Video card overclocking has become a very popular topic amongst gamers and PC enthusiasts these days. With the release of next generation games around the corner and the growing popularity of resolutions beyond 1080p, overclocking is becoming increasingly important to users looking to squeeze the most performance they can out of their video cards.

It’s been more than a decade since video card overclocking was first introduced. Back then, overclocking was considered a risky practice where only advanced users would participate. It was also looked down upon by video card manufactures and board partners alike.

Many of our seasoned readers may remember some of the more popular utilities used back in the day, such as NVMax, CoolBits, ATITools, RivaTuner, and PowerStrip. Much like today’s utilities, each had their strengths and weaknesses. Regardless of the utility used, they all had the same objective: increase the frequencies of our video cards to obtain better than stock performance. Comparing these to today’s overclocking utilities, fundamentally not much has changed. The biggest changes have to do with features and functionality, most of which can be a huge asset to users when overclocking their video cards.

Meanwhile, overclocking is no longer being shunned by video card manufactures and board partners. Instead, it's acknowledged and used in the marketing and design of many video cards, in hopes of increasing market share and brand reputation. Due to the popularity of overclocking, board partners have embraced these utilities and begun to develop them on their own. Along with developing these utilities, board partners have been marketing custom cooled and factory overclocked models to help increase profit margins, and to help broaden their product offerings as well. Additionally, video cards manufactures have been implementing safety measures to prevent users from easily damaging their video cards. Safety nets, such as the use of dynamic clock speeds and GPU throttling, have made overclocking safer and more accessible to the average user.

This article will not be a guide on how to overclock your video card; instead, we'll be doing a round-up of the utilities that help make overclocking possible. Overclocking with the use of software utilities continues to be the most popular method to date. There are over a dozen utilities that can be used to overclock today’s video cards, but today we'll only be looking at the most popular within our community. These utilities include AMD OverDrive, Sapphire TriXX, ASUS GPU Tweak, EVGA Precision X, and MSI Afterburner. As we delve into these utilities, we’ll be analyzing each of their strengths and weaknesses and discovering what separates them from each other as well. Hopefully this round-up will provide some useful data and help you decide which utility is right for you.

AMD Overdrive

The first utility we're going to look at is AMD's OverDrive utility. This utility is automatically included with AMD’s Catalyst software suite. OverDrive is AMD’s take on overclocking and is designed to work with all AMD based graphics cards, so let's take a look and see what OverDrive has to offer.

First off, before you can use OverDrive you are prompted to review and accept AMD's license agreement. This agreement states that operating your video card outside factory settings may damage your product and potentially lead to other problems. AMD will not offer support for the utility and they mention the use of this utility may void your video card's warranty. Simply put, AMD warns you that when using OverDrive, you do so at your own risk.

After accepting the license agreement, you are given full access to the utility. Starting at the top of the utility there are six indicators. These indicators are used to monitor GPU activity, GPU core clock speed, memory clock speed, power limit, GPU temperature, and fan speed in real-time. AMD did a fine job with the design and layout of these indicators as they will play a vital role when overclocking your video card.

Moving down the page the first thing that catches our eye is the big and colorful 2D heat map. The 2D heat map uses a point and click interface on an X and Y graph. The X line represents the card's power limit, while the Y line represents the GPU's core clock speed. You can use the mouse cursor to hover over the heat map, which will display the values before you select them. It’s a pretty neat touch and it's easy enough to use, but in practice, I found it was much faster to manually key in our selections (in the fields to the right of the heat map) instead of using the 2D heat map.

In the past year OverDrive has been updated to take advantage of AMD’s most recent iteration of PowerTune. This version of PowerTune is found on all Bonaire, Hawaii, and Tonga based GPUs; among other features it introduces fine grained power states, which has an influence on how OverDrive looks and behaves. When overclocking any of these GCN 1.1 and later GPUs you’ll notice that AMD partially abstracts the real GPU clock speed by using percentages, which is aimed at making overclocking easier to understand despite the clock speed-varying antics of PowerTune occurring under the hood. However for GCN 1.0 based cards, AMD continues to use the absolute GPU clock speed, as this is how OverDrive operated when these cards originally shipped and they don’t have the clock speed variability of newer GPUs. Meanwhile the power limit setting for all cards operates on a percentage basis, typically allowing up to a 20% or 50% increase depending on the card.

These generational differences also have an impact in how fan speed controls work on some cards as well. Available to manufacturers and enabled on some 290 series cards, AMD allows for both the card’s maximum temperature and the card’s maximum fan speed to be controlled, with OverDrive providing the necessary settings for this. Otherwise when using a previous generation of GPUs or cards where the manufacturer has decided not to enable these features, we get a more traditional setup where the fan speed control adjusts the immediate fan speed to a fixed percentage, with no temperature controls.

In the end, OverDrive offers a relatively simple way for users to overclock their AMD based video cards. I also like the fact that OverDrive is automatically included when installing the AMD Catalyst Control Center, as the use of a third-party utility is not needed. AMD is the only manufacturer to build an overclocking utility into its control panel and driver set, which is definitely a plus.

