MSI Afterburner helps improve 3-D graphics performance in computer games.
In addition to notebooks, servers and multimedia devices, Taiwanese tech company MSI manufactures graphics cards for prominent industry figures such as Nvidia and AMD. The company also offers free Afterburner software, a utility that monitors graphics performance and allows you to overclock your graphics processor to increase its speed. Afterburner features video-capturing tools, and monitors fan speed, temperature, voltage and frame rate, but only works with certain graphics cards on certain computers.
MSI Graphics Cards
Afterburner software caters exclusively to MSI-made graphics cards. As of February 2012, these include cards under the Nvidia GeForce label, such as the GeForce 500, 400, 200, 9 and 8 series, which encompass GeForce GT, GTS and GTX cards. Likewise, Afterburner works with AMD cards in the Radeon HD 7000, 6000, 5000 and 400 series.
PCs
The desktop version of Afterburner, MSI's flagship performance-boosting program, only runs on the Microsoft Windows operating system. Compatible versions include 32- and 64-bit Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7. You'll need about 25MB of free space and an extraction utility to run the compressed Afterburner installer on your PC.
Apps
As a companion product for the home version of Afterburner, MSI's Afterburner App lets you monitor and overclock your PC's graphics card using your mobile smartphone or tablet. The application is compatible with PCs running Windows XP SP3, Vista or 7 operating systems. On the mobile end, it works with Wi-Fi-enabled Android phones using the Android operating system version 2.1 or later as well as iPhones and iPads with iOS version 4 or above.
Considerations
As of February 2012, MSI Afterburner has reached version 2.1.0. MSI and other freeware websites make the desktop version of Afterburner and the Afterburner App available for download. MSI also offers free downloadable skins for Afterburner. Results may vary depending on your system, but MSI touts a performance boost of about 93 percent for the average Afterburner user.
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