Could you possibly also include Zotac's utility? They're becoming somewhat more popular since they've got 900 cards in stock, and I've heard relatively little about their software.
Unless you are hard up for a card, never buy Zotac. They're available because everyone steers clear of them, and for good reason. Shortest warranty and awful support... forget ever getting a rebate, either.
Their warranty is shorter if you don't register the card, yeah, but it's as long as or longer than other warranties for the same cards. I haven't had anything wrong with their support, either, but I guess YMMV.
Besides which, how would any of that affect their OC utility?
I've had nothing but positive experiences with Zotac, got my rebate super fast. Never had an issue with the card over 5 years that I've had it, so I can't speak to support. Well made card though.
It doesn't actually *matter* what brand you buy from a warranty and support perspective as at a minimum... Everything has a 1 year warranty and it's the seller who has to handle the warranty here.
It's after you exceed the 1 year mark where things can get interesting, but personally by that point I use it as an excuse to upgrade anyway.
With that said, I'm still rocking dual Radeon 6950's unlocked into Radeon 6970's and it *still* handles every single game I throw at it.
I'd be insulted if anyone offered less than a year warranty on a video card. I think the minimum I've seen on the last 3 or 4 I've had have been three years.
As far as I can tell, it's a reskin of MSI Afterburner. I don't know if it offers any Zotac specific features, but it's updated far less and has just basic overclocking features. I actually like it for its simplicity.
I did take a look at Zotac's FireStorm utility. It's a pretty straight forward and easy to use piece of software. It hasn't got much attention as of yet, but maybe in the future we can take an in-depth look.
Aren't they are just re-skins of RivaTuner. Pretty sure most of them has the fine print "powered by RivaTuner somewhere. They're all watered down versions of the once great utility that are left up to the respective company to release patches for.
People ask all the time why undervolt video cards? Are you kidding me? Especially with a card like an EVGA 780 Ti Classified like I have.....
My card 1150MHz 1.175v stock....
Using power tune at 85% and upping core MHz, it's stable 1100MHz 1.050v ... yea that's right, over .1v reduction on a huge chip = massive power and noise savings while losing just 5% performance. Quit asking this dumb question people, and utility designers please don't leave out negative volt adjustments anymore. Even Afterburner won't undervolt my card, only OVERVOLT LOL... I overvolt this thing .075 and gain a whopping 40MHz and fans scream like they're gonna fly off their bearings and gut my pc.......
I totally agree! I care much more about heat/noise/power consumption/longevity than I do a miniscule, largely academic, performance improvement. I'll take a 8db drop in noise over changing my FPS from 188fps to 198fps any day.
Here, my 1250/6600MHz Chip/Memory OC on my AMD HD7970 is doing wonders on my 1440p 105Hz monitor. Increases the framerate in most games I play by at least a 2 digit number. It's also water cooled, as a decent graphics card should be. So no noise increase.
Why would you buy a high powered card and downvolt it while also downclocking it? Your numbers are also hard to read. You overvolt .075 from 1.175 or from your 1.05? Either way, if you need to overvolt .075 for 40Mhz, you have a dud of a card and if your fans scream, you bought shit. Or stock. Which is shit if you don't get an aftermarket cooler / WC.
I'd also like to add Asus GPU Tweak is averaging two updates a month which is far more often than Afterburner's update frequency which you gave praise for....
I don't think I've seen it update in a long while. I moved to Afterburner after realising that despite people asking for it 2 years ago, there is still no monitoring for two cards at the same time in ASUS GPU Tweak.
There are arguments to be made for CPU overclocking, with CPU it's always about maximum burst and single threaded performance. It even can help boost those dreaded min frame rate lags. GPU overclocking always has been and still remains a complete waste of time and watt power. Even more so now that GPUs utilize thermally controlled turbo throttling, and OC themselves on their own. Go ahead and tweak your settings, experiment a bit with the limits of your 500 dollar card, but let's not pretend that it serves any higher purpose or makes the slightest lick of sense.
I find that overclocking memory freq on a GPU often makes the difference between playability or having to put up with a single un-immersive monitor intead when shooting for nvsurround resolutions.
Hi YazX_ The RTSS 6.2.0 build removes 64-bit OSD MSI Afterburner exclusivity lock, so it now works with Precision X 4.2.1. Precision X 16 also has 64 bit OSD support for DX9 and up games.
