way, there is no help as such in the distribution package of the program - user assistance is provided through the tooltip mechanism. After studying their contents, it is possible to disable the display of contextual help, which is quite logical. But if more complex questions arise that go beyond the scope of available information, you will have to contact the program’s technical support forum.

The monitoring window has a convenient option to detach from the main program window when you press the “Detach” button and allows you to minimize the program to the system tray, leaving only this window. When you reopen the all utility, the windows return to their original state. The user can set the number of monitored parameters using the “Monitoring” tab, accessible by clicking the “Settings” button at the bottom of the main program window.

The window allows you to select monitoring sources, organize the order in which they are displayed in the window, and activate the display of indicators in the overlay on-screen menu, as well as in the system tray. In this case, another component of the program will be automatically launched - the statistics server, which is well known to us from RivaTuner and EVGA Precision.

The same thing will happen when trying to monitor FPS. Such a launch implementation is quite justified when the program is used by a wide range of users. But the most interesting thing awaited us when we tried to take control of the fan. The control algorithm chosen for MSI Afterburner impresses with its clarity and ease. Clicking on the “User define” button opens access to another interesting tab, “Fan”:

The screenshot shows the already edited cooler control algorithm. Editing is done by simply dragging the graph with the mouse. This is much more convenient and clearer than the threshold mechanism in RivaTuner. It is worth mentioning the “Profiles” tab.

Users can select a profile for 2D and 3D modes, which can be useful when overclocking a video card only for 3D applications, organizing various modes of operation of a video card without frequency separation, and problems with changing frequencies due to incorrect driver operation.

This is also not an innovation for such utilities, but the implementation of the mechanism in a specific case allows you to avoid a lot of questions from inexperienced users, with which various forums were filled, because The start of the statistics server and monitoring of the use of hardware acceleration when selecting profiles occurs automatically. The only thing you should not forget about is applications that can use hardware acceleration and are not in the statistics server exceptions list (for example, video players).

We tried to find the overclocking limit of the video card and along the way discovered that the program does not have any built-in stress testing mechanism and allows overclocking up to a cyclic reboot of the driver or a complete system freeze. This should be taken into account by fans of extreme overclocking, although this problem is inherent in almost all modern programs of this direction.

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