One last note is that I think AMD video card owners that are just learning the basics of overclocking should start with OverDrive before growing into other utilities. It's a great starter that helps users get a feel for overclocking and teaches the fundamentals as well, and it's difficult to do anything that will immediately damage your GPU. With that being said, I don't think experienced overclockers will consider OverDrive as the preferred utility. I say this because there are many utilities in this round-up that offer more extensive features such as voltage adjustment and in-depth monitoring and logging. Not having at least one of these features tends to be a deal breaker for many experienced overclockers, who usually want more control and features.

Sapphire TriXX

The TriXX utility was developed in-house by Sapphire to be used with their line of Radeon video cards. Though it's intended for Sapphire branded video cards, the utility can also be used with all AMD based video cards as well (though certain features may or may be available). This makes TriXX a viable option for AMD users looking for a robust utility with a variety of features. With that being said, let’s jump in and check out what TriXX has to offer.

When starting the utility you'll likely notice TriXX’s sleek black and white interface. Sapphire also uses a cyan colored font throughout the utility, which looks really good in combination with the interface. At the top of the utility is a large sweep styled tachometer graphic that gives the utility a high performance feel, though it doesn't actually serve any function. Finding your way around the the utility is rather simple, as it's broken into four sections: Information, Overclocking, Fan Control, and Settings.

The first tab is the Information section. Here we can view a full list of our video card’s specifications. Items such as clock speeds, memory size, bus width, ROPs, driver version, and BIOS revision are a few of the specifications shown. Below the specifications we have two additional features as well. The first feature allows us to save (back-up) the video card’s BIOS. Typically, this is a feature that is used by more advanced users who want to enable additional benefits by flashing their video card with a modified BIOS. The other button is used to save a report of the video card’s specifications. This feature mimics the information section and allows you to export your video card’s specifications into a.txt file.

It’s also worth mentioning that we can see our current GPU temperature displayed in the upper right corner of the utility; this is always visible regardless of what section of the utility we are viewing.

Next up is the overclocking section, which allows you to make a number of adjustments to your video card. TriXX includes the ability to adjust the GPU core clock, memory clock, VDDC (voltage), and power limit. You can make these adjustments using the provided sliders, by clicking the plus and minus buttons, or by manually keying in your selections in the given boxes. We didn’t have any issues with any of these methods; the sliders allow quick large-scale adjustments, the plus/minus provide fine-grained control, and the numeric fields allow you to directly specify values if you know exactly what numbers you want to use.

One of the biggest advantages that TriXX has over AMD’s OverDrive is the ability to adjust the GPU's VDDC. Having this feature makes TriXX an exceptional utility for more experienced overclockers that are looking to push their core clocks even higher through overvolting. In our testing, we found that both our Sapphire HD 7790 and reference HD 7970 GHz edition cards had adjustable voltage from.08V all the way up to 1.3v. Though voltage control depends on the model of our card's voltage controller, most mid-range and high-end Radeon cards are likely to allow voltage adjustments.

Another feature of this section is the ability to save up to four profiles. Profiles allow you to save settings to a designated profile number, which you can quickly apply by clicking on the profile number. Having this feature is a boon after spending a fair amount of time finding a stable overclock, and it allows quick changes between settings if you have multiple settings you use on a regular basis. While four profiles might be too few for some, it should be enough to satisfy the needs of most.

Furthermore, I really liked the design and the simplicity when using the overclocking section of TriXX. Everything is laid out exceptionally well so that beginners shouldn't feel overwhelmed when using it. There was however one issue I would like to see Sapphire remedy. If Sapphire would have placed all of the available adjustments in a single window or make use of tabs, this would make for a better experience when using TriXX. I find having to scroll down to access the card's power limit a bit bothersome, and with only three rows displayed you can never see all of the active settings at once.

Next up is the Fan control section of TriXX. Here you are given full control of your card’s fan speed. As shown, there are selections for automatic, fixed, and custom fan settings. If you leave your card in automatic mode the fan speed will regulate as intended by the video card's BIOS. Selecting a fixed fan speed will run your fan at a constant level, which can be useful if you don't like hearing the fan speed up and slow down when temperatures increase/decrease; setting a fixed fan speed can also be useful if you're using liquid cooling with a pump connected to the GPU's fan pins. Finally, you can create a custom fan profile. This allows you to create a profile similar to the stock settings, only you can tune it for better cooling and/or lower noise at any temperature. Creating an aggressive custom fan profile can help keep temperatures at bay when overclocking and overvolting your GPU, so this is a very useful feature for enthusiasts.

The last section of the TriXX utility is related to settings for the software in general. You can choose to have TriXX load at Windows startup, sync all video cards in a multi-GPU configuration, disable ULPS (Ultra Low Power State), and a number of other settings.

One feature I really like is the option to install a Windows sidebar gadget to monitor the video card(s). This gadget shows the video card’s GPU core clock, memory clock, power limit, VDDC, and GPU temperatures in real time. While this monitoring feature may not be as complete as that of some of the other utilities in this round-up, it’s a step in the right direction.

Wrapping things up I’m generally pleased with the Sapphire's TriXX tweak utility. It has a beautiful interface that’s intuitive and a pleasure to use, and with the inclusion of adjustable GPU voltage and fan control many advanced overclockers will feel right at home. However, there are some features I would’ve liked to have seen included within TriXX.