Well, these custom skins do not have any functional advantage over standard Windows UI design, obviously. At the same time, most people are not annoyed by custom skins, and some even find it nice. Then, for the people who don't like it, software utility vendors should provide a checkbox/radiobutton to switch to the plain skin.
i ruined a Asus Pro Art IPS Monitor trying to pixel clock it. and i didn't even try anything crazy, just a mild overclock from 60hz to 90hz. The screen started flickering on and off every 15 seconds. Even reverting and trying the monitor on a different PC did not fix it. I will never try that again...
I've been using MSI afterburner for years now. It has the best options and is a truly solid performer. There is no point to use anything else as it does it all.
Regarding video capture and it lacking in Precision X, I have been very pleased with the separate offering from Nvidia (Shadowplay). Unlike FRAPS, it is relatively light on MB/GB file usage.
I see that the author of the article didn't mention the fact that EVGA's Precision X 16 causes DirectX overlay and crash issues. Games like Diablo 3 are unplayable while using this software.
OSD in EVGA Precision X 16 is very problematic, causing issues with many games. Installed MSI Afterburner and couldn't be happier - back to rock solid RivaTuner performance.
I like EVGA's application, but I do not like how they chose form over function. The readability of the "LCD looking" font is really poor. I wish they had a setting's window like MSI's does instead of a tiny imitation of a AV receiver's display on the application. Having to click the right and left arrow to move through options is a perfect example of imitative fallacy.
I'd guess the Battlefield 4 exclusion rule is there because "Origin In-Game" (the Origin overlay) doesn't play nice with other OSD programs in 64-bit. Using multiple 64-bit OSDs causes games to run at ~1 fps.
This seems eerily similar to my own article, except we got an exclusive interview with the creator of RivaTuner (which powers Afterburner and Precision X) and it was out almost a year earlier.
I was thinking of doing an updated version with the newest versions/features, but I guess there is no need now. You also came to the same conclusion as I did, along with Alexey Nicolaychuk's choice also.
Many articles cover these utilities. Our goal was to provide an in-depth analysis of each, so users can make an educated decision when selecting a utility.
I wasn't saying anything negative about you writing this, I actually kind of found it funny because I had to pitch the idea the webmaster of VC and at first it almost wasn't written until I brought Alexey into it.
"This seems eerily similar to my own article" | "I wasn't saying anything negative about you writing this" The first quote does seem like you insinuate that this article is plagiarising your work. That's just my reading of it, though.
Tested Afterburner on my R9 290 WF OC, doesn' work well.. I can't get 2D and 3D clock. if I put 2D with riva tuner stats (automatic changing 2D to 3D), it always crash, black screen.
Tried GPU tweak, Set my 3D clock, and it works fine changing from 2D to 3D. Only thing is ram going from 150 to 1500 when I am on the internet, instead, no issue at all.
But missing CCC Core clock without % (and bios flashing for voltage :( )
I love the MSI Afterburner, rock solid, feature complete. For my Sapphire Trix R9 290 OC, I clocked it to 1130Mhz core, and 1500Mhz memory. Great performance, meeting 780Ti stock in a lot of benchmarks.
boost settings are not saved after I click on apply tab. When I re-open precision-x app, boost clocks are back to default settings. I tried the oc scanner and it shows the default speed with no over clocks.is there a bug somewhere
EVGA precisonX 5.2.3 or w/e newest version is out is FLAT OUT TERRIBLE!!! Sli tunning does not work, K-boost does not work, over-volting does not work, core and memory offsets do not stick. The only good tuner is the Evga PrecisonX Legacy 4.2.1. I will not use AB because their overvoltage does not actually change the voltage on the actual cards, its fake, made to look like it works, but Unwinder himself as confirmed over-volting in AB does not work at all.
Really interesting review. One thing Imneed is a ' dummies' guide to overclocking using this utility, it can't be as simple as increasing the GPU clock until a temperature limit is reched and checking for stability with OC scanner, what about the memclock setting ! and there are lots of warnings about not increasing the voltage as this could shorten the life of the GPU....but as far as I understand, increasing this slightly allows a higher GPU clock speed....this is why a guide to overclocking with this utility step by step would be so handy red.[email protected] thanks
[Ed: does anyone really think in Fahrenheit when it comes to computer temperatures?] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I did not get offended about your comment, but yes I prefer Fahrenheit. This is not to say I do not use the metric of some measurements though.
