If you arent overclocking do you need Afterburner to be installed?

[jkilla74]

Do you gain any benefits from having it running if you arent overclocking? Do you need it running just to gain better performance. My card is idle at 29 in my tower. I ran the strest test that came with afterburner and my card didnt go over 70 when it had its boost speeds. I have the MSI lightning 680gtx.

[Mufflore]

You dont need it if you are overclocking, its recommended though.

[Extraordinary]

I use it for OSD FPS and GPU use / VRAM use / etc

[Icanium]

The only performance benefit would be from overclocking.
But AB has other useful tools such as GPU status, FPS counter, video capture, fan speed profiles etc.

[Gazebo]

I use it for fan control and OSD in games.

[jkilla74]

I was wondering what forces it to go into boost clock mode. I think mine needs to be maxed when playing Batman Arkym City. Is there any way to force that?

[Icanium]

Originally Posted by jkilla74

I was wondering what forces it to go into boost clock mode. I think mine needs to be maxed when playing Batman Arkym City. Is there any way to force that?

Your Core 2 Quad CPU is limiting your Lightnings performance, you should get better results from overclocking your stock clocked CPU than GPU boost. Also, you can use AB to check that your Boost clock does not drop below 1176MHz.

[jkilla74]

Originally Posted by Icanium

Your Core 2 Quad CPU is limiting your Lightnings performance, you should get better results from overclocking your stock clocked CPU than GPU boost. Also, you can use AB to check that your Boost clock does not drop below 1176MHz.

Copy. I have to update my specs. This is an old system that I have listed here. Im gonna update and you can tell me if its still my CPU. I think it needs to be overclocked either way though.

[jkilla74]

I updated my specs. Should I still be overclocking my CPU? Performance is awesome with this card with everything. Im playing 8xAA and 4-8x transperant AA on top of maxed out setting in all games. Its just Batman that gives me some hicups here and there. When I first get into the game initially than after that it goes smooth.

[Mufflore]

Monitor CPU use.
If you hit around 90% on 'any' one core, it can start limiting your GPU.

When framerate is low and GPU use is also not at 99%+, you are possibly limited by CPU or system ram speed.

[must_kill_ati]

In addition to resource monitoring and fan control, I find the best thing about afterburner is the video recording - great quality and free!