One aspect that could be improved is to offer a more feature rich hardware monitoring section. This is an area most of the competition has spent some time working on, and I would like to see something a little more robust then what they currently provide. I would also like to have seen an on screen display option (OSD), so that I can monitor a video card while in a full screen application (e.g. most games). Having these two features included would really make TriXX feel like a complete solution, rather than just one part of it.

ASUS GPU Tweak

Next up is the ASUS GPU Tweak utility. Developed in-house by ASUS, the GPU Tweak Utility is designed to work with both NVIDIA and AMD based video cards. You don’t need to own an ASUS video card to take advantage of all the features in this utility as it’s designed to be vendor agnostic. With that said, GPU Tweak has some pretty heavy competition in this round up, so let’s take a look and dive right in.

Using their trademark red and black theme, ASUS designed GPU Tweak with style and function in mind. I think ASUS did a bang up job designing the user interface of GPU Tweak. It uses a sleek and intuitive interface that is geared towards overclockers of all experience levels, and I think it's arguably one of the best looking utilities in our round up.

To start things off let's look at the main panel of the utility. This panel has the standard assortment of settings that are seen in most overclocking utilities in this round-up. Here we’re able to increase the card's core and memory clock speeds, adjust fan settings, create custom fan profiles, increase the power target, and on some cards you can adjust GPU core voltage. You can adjust these settings using the mouse to adjust the sliders or by manually keying them in.

The settings can vary largely depending on the model and manufacturer of the video card. Adjustment of the GPU core voltage turned out to be the most inconsistent option for us. For example, we fired up our MSI GTX 780 Lightning and were given the option to adjust GPU core voltage in GPU Tweak, but when installing our AMD reference 7970 GHz Edition and our Sapphire HD 7790 we had no such option. After doing some digging into the matter, it looks like this is hit or miss and depends on the type of voltage controller that comes equipped with the video card.

Comparison of center panels with different GPUs

Note that selecting the advanced mode may require you to scroll down in the main panel to access all of the available sliders. Since the scroll bar is red and doesn't stick out, it could be easily missed by new users. I will say after awhile it did become a bit of a nuisance; I would've liked to have an option to expand the height of the utility, or even add tabs to avoid the need to scroll. At least ASUS has an option in the tune panel to change the order of the sliders; this helps keep the most important sliders up top where you can see them.

Additionally, ASUS ROG based video cards can utilize the ROG Edition of GPU Tweak. This version offers precise control over options like VDDC, VRM clock, memory voltages, and more. Advanced users looking to squeeze every bit of performance out of their ROG video cards will welcome this version of GPU Tweak.

Meanwhile the main panel of GPU Tweak has a multitude of neat features, so let's take a look at some of them that really stand out. Starting off, there is a Live Update button; using this button allows you to stay up to date with the latest version of the GPU Tweak utility. We can also set the utility to do an auto update at certain intervals, such as every day, week, or month. If you happen to own an ASUS video card you can also check the current version of your video card’s BIOS. If you're on an older BIOS version, you can perform a BIOS update using GPU Tweak. This will keep your video card on the latest and greatest BIOS from ASUS.

Having user profiles is a must in any of today’s overclocking utilities, and like TriXX ASUS has four profile slots you can use. You can apply these profiles while in a full screen application and adjust core clocks via the Hotkey feature as well, which is a nice addition. These features are found in the settings panel under the Hotkey tab.

Another feature worthy of mention is the benchmark button. To configure this feature you use the tune settings tab within the tuning panel. Here we can configure any stress testing or benchmark program to open with the click of a button. I personally like to use Unigine’s Heaven 4.0 as the program of choice for this button, as it adds a nice touch of convenience when I’m testing an overclock.

Within this same panel, ASUS gives the option to increase your overclocking range. This option unlocks the utility and allows for higher core and memory frequencies that can otherwise be limited by your video card’s BIOS (and sometimes video card drivers).

The graph icon in bottom left corner of the main panel offers real-time logging and monitoring of your graphics card. Here you can view GPU temperature, GPU usage, GPU voltage, and more. Since this panel will only show so much at one time, you have to scroll down to see additional information. You can however keep your important graphs at the top of the monitoring panel; do this by selecting the item then drag and drop the item into the order you like.

Since GPU Tweak offers such a robust logging and monitoring system, I would’ve liked an OSD or on screen display option available. The use of an OSD allows users to monitor their video card while in a game. While this is not directly related to overclocking, I still think ASUS should try to implement such a feature.

Arrange monitoring priorities using a drag and drop interface

Moving on, inside the main panel we notice that selecting the GPU Info icon reveals a familiar face. I think it’s safe to say out of all of the programs used by oveclockers and enthusiast alike, GPU-Z is definitely among the most popular. Having GPU-Z integration allows you to see your graphics card’s specifications and allows you to monitor changes in real-time. While I like the GPU-Z implementation, I also would like to see the sensors tab from the stand alone version of GPU-Z.

