I use MSI Afterburner 3.01 which is a free overclocking software to overclock my Nvidia GT620 1GB videocard’s GPU core clock, and memory clock, so my PC games have faster video frame rates like 40-60 Frames per second. Having higher frame rates will make video on games look smoother, and have fewer slowdown problems like slow frame rates which caused the video to slow down, or stutter. You may also be able to set your video quality on PC Games to a higher video setting like low to medium, or medium to high video quality settings after you overclocked your video card.
MSI Afterburner been pretty stable, and reliable at overclocking my video card, and my overclocks don’t cause my computer to crash, or overheat.
I like the dark modern theme for Afterburner. It is easy to find the settings like core clock, and memory clock speed I want to change.
You can also underclock your videocard to save a little bit of electricity/power, and make your video card run cooler when you are doing less video intensive tasks like browsing the web, office work, e-mail, watching standard definition video, etc.
I also use MSI Afterburner to adjust my video card’s fan speed, so it runs cooler. A cooler running video card means my video card is less likely to overheat, and I can set the core, and memory clocks higher.
It is easy to change the core, memory, and fan speed. I only need to move the slider button to the right with my mouse, and hit apply. I recommend slowly increasing the core, and memory clock a few 1-2 MHz at a time, and hitting apply. Once you finish hitting apply, open up a computer game, and play it for a few minutes to see if the game runs smoothly, or does not run. If your video looks weird, your game crashes, and you experience other problems, it may mean you set your core, and memory clock too high, and you should lower it to your previous settings.
Sometimes you can find out what is the average maximum overclock for your video card by reading reviews for your video card on computer parts review websites, computer forums, and websites.
Some video cards like gaming video cards like the Nvidia Titan may let you adjust the core voltage, and power limit for higher overclocks by adjusting the voltage, and power. If you don’t know how much to adjust the voltage and power, it is best to leave voltage, and power settings alone.
You can also save up to 5 video card overclocks profiles, and you can also turn on overclocks after Windows start up.
There is a reset button to reset your video card to its default core, and memory speed.
Afterburner also has a computer hardware monitoring utility program which monitors your computers’ video card usage, CPU usage, video card temperature, video card ram usage, PC ram usage, video card fan speed, etc.
MSI Afterburner also tells you what brand and model your video card is, and driver version which your video card is using in Windows.
MSI Afterburner also comes with a free Predator multi-threaded picture screen capture and video screen capturing tool for recording video from gameplay, and taking screenshots like fraps, but it is free. You can save the video file as AVI, and Mpeg, and adjust the frame rate and quality of the video to best suite your needs.
I recommend upgrading your power supply to a higher wattage power supply like a Cooler Master Elite Power – 460W Power Supply if you plan on overclocking your videocard to higher setting, or your power supply is 350W or lower because your computer’s power usage will be higher after you overclocked your videocard. Higher wattage power supply also come with faster spinning and bigger fans which cool your computer better than most low wattage power supply.
If your videocard does not have a fan, or your computer gets very hot, installing a video card fan cooler like Vantec Spectrum System Fan Card with Dual Adjustable 70mm UV LED Fans (Blue) will help cool your overclocked videocard to prevent overheating, and make it possible to overclock your videocard even higher for faster video performance.
MSI Afterburner is one of the best free overclocking programs for Windows to overclock your videocard for faster PC game video performance, or even underclock it for better power savings when not gaming on your PC.
You can download MSI Afterburner from http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm