MSI Afterburner - How to Download, Fix and Use for Free

MSI Afterburner is the most popular graphics card program for a good reason.

It’s dependable, works with any card (including non-MSI! ), provides comprehensive management, allows you to monitor your hardware in real-time, and, best of all, it’s completely free!

MSI Afterburner is free to use and works with graphics cards of all brands.

What is MSI Afterburner?

MSI Afterburner is a graphics card overclocking software that works with all cards.

The primary features are GPU clock modification, sophisticated fan speed control, and GPU voltage control.

MSI Afterburner is a free program that allows you to overclock, monitor, benchmark, and capture video.

MSI Afterburner works with all kinds of graphics cards, whether they are Nvidia or AMD-based.

Afterburner provides comprehensive control over your hardware, allows real-time monitoring, and is completely free. All vital information, such as the GPU core clock, memory clock, temperature, voltage, and fan speed, is displayed in real-time in games and the Windows Tray Icon. All changes can be saved as profiles, and users can simply switch between them using hotkeys.

System requirements for MSI Afterburner

Before you download and install MSI Afterburner on your PC, make sure you have the following system requirements:

OS: Windows 11, 10, 8.1, 8, 7, Vista, XP (both 32-bit and 64-bit)
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 6, AMD RADEON HD 2000 (or newer)
Drivers: NVIDIA Forceware 96. xx, AMD Catalyst 9.3 (or newer)

It’s worth noting that MSI Afterburner works with any graphics card, however, some features will be disabled if your GPU isn’t on the list above.

Is it safe to overclock my GPU with MSI Afterburner?

Yes, MSI Afterburner will allow you to easily overclock your GPU, and it should be safe if you have a basic understanding of what overclocking is and what your GPU core clock and memory speeds are.

Does MSI Afterburner Work with Integrated Graphics?

No, Afterburner does not support integrated graphics.

It will, however, function with any Nvidia or AMD GPU, including those found in laptops.

Is MSI Afterburner better than Asus GPU Tweak?

Asus GPU Tweak also allows you to monitor and overclock your GPU, however, it only works with Asus GPUs, unlike MSI Afterburner works with any Nvidia or AMD GPU, regardless of manufacturer.

MSI Afterburner for Android

MSI Afterburner for Android allows you to monitor and overclock your machine from your Android device.

You must have the MSI Afterburner Remote Server installed on your computer to utilize the MSI Afterburner App.

How to Download MSI Afterburner

MSI Afterburner download and installation is a simple operation that you’ve undoubtedly done a hundred times before.

However, for those who are new to the installation game, here’s how it’s done:

Search Google for “MSI Afterburner Download”
Locate MSI’s official page and click the link
It should take you to the official MSI Afterburner page; once there, scroll to the bottom for a download link.
Click the “MSI Afterburner” download link to download the installer.
Once downloaded, run the installer and let Afterburner and Rivatuner install.
Restart your computer and launch MSI Afterburner to begin using the software.

MSI Afterburner Remote Server Installation Instructions:

To connect to your workstation from an Android device, first, download and install the Remote Server from the links provided below.

After downloading MSIAfterburnerRemoteServer.zip, unzip it to a folder and launch MSIAfterburnerRemoteServer.exe. It should appear in the system tray after installation is stalled. Copy the bottom IP address revealed by clicking on it (you will need it for the MSI Afterburner App).

Configuring the MSI Afterburner App

After installing MSI Afterburner Remote Server on your PC and downloading the MSI Afterburner App for Android, launch the app and click on settings. Select ‘Host IP Address in the settings and enter the IP address you obtained from the MSI Afterburner Remote Server (it should be something like 192.168.101.22:82). When you enter the IP Address, your Android device will connect to your computer immediately.

Features

Afterburner now includes Predator in-game video capture.

Gamers may now record and share their most heated moments in their favorite games on YouTube.

Overclocking tools

Exploring and exceeding your graphics card’s boundaries may sound intimidating, but it’s easier than you think. Afterburner overclocking tools provide you with quick and easy access to your graphics card’s settings.