GPU-Z integration

Finishing things up, I can easily say I enjoyed my time with GPU Tweak. It's a beautiful utility that offers a ton of great features such as GPU-Z integration, real-time logging and monitoring, custom fan profiles, and more. GPU Tweak works with AMD and NVIDIA based graphics cards as well, which really gives it an edge over most of the other utilities in our round-up.

However, while there are a lot of good things to say, it's not “all good". The hit or miss GPU voltage adjustment option is a big problem. This issue could deter a lot of overclockers from using the utility alltogether. I also mentioned when selecting advanced mode, having to constantly scroll to adjust sliders and settings when testing our overclock did get a bit tiresome. GPU Tweak isn't alone in having these issues, but it would be nice to clean them up.

EVGA Precision X

Next up is the recently released Precision X 16 utility from EVGA. This latest version of Precision X was introduced with the launch of NVIDIA’s next generation Maxwell video cards, the GeForce GTX 970 and GTX 980.

Kicking things off, like many of the video card manufacturer developed overclocking utilities we’re looking at today, officially Precision X is geared towards EVGA video cards. However, like other utilities EVGA has not done anything to restrict Precision X to just their video cards. As a result it’s freely downloadable from EVGA’s website and is de-facto compatible with most recent NVIDIA video cards, giving NVIDIA card owners yet another option for a solid second-party developed overclocking utility.

Notable among this article’s features, Precision X 16 is EVGA’s second take on developing an in-house overclocking utility this year. After discontinuing their development work with RivaTuner’s creator Alexey Nicolaychuk back in July of this year, EVGA released Precision X 15, their first entirely in-house developed version of Precision X. However due to several bugs and some unresolved issues with Nicolaychuk, EVGA quickly pulled Precision X 15 for further development.

Although their in-house development efforts didn’t go as well as initially planned, after a second development cycle EVGA has been able to correct a number of issues and redesign their user interface as well, releasing the revised utility last month as Precision X 16. Though it's in an odd spot to create a successor to what was commercially their own program in the first place, EVGA has done their best to retain the majority of the features and options found in their previous RivaTuner based Precision X utility. However, true feature parity would require EVGA to recreate features that Nicolaychuk had originally developed over a number of years, so Precision X 16 still isn’t quite as comprehensive a utility as Precision X 4.2 was, as we will uncover when delving further into the utility.

When you first launch Precision X, the first thing you'll notice is its high performance inspired design. Users will feel as if they are starring down at the gauge cluster of a high performance sports car. We feel that EVGA knocked the design of the user interface out of the park with this version of Precision X, as in my opinion it's the best looking of all the utilities in our round-up. (Others are welcome to disagree, of course.)

Let’s start things off with the top section of the gauge. Here you can view your current GPU clock speed, GPU temperature, and GPU voltage in real time. There are red and white triangle indicators that point to your card's base and boost clock speeds, along with indicators that verify the GPU temperatures in Celsius and in Fahrenheit. [Ed: does anyone really think in Fahrenheit when it comes to computer temperatures?]

The middle section of the gauge displays the traditional sliders as seen in most utilities. You can adjust the GPU's power target, GPU temperature target, GPU clock offset, and memory clock offset as well. As shown below, you can adjust the settings using the provided sliders or enter the values manually. Precision X 16 also shows the adjusted values before you apply them. For example, below we added a +238 MHz offset to our GPU clock speed. Precision X will then display our current GPU base clock and the adjusted value, which shows an increase of 238 MHz, and a new GPU base clock of 1218MHz.

In addition, we have a priority button, which allows the dynamic clock adjustments to be prioritized between the power target and GPU temperature. Directly across from the priority button is the link button, which allows the power and temperature target to become linked or remain separate.

Finally, at bottom of the gauge are two yellow arrows on either side of the Precision X 16 logo. These are used to navigate through the menu and settings portion of the utility. Clicking on the right arrow reveals the hardware monitoring graphs, and clicking again brings up the settings section of the utility. We will explore both of these sections more in depth in a moment.

Lastly, I wanted to note that Precision X’s user interface can vary depending on the generation of video card being used. Kepler and Maxwell based cards that employ NVIDIA’s GPU Boost technology will include the sliders for power target as well as temperature target. NVIDIA video cards based on older architectures will have both of these sliders grayed out and they will not be selectable.

Moving on to the Fan speed section of the utility, you can see the current GPU fan speed percentage and RPM. Like most of the other utilities in our round-up, you have the option to leave the fan on auto, set a fixed fan speed, or create a custom fan curve. Selecting the Fan Curve button brings up the settings menu; from here, we can enable the software fan control and create our own fan curve.

We also have the option to select a fan speed preset. Our selections include aggressive, quiet, or custom fan curve presets. As shown below, the aggressive preset isn't a huge departure from the auto setting, which is the same as the custom setting before any modifications are made. However, the fan speeds on the quiet preset were extremely low for my taste; enabling this would cause a hefty dose of GPU throttling, as the fan speed tops out at 50%.

Custom, Agressive, and Quiet

Another option within this section allows us to define a hysteresis value. Setting a hysteresis value becomes useful when using a steep fan control curve, as in the aggressive fan preset. This helps reduce the rate of fan speed fluctuations when the GPU temperature is hovering around the temperature step points. For example, in our aggressive fan profile we see our fan speed is set to 70% with a GPU temperature of 60C. As the GPU temperature increases to 70C, the fan speed increases to 90%. The sudden change in fan speeds between 70% and 90% is extremely noticeable and rather annoying if temperatures are hovering around the 69-70c mark. If we set a hysteresis value of 5C, as the GPU temperature rises to 70C the fan speed will increase to 90%, but it will not decrease again to 70% until the temperature is lower than 65C (70C - 5C). As an added note, hysteresis is applied only when temperatures are dropping, not rising.

Now let's divert our attention to the area below the fan speed section. First up is the test button. The test button is used to launch a desired test application with a single click. To configure a test application, we'll need to go into the settings menu and locate the interface section. Within the second tab of the interface section, we can select any application that we have currently installed on our PC. Being that were using an EVGA utility, we have opted to select EVGA’s OC Scanner X.

Available as a side download from EVGA’s website, OC Scanner X can do a number of things to help test for system stability. We can stress test and benchmark our GPU, enable built-in log functionality, and even use a CPU burn-in module to stress test our CPU. The graphics stress test portion of OC Scanner X uses Furmark technology. I would say the stand out feature of OC Scanner X is the scanning for artifacts option. OC Scanner X can scan for visual artifacts, even the ones that we can't see or those that disappear too quickly to be noticed. There are few tools with this option, which really makes OC Scanner X a great tool for testing GPU stability.

Below the test button is the OSD or on screen display selection. This is used as a way to toggle the OSD setting on and off as desired. We can further control our OSD by entering the OSD section in the Precision X settings. Here we can select a hotkey to toggle the OSD on and off when in an application, change the font sizes when using a compatible keyboard LCD, show system time in the OSD, and show the EVGA header when using the OSD.

Here is an example of what the OSD with EVGA header looks like in the Unigine Valley benchmark.

The second selection is the monitoring graph, which also works in accord with the OSD option. Clicking on the graph selection will display the monitoring data settings window. Here you can choose from seventeen different monitoring selections, everything from GPU temperature to frametimes. You also have the choice on how you want the monitoring information to display. It can be shown in the hardware monitor, OSD, supported Logitech keyboard display, and windows system tray.

Additionally, you can access the hardware monitor by clicking on the yellow arrow to the right side of the Precision X 16 logo. Here you can use the mouse to left click and drag the section up and down, or double click on the hardware monitor to expand the display to a side-by-side layout of all the graphs. We really like the layout of the expanded hardware monitor display, as it's superior to those used in previous versions of Precision X.

Precision X 16 also uses its own server that runs in the background when enabling the OSD option. However, it's not nearly as robust as its predecessor, as it only allows for OSD application exceptions to be added or deleted. In short, if you want to use the Precision X OSD feature in specific applications be sure to delete them from this list if they're shown. For some reason the Battlefield 4.exe file was included in this list, so I had to delete it in order for the OSD to display properly in this game.

Meanwhile there are some options I would like to see implemented into this section. First, there's no option to change the order of monitoring data. This means the OSD will always show the monitoring information from the top to bottom without giving you the ability to change the order. Second, there is no option to change the color, location, or size of the OSD font in the Precision X 16 server. This is a bit of a letdown for users coming from previous versions of Precision X, which uses the robust RivaTuner Statistics Server and allows for these modifications.

Nonetheless, having all of these monitoring options is something that no other utility at this point can offer. The option to use all of these methods to monitor the video card while in an application or at the desktop is a huge plus for EVGA's precision X utility. In addition, EVGA has also added 32-bit and 64-bit support for DirectX 9, 10, and 11 games when using the OSD.

The last selection is the startup section, which allows Precision X to load when booting into Windows. When enabled, it will automatically apply a selected saved profile if allowed. You can also hold the control key to bypass the automatic loading of profiles, in cases where you end up with an unstable profile.

Moving over to the right side, we see the voltage section of the utility. Selecting the overvoltage switch allows you to adjust GPU core voltage, as per the capabilities and allowances of NVIDIA’s GPU Boost technology. Precision X does a good job at offering voltage adjustment for many mid- to high-end NVIDIA based video cards, as I haven’t installed a video card yet that didn’t allow for GPU voltage adjustment. In addition, the amount of increased voltage can differ depending on the type of card installed.

Along with voltage adjustment, Precision X also has an option called K-Boost or Kepler Boost. Enabling K-Boost allows the GPU's clock speeds and GPU voltage to run at their highest set frequencies all of the time. K-Boost disables all of the power saving features that current video cards use to aid with lower temperatures and lower power consumption. The major benefit of K-Boost is to help remove the sudden drops in voltage and clock speeds that happen dynamically when stressing video cards. Removing these can reduce performance inconsistencies and instabilities when overclocking, but keep in mind that this option is not likely to benefit the majority of users out there, as it will cause idle power consumption and GPU temperatures to rise. For that reason this option is primarily geared towards extreme overclockers, particularly those who have a modified VBIOS with direct voltage control.

Below voltage is the GPU select section of the utility. This allows you to select individual video cards when using a system containing multiple cards (e.g. SLI). You can also choose the sync option if you want to apply the same settings/overclock to all of the cards in your system.

Located at the bottom of the utility is the profiles section. As stated many times before in our round-up, profiles allow you to save and apply settings with the click on a button. The big difference with EVGA's Precision X is that it offers up to 10 profiles, which is more than most users will ever need. To save a profile, right-click to highlight a profile number, and then left click to apply and select.

Before we wrap things up, let's dive back into the settings section of Precision X to take a look at a few more features this utility has to offer. First up is the Frame Rate Target feature. This feature allows you to set a maximum frame rate for any game or application. This option tends to come in handy when playing older or less demanding games, which generally produce high frame rates. Setting a desired frame rate at or slightly above your monitor's refresh rate can help the GPU run cooler and quieter, and it can also cause power consumption to go down. This can also be useful for notebooks, as lowering the frame rate can increase battery life.

Next up is the Pixel clock feature, where you can manually adjust the pixel clock used to drive your monitor, in essence allowing you to overclock the refresh rate of the monitor. I really like the fact that EVGA decided to integrate NVIDIA’s monitor overclocking concept into their utility, as it's a feature not found on any other overclocking utility we've used. Though when discussing this feature lets also keep one thing in mind: not all monitors can be overclocked, so make sure to do plenty of research before utilizing this tool.

Lucky for us, we are testing Precision X with a very overclockable Qnix QX2710 Evolution II 60Hz monitor. Firing up this tool, we had no problem hitting 120Hz right off the bat, but due to a large amount of dimming along with some visual artifacts, we settled for a refresh rate of 96Hz, which is still a stellar overclock. While there are a number of ways to overclock a monitor, I really enjoyed the simplicity of doing it with Precision X.

Looking at the Profile setting, you can assign any of our saved profiles to a specific hotkey. This adds a nice touch of convenience when using a full screen application, as we can apply profiles without having to switch to the desktop. Additionally, we can assign 2D and 3D profiles. When the 3D profile is selected, it will automatically load when entering a 3D application, while the 2D profile will load when the system enters a 2D state.

In the General settings, you can set up Precision X to check for utility updates on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. You can also set up a screen capture hotkey, so you can take BMP or JPEG screenshots. Setting up a screenshot target folder is mandatory, as it's needed before you can use the screenshot feature.

We have previously visited a portion of the Interface section in order to configure our test button. In addition, we can also change the transparency of the Precision X utility, turn the interface tool tips off/on, and apply additional GUI skins as they become available.

The Monitoring section is the last in our settings rundown. Here you can adjust the hardware polling period and enter the monitoring data settings as we showed in the graph selection. You also have the ability to save a log of the hardware polling history to a.txt file.

Meanwhile along with being available as a direct download from EVGA’s website, Precision X 16 is also available for download on Steam. These versions are virtually identical, with the exception that users that install Precision X 16 through Steam are now able to unlock up to twenty-five Steam achievements when using the utility. The inclusion of overclocking achievements is clearly intended to be tongue-in-cheek, but if you are the kind of person who likes racking up Steam achievements then you will be amused to find that you can earn achievements for otherwise silly actions such as using the “default” button.

In conclusion, there really is a lot to like with EVGA's newest version of Precision X. It's their best looking interface to date, offers a robust monitoring system, has a fantastic OSD option, enables GPU voltage adjustment, offers monitor overclocking, and has a ton of other useful features. With this list of features, it's hard not to like EVGA's Precision X 16 utility; however, I did have a couple of issues when using Precision X 16.

I found the new settings interface to be very cumbersome when navigating though the settings section, as the last stable version had a more user-friendly interface. I also feel EVGA did their best to keep the majority of options and features from their previous RivaTuner based 4.2.1 version, but it seems like they fell short in some areas. Users coming from the 4.2.1 version may miss the customizable OSD, the feature rich RivaTuner server, and the Android Precision X application support. Additionally, I would like to see VRM temperature monitoring available on supported cards, but it's not a deal breaker.

Overall, as far as overclocking and features go, Precision X 16 is easily one of the best in our round-up. Perhaps the biggest drawback is that it's not useful for owners of AMD GPUs.

MSI Afterburner

MSI Afterburner is the last utility we are going to look at in our round-up. Afterburner is collaboration between MSI and RivaTuner's developer, Alexey Nicolaychuk. Afterburner uses the RivaTuner core along with an MSI designed user interface. MSI has been very proactive in working with Mr. Nicolaychuck, and in doing so, they have added many features that are exclusive to Afterburner.

Developed with MSI video cards in mind, the utility will work for all other brands of video cards as well. Like the ASUS GPU Tweak utility, that means MSI Afterburner will work with both NVIDIA and AMD based graphics cards. So let's get right to it and see what separates Afterburner from the rest of the utilities in our round-up.

When starting the utility you'll first notice the no nonsense user interface. The interface may appear subtle in comparison to most of the utilities in our round-up, but don't let that deter you. While it may lack the flash and style of its competitors, Afterburner makes up for it with its long list of features and advanced user options.

Right off the bat, we see a good bit of information with just these two panels. First, let’s focus on the right pane, the hardware Monitor panel. At a glance, we can view GPU temperatures, GPU usage, fan speed, and RPMs. As we move the slider down, we see a wealth of additional monitoring information. Not only can we monitor the video card(s), but we can monitor other hardware as well. CPU temperatures and usage are now included, and system memory usage can also be monitored.

