Msi Afterburner User Guide

[Nolan Guyz]

Ihave read about many users who can't seem to get MSI Afterburner to unlock voltages and extreme overclocking. There is a new Beta version of 2.1 that seems to be working quite well when it comes to being "unlocked!" However there are a few tricks to get this to work properly, especially if you are using an AMD/ATI card. But, so far I have this 2.1 beta 7 version working perfectly with my MSI 6970's and figured I would share

2nd - Locate the folder where MSI Afterburner installed to, open it, and locate the CFG file named MSIAfterburner. When you 1st dbl click this file it will ask you what program you want to use to open it, choose "Notepad" and click "ok" Once you have the MSIAfterburner CFG file open in notepad you need to change a couple of settings near the bottom:

Once you have saved your changes in the CFG file, close notepad, click "start" and type "regedit" (with no quotes) in the search field near the bottom. A new window will open (pictured below), this is your Registry Editor.

From there follow the instructions I have made on the picture! After you have finished, RESTART your PC and everything should work! If you do not restart your PC after making these changes, your PC WILL freeze up if you try to change your clocks or voltages in Afterburner!

Nice guide Speedway! Now in the beta 7 build of Afterburner that i have, i have unlocked voltages. But i only have a max of 1100mv. Will this tweak unlock more voltage for me? Or will it just give you the voltage control itself?

Thx Merc I'm pretty sure it will only unlock the voltage to the max allowed in the cards BIOS. But, not 100% sure on that one. I know, before I did this, the voltage control was completely locked using my MSI 6970's and after this I could go from 1175mv to 1300mv. But I am going to assume that 1300mv is the max in the MSI 6970 BIOS. So probably your only option to up the max voltage is probably going to be flashing your card with the ASUS BIOS.

You'll probably never need to get to 1300mv, anyway. When I overclocked my HD 5870 2GB on water, I started seeing artifacting on my overclocks, and i was at 1197mv. I could only get to 1030MHz Core Clock.

Yeah, i assumed as much. I still think 1100mv is alittle low. But for now im content with 1100mv. I havent owned this card very long, and since i wont be water cooling it. I might as well be nice to it, lol.

Now that we are all on the same page about Boost 3.0, the overclocking portion of this guide will make a lot more sense. In this guide, I will be using the popular third party software MSI Afterburner, along with Unigine Heaven Benchmark for its looping feature. Even though I am using an EVGA-branded NVIDIA card, all the overclocking software that I've come across gave me very similar results. However, extra features in some software are generally locked off from other brands. Most notable would be the EVGA Precision XOC auto-overclocking portion of the software, which is tailored made for overclocking EVGA cards, will not work with other brands. This does not mean you will not be able to get the maximum performance by using a different company's software, it just means the quick OC option is usually not available.

After using a few different overclocking software, they all gave me the same results, and really, in the end, the layout of each setting is the only major difference between them. It may be best to follow along with me using the Afterburner software and than afterwards once you feel confident, you can switch to the software provided by the company that made your video card. That way you can still refer back to this guide for a reference point.

Before getting too far along, after opening MSI Afterburner make sure to set an aggressive fan profile and proceed with setting the Power Limit and Temperature Limit to the maximum. This will not harm the card, as it is only extending the already cautious limitations that NVIDIA has implemented. For the voltage control, even though the limit is 1.093v, it can still have an impact on a higher overclock. I suggest leaving it at defaults and once you have your final overclocking numbers, see if that extra voltage helps. Some users have reported an actual decrease in performance and overclock with high voltage, while others said it made that last few MHz stable. By default it is grayed out and you need to go into the settings to unlock the option to use it. I did not for this guide, because stock settings of 1.063v was enough.