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arcaena - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
Could you possibly also include Zotac's utility? They're becoming somewhat more popular since they've got 900 cards in stock, and I've heard relatively little about their software.Wixman666 - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
Unless you are hard up for a card, never buy Zotac. They're available because everyone steers clear of them, and for good reason. Shortest warranty and awful support... forget ever getting a rebate, either.arcaena - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
Their warranty is shorter if you don't register the card, yeah, but it's as long as or longer than other warranties for the same cards. I haven't had anything wrong with their support, either, but I guess YMMV.Besides which, how would any of that affect their OC utility?
nathanddrews - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
Nothing wrong with Zotac... at least none of the cards I've purchased.Hrel - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
I've had nothing but positive experiences with Zotac, got my rebate super fast. Never had an issue with the card over 5 years that I've had it, so I can't speak to support. Well made card though.StevoLincolnite - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
Good thing I live in Australia.It doesn't actually *matter* what brand you buy from a warranty and support perspective as at a minimum... Everything has a 1 year warranty and it's the seller who has to handle the warranty here.
It's after you exceed the 1 year mark where things can get interesting, but personally by that point I use it as an excuse to upgrade anyway.
With that said, I'm still rocking dual Radeon 6950's unlocked into Radeon 6970's and it *still* handles every single game I throw at it.
fluxtatic - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
I'd be insulted if anyone offered less than a year warranty on a video card. I think the minimum I've seen on the last 3 or 4 I've had have been three years.hechacker1 - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
As far as I can tell, it's a reskin of MSI Afterburner. I don't know if it offers any Zotac specific features, but it's updated far less and has just basic overclocking features. I actually like it for its simplicity.Michael Wilding - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
I did take a look at Zotac's FireStorm utility. It's a pretty straight forward and easy to use piece of software. It hasn't got much attention as of yet, but maybe in the future we can take an in-depth look.sweeper765 - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
This is more of an OC utilities roundup. I thought there would be a comprehensive guide of how to get the most out of your gpu.Iketh - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
The article title is clear.Crotan - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
Aren't they are just re-skins of RivaTuner. Pretty sure most of them has the fine print "powered by RivaTuner somewhere. They're all watered down versions of the once great utility that are left up to the respective company to release patches for.Michael Wilding - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
MSI Afterburner is the only utility to use the RivaTuner core now.TiGr1982 - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
Sapphire TriXX is indeed simple and easy to use with Radeons (used it with my HD 7950 Boost).Works fine with no issues.
Impulses - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
MSI should steal some of their Afterburner devs to improve their mobo software... :pIketh - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
What about undervolting? Not one mention of it.People ask all the time why undervolt video cards? Are you kidding me? Especially with a card like an EVGA 780 Ti Classified like I have.....
My card 1150MHz 1.175v stock....
Using power tune at 85% and upping core MHz, it's stable 1100MHz 1.050v ... yea that's right, over .1v reduction on a huge chip = massive power and noise savings while losing just 5% performance. Quit asking this dumb question people, and utility designers please don't leave out negative volt adjustments anymore. Even Afterburner won't undervolt my card, only OVERVOLT LOL... I overvolt this thing .075 and gain a whopping 40MHz and fans scream like they're gonna fly off their bearings and gut my pc.......
Hrel - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
I totally agree! I care much more about heat/noise/power consumption/longevity than I do a miniscule, largely academic, performance improvement. I'll take a 8db drop in noise over changing my FPS from 188fps to 198fps any day.Death666Angel - Saturday, October 11, 2014 - link
Here, my 1250/6600MHz Chip/Memory OC on my AMD HD7970 is doing wonders on my 1440p 105Hz monitor. Increases the framerate in most games I play by at least a 2 digit number. It's also water cooled, as a decent graphics card should be. So no noise increase.Why would you buy a high powered card and downvolt it while also downclocking it? Your numbers are also hard to read. You overvolt .075 from 1.175 or from your 1.05? Either way, if you need to overvolt .075 for 40Mhz, you have a dud of a card and if your fans scream, you bought shit. Or stock. Which is shit if you don't get an aftermarket cooler / WC.
Michael Wilding - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
Good call. While it's nowhere near as popular as overvolting, it's a good way to bring down temps and power consumption.Iketh - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
I'd also like to add Asus GPU Tweak is averaging two updates a month which is far more often than Afterburner's update frequency which you gave praise for....kasakka - Friday, October 10, 2014 - link
I don't think I've seen it update in a long while. I moved to Afterburner after realising that despite people asking for it 2 years ago, there is still no monitoring for two cards at the same time in ASUS GPU Tweak.know of fence - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
There are arguments to be made for CPU overclocking, with CPU it's always about maximum burst and single threaded performance. It even can help boost those dreaded min frame rate lags.GPU overclocking always has been and still remains a complete waste of time and watt power. Even more so now that GPUs utilize thermally controlled turbo throttling, and OC themselves on their own.
Go ahead and tweak your settings, experiment a bit with the limits of your 500 dollar card, but let's not pretend that it serves any higher purpose or makes the slightest lick of sense.
Impulses - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
I think you got lost and ended up on this enthusiast site by mistake.theuglyman0war - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
I find that overclocking memory freq on a GPU often makes the difference between playability or having to put up with a single un-immersive monitor intead when shooting for nvsurround resolutions.Anonymous Blowhard - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
Found the console peasant.YazX_ - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
Another thing not mentioned about OSD in MSI AB (RTSS), its the only tool that supports x64 games, as far as i know its exclusive to them.Michael Wilding - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
Hi YazX_The RTSS 6.2.0 build removes 64-bit OSD MSI Afterburner exclusivity lock, so it now works with Precision X 4.2.1. Precision X 16 also has 64 bit OSD support for DX9 and up games.
Guinpen - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
With these utilities there seems to be an ongoing competition to create the ugliest user interface imaginable.TiGr1982 - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
What's your standards of GUI prettiness, BTW? Can you give us all an example?nissefar - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
Standard Windows ui widgets, obviously. Annoys me how every application think they need their own skin.TiGr1982 - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
Well, these custom skins do not have any functional advantage over standard Windows UI design, obviously. At the same time, most people are not annoyed by custom skins, and some even find it nice. Then, for the people who don't like it, software utility vendors should provide a checkbox/radiobutton to switch to the plain skin.Morawka - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
i ruined a Asus Pro Art IPS Monitor trying to pixel clock it. and i didn't even try anything crazy, just a mild overclock from 60hz to 90hz. The screen started flickering on and off every 15 seconds. Even reverting and trying the monitor on a different PC did not fix it. I will never try that again...Iketh - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
I don't think there is anything "mild" about a 50% overclock..... smhKhenglish - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
+1 for Trixx. It's the only tool that allows software voltage adjustment of mobile AMD GPUs.Also no Nvidia Inspector?
octiceps - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
+1 for Nvidia Inspector.octiceps - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
Er...why is the Afterburner profiles settings window shown for Precision?Ryan Smith - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
Whoops. This is what happens when you have so many images with similar names. Thanks for pointing that out.Laststop311 - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
I've been using MSI afterburner for years now. It has the best options and is a truly solid performer. There is no point to use anything else as it does it all.Nfarce - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
Regarding video capture and it lacking in Precision X, I have been very pleased with the separate offering from Nvidia (Shadowplay). Unlike FRAPS, it is relatively light on MB/GB file usage.theNiZer - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
Michael Wilding: great article read, and great subject. I also very much like that you present your conclusion. I'll take MSI AB for a spinnstryderxx - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
I see that the author of the article didn't mention the fact that EVGA's Precision X 16 causes DirectX overlay and crash issues. Games like Diablo 3 are unplayable while using this software.Michael Wilding - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
I was curious, so I fired up Diablo 3 with the Precision X 16 OSD enabled and had zero issues. Maybe the recent update fixed this issue?madwolfa - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
OSD in EVGA Precision X 16 is very problematic, causing issues with many games. Installed MSI Afterburner and couldn't be happier - back to rock solid RivaTuner performance.garrun - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
This was a really helpful article. I've been using PrecisionX 16 with my GTX 980's and didn't realize it could do all of that. Very cool.Subyman - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
I like EVGA's application, but I do not like how they chose form over function. The readability of the "LCD looking" font is really poor. I wish they had a setting's window like MSI's does instead of a tiny imitation of a AV receiver's display on the application. Having to click the right and left arrow to move through options is a perfect example of imitative fallacy.hulu - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
I'd guess the Battlefield 4 exclusion rule is there because "Origin In-Game" (the Origin overlay) doesn't play nice with other OSD programs in 64-bit. Using multiple 64-bit OSDs causes games to run at ~1 fps.LoccOtHaN - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
Im using TRIXX only :DLedHed - Friday, October 10, 2014 - link
This seems eerily similar to my own article, except we got an exclusive interview with the creator of RivaTuner (which powers Afterburner and Precision X) and it was out almost a year earlier.http://videocardz.com/35604/gpu-overclocking-apps-...
I was thinking of doing an updated version with the newest versions/features, but I guess there is no need now. You also came to the same conclusion as I did, along with Alexey Nicolaychuk's choice also.
Michael Wilding - Friday, October 10, 2014 - link
Many articles cover these utilities. Our goal was to provide an in-depth analysis of each, so users can make an educated decision when selecting a utility.LedHed - Friday, October 10, 2014 - link
I wasn't saying anything negative about you writing this, I actually kind of found it funny because I had to pitch the idea the webmaster of VC and at first it almost wasn't written until I brought Alexey into it.Death666Angel - Saturday, October 11, 2014 - link
"This seems eerily similar to my own article" | "I wasn't saying anything negative about you writing this"The first quote does seem like you insinuate that this article is plagiarising your work. That's just my reading of it, though.
LedHed - Thursday, October 16, 2014 - link
Lol, do you really think I believe AnAndTech read my article a year ago and then sat on the idea until now? Give me a break, I was joking...ChristTheGreat - Friday, October 10, 2014 - link
Tested Afterburner on my R9 290 WF OC, doesn' work well.. I can't get 2D and 3D clock. if I put 2D with riva tuner stats (automatic changing 2D to 3D), it always crash, black screen.Tried GPU tweak, Set my 3D clock, and it works fine changing from 2D to 3D. Only thing is ram going from 150 to 1500 when I am on the internet, instead, no issue at all.
But missing CCC Core clock without % (and bios flashing for voltage :( )
Rock1m1 - Sunday, October 12, 2014 - link
I love the MSI Afterburner, rock solid, feature complete. For my Sapphire Trix R9 290 OC, I clocked it to 1130Mhz core, and 1500Mhz memory. Great performance, meeting 780Ti stock in a lot of benchmarks.frwiz - Monday, October 20, 2014 - link
boost settings are not saved after I click on apply tab. When I re-open precision-x app, boost clocks are back to default settings. I tried the oc scanner and it shows the default speed with no over clocks.is there a bug somewhereSeanJ76 - Thursday, October 30, 2014 - link
EVGA precisonX 5.2.3 or w/e newest version is out is FLAT OUT TERRIBLE!!! Sli tunning does not work, K-boost does not work, over-volting does not work, core and memory offsets do not stick. The only good tuner is the Evga PrecisonX Legacy 4.2.1. I will not use AB because their overvoltage does not actually change the voltage on the actual cards, its fake, made to look like it works, but Unwinder himself as confirmed over-volting in AB does not work at all.IHxInfi - Monday, November 3, 2014 - link
I wish they wouldn't "pimp my ride" all of these over clocking utilities... a functional professional looking application would be much preferable.reddwar4ever - Saturday, December 12, 2015 - link
Really interesting review. One thing Imneed is a ' dummies' guide to overclocking using this utility, it can't be as simple as increasing the GPU clock until a temperature limit is reched and checking for stability with OC scanner, what about the memclock setting ! and there are lots of warnings about not increasing the voltage as this could shorten the life of the GPU....but as far as I understand, increasing this slightly allows a higher GPU clock speed....this is why a guide to overclocking with this utility step by step would be so handy red.[email protected] thanksChewyXX - Tuesday, November 15, 2016 - link
[Ed: does anyone really think in Fahrenheit when it comes to computer temperatures?]-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I did not get offended about your comment, but yes I prefer Fahrenheit. This is not to say I do not use the metric of some measurements though.