Pressing the detach button at the top of the panel allows you to expand the panel. This allows you to get a much bigger picture of what the hardware monitor has to offer. There is no doubt that this is the most informative monitoring utility in our roundup, even a step ahead of what EVGA has to offer with their Precision X utility.

Reverting to the main panel, we can see that Afterburner allows for the adjustment of the standard array of settings, everything from power limit to fan speed. We can also adjust the GPU core voltage as well (on most GPUs); however it’s an option that needs to be enabled in the settings tab before use. Along with voltage adjustment, Afterburner also offers us up to five custom profiles, so you can save and apply profiles as needed. They also include a lock feature to keep you from applying or changing profiles accidentally.

You might have noticed the K button in the upper left of the main panel. This is for a program called MSI Kombuster. Like EVGA's OC Scanner X, this stress testing and benchmarking tool uses FurMark technology. Kombuster can check for video card stability and max temperatures while overclocking. As an added benefit, it can stress test your CPU as well. Unlike OC Scanner X, Kombuster's latest version does not include an artifact scanner. Also note that Kombuster is not bundled with Afterburner; it's a separate install.

Another quick item to note is that the “I” button directly across from the Kombuster button is used to view basic system information as shown below.

Let's move on to the general tab in the settings of Afterburner and see what options it offers. As mentioned before, users are now given the option to unlock voltage control along with voltage monitoring in the general tab. We tested multiple cards using different voltage controllers and we were able to adjust the GPU core voltage on every one of them after checking the voltage unlock option. This type of compatibility is one that no other manufacture agnostic utility can provide at this point in time, which really makes this utility stand out for most overclockers. Additionally, we can choose to have Afterburner load on Windows startup and have the utility periodically check for updates as they become available.

AMD users also have the option to change the compatibility properties of Afterburner as well. Selecting the extend official and overclocking limits box will allow users to increase clock speeds beyond the limitations put in place by their video card’s BIOS. Users can also disable ULPS (ultra low power state mode); this option allows the AMD driver to disable secondary video cards when the system is at idle, which sometimes can cause instability and issues when running in a CrossFire configuration.

To get the most out of our GTX 780 Lightning we had to set our voltage mode to extended. This allows us to take advantage of MSI ‘s Triple overvoltage and triple temp monitor option. Only MSI Hawk, Power Edition, and Lightning Edition cards currently have these options available. Triple overvoltage allows users to adjust their GPU core, memory, and PLL (Aux) voltages, and the triple temp monitor allows users to monitor the GPU core, memory, and VRM temperatures as well.

The next tab in Afterburner settings is user defined fan control. Users can now configure fan speeds based on projected GPU temperatures. At this point, this feature is nothing new and in fact, it's pretty much identical to Precision X’s fan control section.

Continuing the list, the monitoring tab is next and works in conjunction with the monitoring panel we looked at earlier. When installing the MSI Afterburner utility, you can also install the RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS). The active hardware monitoring graphs work alongside the RTSS to give us an On Screen Display (OSD) option. Here you can monitor the video card, CPU, and system memory among other things. You can arrange the graphs from top to bottom by dragging and dropping each graph to the desired location. To activate the graphs and their properties, you need to tick the checkmark located next to each graph. Also, the RTSS version 6.2.0 has now included the option to override the group and graph name, change the layered graph color, and added graph columns if you want to change the look of the OSD.

GTX 780 Lightning OSD in Unigine Valley benchmark

Comparing the OSD of Afterburner to Precision X may bring up some questions. Unlike Precision X, we can change the location, color, and size of the OSD font. Additionally, MSI exclusively offers monitoring of the CPU, system memory, and VRM temperatures. VRM temperature monitoring requires video cards to have supported sensors. Monitoring of PCB and video memory temperatures are options exclusive to MSI cards that have triple temperature monitoring.

With that said, in order to make changes to the OSD you need to open the RTSS server. Here you can change the OSD rendering mode and change the size, color, and location of the font. You can even set a frame rate limit in any application using RTSS. These changes can be global or set to specific applications.

Looking further into Afterburner’s settings we have the OSD, Screen capture, profile hotkeys, and user interface tabs. Inside the OSD tab, we can select a hotkey to toggle the OSD on and off, and select hotkeys to show and hide the OSD as well.

The screen capture tab allows you to assign a hotkey to take screenshots. You can select the format of the screenshot -- either BMP, PNG, or JPG -- and you can set the quality of the screenshot as well. Like EVGA's Precision X, you need to set up a target folder before you can use this feature.

The profiles tab lets you set up hotkeys to enable saved profiles, so they can be applied while in a game or another full screen application. Like in EVGA's Precision X, you can also set up 2D and 3D profiles to enable specific profiles automatically.

Moving on, the user interface tab lets you disable/enable tooltips, change languages, and select temperature and time formats. The (arguably) best feature in this tab is the ability to change the Afterburner utility skin. Afterburner has its fair share of skins to choose from and it helps spice up the rather dull appearance of the default Afterburner skin.