While changing the clock frequency and voltage of your GPU, the fan speed control will allow you to find the ideal balance of performance and temperature.

One-click Overclocking

OC Scanner is an automatic function that will determine the most stable overclocking settings for your card.

Gives you a free performance boost for a more fluid in-game experience due to increased FPS.

Custom Fan Profiles

Heat dissipation is critical for graphics card performance.

Afterburner allows you to completely adjust a predefined fan speed curve, giving you complete control over cooling performance!

Video Capture

Share your favorite memories!

You may capture your greatest performance in games or overclock with Predator without missing a single frame.

To capture your match-winning frag, defeat the game on hard, or smash an overclocking record, the Predator software supports the H.264 codec, multiple file formats (.WMV,.AVI), size, and quality.

Triple Over Voltage

“We feel that overclockers are always striving for the best, and that perfect control over the smallest elements is critical to success.

We provide more broad control over MSI graphics cards to reward our customers.

The Triple Overvoltage capability will provide you an advantage by allowing you to precisely adjust the voltages of the Core, Memory, and PLL.”

In-Game FPS Counter

In games, the FPS counter in the corner of the screen is your best buddy.

It displays real-time information about your system’s performance on an On Screen Display, allowing you to monitor the impact of your overclocking settings while gaming.

64-Bit Support

MSI recognizes that Afterburner users work on a variety of systems. With an increasing number of games being released for current 64-bit PCs, it has added complete compatibility for 64-bit apps.

Custom User Skins

Choose your favorite appearance and feel! It comes with a variety of skins that dynamically change how the software looks and what is displayed. Choose one from the options menu or download a custom skin from the internet.

Multilanguage Support

Because MSI Afterburner is utilized worldwide, you can choose your language from the User Interface menu.

Every major language is supported.

Hardware Monitor

The Hardware Monitor displays key hardware statistics like temperature, utilization, clock speed, and voltage in real-time.

You can display certain information on-screen to keep track of vital statistics while playing.

What’s New

A new NVIDIA GPU has been added to the hardware database.
RivaTuner Statistics Server v7.3.2 beta 4 added support for a new shared memory layout.
RivaTuner Statistics Server has been upgraded to v7.3.2 beta 5
Added voltage control for reference design AMD RADEON RX 6700 XT series graphics cards
Added experimental support for Intel 11th generation CPUs
Added experimental support for mobile AMD Ryzen CPUs
AMD RADEON 5700 / 5700 XT series graphics cards now have a missing memory temperature sensor.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30×0 series graphics cards now have a higher memory overclocking limit.
Added voltage control for AMD RADEON RX 6700 XT series graphics cards with the reference design
Added experimental support for Intel 11th generation CPUs.
Added experimental support for mobile AMD Ryzen CPUs.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30×0 series graphics cards now have a higher memory overclocking limit.
RivaTuner Statistics Server is now at v7.3.2

Final 4.6.3.

Support for NVIDIA Ampere GPU architecture has been added:
Added new fan control 3.0 API support
Added new integrated OC Scanner API support; please see the section below for additional information on the new OC Scanner implementation.
- Updated MSI Overclocking Scanner program included:
- NVIDIA OS Scanner is no longer deployed as a distinct software component delivered with each AIC partner’s overclocking software beginning with the 455. xx driver family.

NVIDIA OC Scanner is now integrated into the driver, and third-party software can access it directly via NVAPI.

Such innovation simplifies NVIDIA’s OC Scanner maintenance process; no longer is it necessary to mail updated software components to AIC partners and re-release each partner’s software when something needs to be altered inside OC Scanner from NVIDIA’s side.

MSI Overclocking Scanner supports both NVIDIA OC Scanner API implementations:

Old vintage NVIDIA OC Scanner implementation through distinct software components for NVIDIA Pascal and Turing architectures for pre-455.xx driver family
New integrated NVAPI-based NVIDIA OC Scanner implementation for 455. xx and newer NVIDIA display drivers
The following updates and improvements are included in the new NVAPI-based OC scanner implementation:
Support for automated overlocking of core and memory clocks
The results of OC Scanners are now persistent.

It means that after the scanning process is complete, the NVIDIA driver internally remembers the optimal voltage/frequency curve and overclocked memory clock and applies these as new system settings the following reboot, even if the overclocking application is closed or uninstalled. Inside MSI Overclocking Scanner, a new “Revert” button allows you to reset overclocked curves and memory clocks to their original settings.

The manual clock/frequency curve stability testing functionality has been deprecated and is no longer available.
Added voltage control for NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30×0 series reference design graphics cards
Drerex’s new MSI Ampere and Indigo skins have been added.
Experimental support for Intel 10th generation CPUs has been added.
Added native NVAPI-based absolute GPU power monitoring for NVIDIA GPUs.
Changed the name of the synchronization mutex for AMD SNM register access in AMD Ryzen temperature monitoring implementation.
Corrected an excessively high PCI-E bus consumption figure observed on NVIDIA GPUs following display driver crash and recovery or on Optimus.
Platforms when the separate GPU is asleep
Added a workaround for an AMD driver bug that causes a brief display flicker when changing fan settings on some multi-monitor systems.
Display combinations with a single monitor and a high refresh rate
MSI Afterburner now disables Zero RPM when using a new fixed fan speed to avoid an AMD driver bug.
Preventing fan control from operating on some systems when Zero RPM mode is enabled.

If Zero RPM is working properly on your computer,

If you want to keep forcing Zero RPM to override enabled when modifying fan speed, you can disable it with power.
Switch in the application configuration file that is oriented
Currently, MSI Afterburner displays the minimum permitted fan speed in the software fan curve editor box for Overdrive 8 enabled systems.
AMD graphics processors. The current AMD drivers will not allow you to lower the fan speed below this level; this is by design.
AMD ADL components are now loaded via the absolute path to prevent DLL hijacking.
Tightened IO driver access restrictions; users with no administrative rights can no longer access the driver.
The RivaTuner Statistics Server has been updated to version 7.3.0.

This version introduces a new plugin architecture and a completely new visual overlay editor plugin; if you’re an advanced user who wants to modify your OSD beyond the capabilities of MSI Afterburner’s internal OSD layout editor, we strongly urge you to try it.

What’s New 4.6.2

Voltage control for reference design added
Graphic cards from the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 20×0 SUPER series
AMD RADEON RX 5700 series graphics cards now have voltage management.
Drerex designed new MSI Steampunked, MSI Lightning Anniversary, and MSI Mystic skins.
Better hardware monitoring module:
Support for AMD Ryzen 3X00 processors’ CPU temperature monitoring has been added.
Added a thermal offset for monitoring CPU temperature on AMD Ryzen Threadripper 29X0 CPUs.
Package CPU power and per-core CPU power monitoring for AMD Ryzen processors have been included.
Better monitoring plugin architecture:
Added API function for reading the hardware monitoring timestamp of the host application from the plugins.
Because the timestamp is updated by the host on each hardware polling iteration, the plugin can precache and reuse some sensor data if the same physical sensor value is utilized in several data sources output by the plugin.
Such a method is seen in the modified CPU.dll plugin, which duplicates the identical temperature sensor value for all cores on AMD CPUs.
Added an optional plugin initialization callback function that the host calls before unloading the plugins.
New multithreaded Ping.dll plugin demonstrates new function usage to correctly shut down ping monitoring thread
Improved monitoring plugins:
The updated CPU.dll plugin shows AMD Ryzen CPU temperature monitoring implementation and appropriate replication of temperature sensor readback for all CPU cores.
A new Ping.dll plugin has been added to monitor pings to desired servers via ICMP echo requests. Please keep in mind that the plugin is set up by default to monitor ping to www.guru3d.com; it is up to you to provide the target server name or IP address in the plugin properties.
- Enhanced skin engine:
- Improved skin rendering performance for skins with several animated indicators that overlap.
- Skinned indicators now support position smoothing.
- Skinned apps can now disable indication animation if necessary.
- To record these changes, the Skin Format Reference Guide has been revised to v1.8.
- A more secure MMIO and MSR access interface is provided via an updated IO driver.
- RivaTuner Statistics Server has been upgraded to version 7.2.3.