When it comes to overclocking video cards, first I like to find the maximum memory speeds, since it is generally more forgiving and less factors to deal with. The GTX 1080 Ti memory only comes in one form, which is GDD5X and made by Micron. From looking at many different results across the Web, the overclock is extremely wide, but it seems a limit of 11,950Mhz is the highest I've read about. With 11,000MHz as the starting value, it's hard to say what individual overclocks will be. Also be aware this is Double Data Rate (DDR). This means 400 is really 800 when looking at Afterburner or other monitoring software.

To start this memory overclock, I suggest running Unigine Heaven benchmark in the background while raising the frequency. Start at 100MHz and continue slowly at 50MHz jumps. Memory is a lot more forgiving than the GPU overclock, so if you start to see artifacts, flickering, or have a crash, write that number down and back it off by 25-50MHz. Try it again and leave it looping for a while. Remember, these overclocks shouldn't be for benchmarks only, but in a stable gaming session, too. For my card, I was able to get up to 400MHz and about 10 minutes into running this benchmark, the screen started to flicker and then the system crashed. Running it for a second time at a 375MHz OC for another 10 minutes left me confident that it was stable enough to move on and revisit it later. So, after you get that stable number, write it down and set the memory back to stock so it does not interfere with the GPU overclock.

For the GPU core overclock, it will be a very similar process as the memory. Open your favorite benchmark program in windowed mode so you can watch it while adjusting the clocks. The GPU core is far less forgiving than memory and a large step will only lead to crashes or strange numbers. Since the video card can downclock for any number of reasons covered in the Boost 3.0 section, your overclock may not match up with what you input. Going from 50 to 65MHz may lead to zero changes in the current overclock. Because of these variables, core overclocking isn't as simple as the memory. You must find the sweet spot between maximum heat, power target, and simply going too far. This is something I needed to fine tune over and over until I had a stable overclock, not just for gaming and benchmarks, but using the card 24/7 while running compute programs.

I highly suggest going 5-10MHz at a time. Since you cannot pass 2.2GHz anyways, it will be a short trip. Set the Core Clock slider to +25 and then slowly move it up 5-10 at a time until you see artifacts or a hard crash. Because of the way Boost 3.0 operates, you may see the numbers reflect differently. You'll notice the slider starts at zero without the ability to set your core or boost clocks. That's normal. NVIDIA took care of that and has already decided what is best for the card. This slider just adds on top of what is already decided. However, on occasion you can set the clocks higher than stable and not crash right away because of how the card already handles the boost feature. By that I mean, by example, if you add +300 and the voltage is locked at 1.093v, the card will either crash because of a lack of voltage at that frequency or auto-downclock until it's stable.

It is a strange concept, but the Boost is doing exactly what it is designed to do, which is allow for the maximum clocks without compromising stability. This method of overclocking is not as stable, as the card will be teetering on the edge. It will eventually crash the system, if not right away. My final maximum overclock in this section was +154, which landed the card at 2012MHz. With 1.093v, I was able to get 2037MHz stable, but the temperature and power draw increase was not worth the negligible impact from slightly high clock speeds.

Now that you have every thing written down, it is time to combine the two into one overclock. I've found if you apply those top numbers that was achieved independently, you will find often that it is not stable. Because of how Boost 3.0 plays a role in this, the memory overclock actually increase the total power draw and with the core frequency increased, too, not everything will play nice. So, to start I suggest backing off the desired overclock by 10-25MHz and run a few benchmarks and games. If it's stable, great, you can try for some higher overclocks. However, I think a lot of people will find that the numbers achieved independently will not be stable for long sessions.

Because NVIDIA has wrapped up the Pascal GPU for the most part and the AIB partners have released all the enthusiast level video cards, I wanted to talk about, more or less, the definitive voltage limitations and workaround for this. Only three cards I know of have a special built-in LN2 BIOS, which removes or raises the voltage limit above 1.093 and get around that hard limit. These cards are the GALAX Hall of Fame Edition, EVGA KNGPN, and MSI Lightning Z, all of which have very limited runs and by the time this article comes out, they most likely are already sold out.

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