Afterburner optional skins

Meanwhile as odd as it may seem, due to the shared heritage of Afterburner and the 4.2.1 version of Precision X you can actually use Precision X 4.2.1 and older skins with the newest version of Afterburner. This piqued my curiosity so I tried to do the same with 4.2.1 Precision X by adding an MSI skin to its file system, but I was unsuccessful in getting it to work. It appears this option pertains to Afterburner 4.0 only. Since this is just a skin, it doesn't carry over any of the exclusive options that are included with the Precision X utility.

Another option worthy of mention is MSI's Afterburner Android and IOS app. The Afterburner app is the first to support both major mobile operating systems. Afterburner functions very similarly to the Precision X 4.2.1 app, but unlike Precision X this version is WiFi only and requires a remote server to be installed in order for it to work.

The last feature I want to look at is Afterburner's video capture program, Predator. Predator offers a number of video and audio capture properties and includes H.264 hardware accelerated encoding as well. These H.264 encoding options include Intel QuickSync, NVIDIA NVENC, and AMD VCE. While NVIDIA's ShadowPlay and AMD's Gamer DVR utilize their respective encoders, Afterburner offers recording with the addition of Intel’s QuickSync. This may entice some users that have compatible Intel processors and want to take advantage of QuickSync’s better performance and/or to keep the load off their main GPU while recording.

Other options include the ability to choose from different container formats such as AVI and MKV, modify video quality, and adjust recording frame rates. Predator also includes audio source capture properties for recording two independent audio tracks. While there are more feature rich video capture tools available, Predator offers some robust options, especially considering it's a free utility.

Wrapping things up, it's easy to see why there's a lot to like about MSI's Afterburner utility. It takes all of the complaints I had with previous utilities and addresses them one by one. Having all these features in a utility that works with both AMD and NVIDIA based graphics makes Afterburner the choice for many experienced overclockers, particularly overclockers not tied to one brand of video card. In addition, Afterburner is constantly being updated and adding new features quite regularly.

Finally, I can say the default skin looks rather bland compared to most of the utilities in our round-up, but that can easily be addressed by downloading a different skin. I do think that Afterburner may be too complex for the beginning overclocker, as its list of features and settings can be overwhelming at first, but overall Afterburner is the gold standard of overclocking utilities.

Final Words

Throughout our review we've been looking at the strengths and weakness of these utilities. We've seen some that are geared towards beginners and others made for experts. The basics of these utilities remain the same, as they are designed to increase the frequencies of your video card. The biggest differences lie within the features and options of each utility and how much value they add for the user. Let's do a quick recap and compare the utilities we've looked at in our round-up.

To start things off, AMD's OverDrive appears to be a rather barebones utility. As with all of the utilities in our round-up, we get the core overclocking section with some entry level monitoring. OverDrive does have a practical interface that is less intimidating for beginners that are just learning to overclock. Admittedly, I didn't like the percentage based overclocking on GCN 1.1 and newer GPUs, and the lack of overall features keeps it from being an option for advanced users.

OverDrive users looking for more should direct their attention to Sapphire's TriXX utility and the ASUS GPU Tweak utility. Both utilities have a GPU voltage adjustment feature and also include beautiful and intuitive interfaces. When comparing these two utilities, I would consider TriXX to be a very functional utility but it's a bit basic in comparison to GPU Tweak, as it doesn't have the amount of features. However, there is one feature that TriXX has over GPU Tweak and that is GPU voltage adjustment for a larger range of AMD cards. This feature alone could put it in front of GPU Tweak as being a choice for advanced AMD overclockers.

As previously noted, GPU Tweak also works for both AMD and NVIDIA based graphics cards, which can make GPU Tweak enticing for users that often change video card manufactures. This also makes GPU Tweak a good entry level utility for overclockers with NVIDIA based video cards. While it's not as entry level as AMD's OverDrive, it's certainly not as complex as MSI Afterburner’s RivaTuner based utility.

Which brings us to MSI’s Afterburner and EVGA’s Precision X. These are the most popular utilities within the overclocking community. Unsurprisingly, Precision X and Afterburner are the most feature rich utilities in our round-up as well, and because of this they're also the most complex. First time overclockers may feel a bit in over their heads when using either of these utilities at first.

Both utilities offer features such as voltage adjustment, on screen display, in-depth monitoring, custom fan profiles, OC profiles, and more. While they both offer largely the same features, Afterburner tends to do them a bit better while offering more of them. For instance, Afterburner has a more extensive on screen display feature, a more in-depth monitoring section, video capture capabilities, and compatibility with both AMD and NVIDIA video cards. However, Precision X does offer some standout features, such as a subjectively better-looking interface, the fantastic OC Scanner X stress tester, and the Pixel Clock OC feature.

Ultimately when all is said and done, in the face of some very strong competition we feel that MSI Afterburner rises above the other overclocking utilities in our round-up. Afterburner’s long list of features certainly helps its case here, but it’s also an evolving utility that is constantly being updated and improved, more than any utility in our round-up. In addition, Afterburner’s developers have done their best to ensure that voltage control is available on a wide variety of video cards as well, making MSI’s voltage control support second to none. With such a wide feature set and backed by this type of commitment and support, for these reasons MSI Afterburner is the current gold standard among video card overclocking utilities.