MSI Afterburner, worth it ?

OVERCLOCKING IS A SERIOUS MATTER. ONLY DO IT IF YOU KNOW THE RISKS INVOLVED! I am not responsible for any damage.

Now that you know the cautions, lets proceed to the review :)

We all know that from ages, people have overclocked their cards and even set records! HWBot even holds competitions for the same.
But to some people, its all about fun. Like me. I am an enthusiast and been quite some time that I have been running after this.

Well, because producing GPUs is a hard responsibility  AMD and nVidia give this to multiple manufacturers as "Reference Designs" and then it is up to manufacturers to break the clock seals, give a much better or worse cooler and unlock the cards for more performance and extreme overclocking.

MSI (Micro star international) is just another body which has the responsibility to continue the cards and distribute them into the public.
The companies as they provide different coolers, reserve the right to make different softwares for the GPUs and its absolutely correct as what I realise is that a card with a Dual-Fan Vapor X Cooler will easily bypass a Single fan or stock/Reference cooler.

Taking that into consideration, MSI has been out with the MSI Afterburner overclocking Utility. I have a MSI R6770 MD1GD5 at the heart of which is basically the HD 6770  Graphics Processor from AMD and I will use it as my example.

Basically, up there in the Card's BIOS is some data which contains the Clock limits for the Core and memory and the limits for voltage as well. AMD creates the GPU and sets the limits while manufacturers provide a way to reach those.

The MSI Afterburner:

And you double click it to open the original application:

MSI has given a pretty nice look to the utility with easy options, NO FUZZ and the whole utility works really easily. As you can see my Clocks are Voltage as 1125 mV, Core Clock as 800 MHz.

Now, to overclock, you just need to push and slider to the desired direction and that's it. Press the 'Apply' button.

The side 'Hardware Monitor' will help you monitor the basic and important attributes

So, the utility makes it easy for you to overclock any brand and cards, make sure that you download 3DMark 11 and submit your DirectX 11 Scores online. However I have used the MSI Kombustor for Benchmarking.

So, basically the utility is aimed at easy and efficient overclocking. Just don't push the sliders too much and get BSODs (Blue Screens Of Death). If you overclock too much and play graphics heavy games, you might end up frying your beloved GPU! The software might not get to the top as it also follows the overclocking standards set by AMD for these cards.

Pros:

• Easy Overclocking
• Not messy
• Full control
• Total Monitoring
• Dedicated Screenshot and Video recording hotkeys
• Temperature controlled manual fan control

Cons:

• Unlocking required to get rid of AMD's limits
• Menu can be a mess as it occupies the whole height of the monitor.

The bottom line:

The software pretty much impressed me and did all that MSI should develop an overclock app for. Looks are awesome and Kombustor is a good software for benchmarking can load it up to 99% and that is maximum. So, I loved it.

Recommendation:

Totally recommended for good overclocks.

Rating:

4 Techpoints / 5 Techpoints