Previous versions:

MSI Afterburner 4.4.2

How Do I Install MSI Afterburner?

MSI Afterburner’s current version can be downloaded from MSI’s website.

You don’t need to seek any special versions or anything; simply download the installer and get started.

If you require an older version of the application, you can obtain it from FileHorse.

Run the installation from there.

It will prompt you to install MSI Afterburner and RivaTuner Statistics Server, or RTSS, both of which are included with the setup.

RTSS is not required for the software to function, but it does allow you to overlay statistics and frame rates during games, which is a cool feature to have, especially if you’re attempting to document something.

That is all up to you.

After you’ve chosen them, simply run the installer, follow the remainder of the instructions, and wait for it to finish.

Congrats! You have now successfully installed MSI Afterburner on your computer.

How Do I Use MSI Afterburner?

MSI Afterburner is capable of a wide range of tasks.

Here are some examples of what you can do with it and how you can do it.

When you initially launch the software, you’ll be welcomed by a UI that resembles a car dashboard.

It has a hefty theme on top of it, which reminds me of the themes available in Windows 98-era Windows Media Player.

On top, you’ll notice GPU statistics, such as the clock speed and temperature it’s currently running at. The bottom section contains various sliders, which we’ll go over in more detail later, but basically, those sliders are what allow you to overclock and underclock your GPU, among other things.

Several buttons can be seen on the left side. The spaceship-like logo opens the Afterburner website, the “K” logo opens MSI Kombustor, and the information button displays CPU and GPU information.

Then there’s the OC Scanner tool, which is designed to automatically scan your GPU (using an algorithm developed by Nvidia for RTX 20 series cards) and find the highest possible overclock to apply to your GPU. The settings button is next, followed by the “monitor” button, which displays a graph of your graphics card’s temperatures.

The right side then contains a slew of numbers.

Those are referred to as “profiles.” Whatever changes you make to your GPU can be saved as a profile so you can instantly apply them at any time.

If the default layout isn’t suitable for you, you can change it. Simply navigate to Settings, User Interface, and choose one of the many pre-installed themes.

How to Overclock Your GPU With MSI Afterburner

MSI Afterburner allows you to overclock your GPU in two ways. The first is to use the OC Scanner tool. As previously stated, this is a tool that will analyze your GPU for the best overclocking settings.

To begin, click the OC Scanner icon and then hit the Scan button.

This process will take a few minutes, so sit down and have some coffee while you wait. When it’s finished, it’ll apply what it judges to be the optimum possible GPU settings.

You may also manually overclock your GPU by using sliders. To do so, raise the Power Limit/Temperature sliders to allow for overclocking headroom (both sliders are pinned to each other by default, so moving one up will move the other).

Then, increase the Core Clock (MHz) slider. The Memory Clock can also be changed. While doing this manually, it’s a good idea to make very minor changes and experiment to find a suitable balance between system stability and performance—without causing any damage to your hardware.

How to Modify Your Fan Curve

You may also use the application to change the shape of your fan curve. You can change the speed of your fan and the temperatures at which it will turn off. Simply navigate to Settings and select the Fan tab. After that, turn on Enable user-defined software automatic fan control. This will display the fan curve graph.

You can add up to eight nodes to the fan curve and modify it as you see fit.

A steeper fan curve will keep GPU temps lower, but it will also put additional wear and tear on the fans themselves, so if you want to manually alter it, you’ll need to find a decent middle ground.

How to Limit Your GPU by Power Consumption/Temperature

We previously highlighted that the Power Limit/Temperature sliders can be used for overclocking.

However, it can also be used to keep power consumption or temperatures under control with minimal performance loss.

To accomplish this, instead of pushing the sliders up, you should move them down.

For example, if you don’t want your graphics card to consume a lot of power, you can lower the Power Limit slider to 75 percent, which will prevent the card from exceeding the restrictions you’ve set.

MSI Afterburner Opens the Overclock Floodgates

MSI Afterburner is a useful piece of software that any PC gamer should have on their machine.

It’s little and allows you to not only overclock your GPU but also adjust it to hell and back so it operates exactly how you want it to.

We merely provided you with a few pointers on how to utilize it, but this is mostly a tinkerer’s tool.

It may have a tiny learning curve at first, but it is intended for you to experiment and discover what you want to do with it.

MSI Afterburner Overlay

Open the On-Screen display tab under MSI Afterburner settings.

The first option in this section allows you to adjust the hotkey for the overlay.

To alter the hotkey, click the box next to the Toggle On-Screen Display option and then press the keys you wish to use for the overlay.

Msi Afterburner Benchmark

The technique is simple: launch MSI Afterburner and select “Settings.” A tiny window with several tabs and customizations will appear. Select the “Monitoring Tab,” and then select the settings you want to use as your benchmark under “Active hardware monitoring graph.”

Msi Afterburner is Not Working

MSI Afterburner Isn’t Displaying Readings: If nothing appears, uninstall MSI Afterburner from your PC, delete any garbage files, and clean up your system. Additionally, update your GPU driver to the most recent version and reinstall MSI Afterburner.

Msi Afterburner CPU Temp

Click on the gear in the middle of Afterburner, then on the monitoring tab, scroll down to CPU temp, click the check mark, and make sure if you want to monitor it on the screen you enable it on your OSD if you have RivaTuner and want it to monitor during gameplay.

FAQs

What is MSI afterburner used for?

“MSI Afterburner is the gold standard of overclocking utilities”

For good reason, MSI Afterburner is the most popular graphics card program. It’s dependable, works with any card (including non-MSI!), provides comprehensive management, allows you to monitor your hardware in real-time, and, best of all, it’s completely free!

Is MSI Afterburner safe?

MSI’s official Afterburner website is secure and safe to use.

Does MSI Afterburner work with CPU?

Can Msi Afterburner be used to overclock a CPU? Both CPUs and GPUs may be overclocked for free using MSI Afterburner. In addition to providing a comprehensive overview of your hardware, MSI Afterburner allows you to change your computer’s fan profile and benchmark it.

Who owns MSI Afterburner?

MSI Afterburner’s initial version was published in 2010 and was created by MSI, or Micro-Star International, a Taiwanese technology company specializing in computer hardware.

And sure, it is MSI, the manufacturer of PC gaming equipment such as graphics cards, motherboards, and so on.

Where can I get MSI Afterburner Kombustor?

The software (MSI Kombustor download) is given “as is” with no technical assistance by Guru3D.com/HardwareGuru.com.

All software is to be used at your own risk; this site accepts no responsibility for any damage, regardless of its form or context.

Why can’t I install MSI Afterburner?

The MSI Afterburner stalled on installation issue might be caused by errors in the installer or your operating system.

You can resolve the issue by restarting your computer and reinstalling the software. Checking for and installing the most recent Windows update can also be used to complete the installation.

Is MSI Afterburner Linux available?

MSI Afterburner is not available for Linux, but there are various Linux-compatible alternatives with comparable capabilities. MangoHUD, which is both free and open source, is the finest Linux option.

What does OC Scanner do in MSI Afterburner?

MSI Afterburner OC Scanner is a tool that can help you overclock more effectively. This utility makes use of an NVIDIA algorithm designed for the RTX 20 series graphics cards. It will find the greatest stable overclock settings for your graphics card based on the card you are using.

Why is MSI Afterburner not showing FPS?

If the Afterburner does not display the FPS counter, it could be due to one of the following reasons: If MSI Afterburner’s latest version is not installed. The RivaTuner Statistics Server was not installed. The Monitoring Tab does not have the FPS option selected.

Does Msi Afterburner Work With Any GPU?