This board is OK, but can not overclock past 4.5Ghz, so keep that in mind. There is supposedly a trick that allows further, but I won't post as I never tried it and newer boards have different bios meaning it may have been patched in newer bios. If you can get cheaply, or can tolerate a low overclock, it's a pretty decent board and was the better MSI FX board for awhile.
Download "EVGA Precision X". Get it running, then select "voltage". A pop up box with a few settings appear. Click on "K-Boost". Screen might flash briefly, that's normal. Close the voltage tab (do NOT mess with voltages as you can easily cook your GPU if you don't know what you are doing). I prefer to force the fans to manual and set at it's highest setting when gaming as it'll keep the card as cool as possible. Leaving it on "auto" will allow it to typically run hotter, and it'll get hotter as the fan speed will typically fluctuate to try and keep up with different demands. Anyways, that's just me and I'll tolerate the fan sound if it means keeping the video card as cool as possible.
Your video card has several different "green" states it'll run in, as do all other newer cards. For desktop browsing or looking at this site, it'll be at lowest clock speeds, lowest voltage, etc. as a low-end tablet can run this stuff. For moderate demands, it'll step up to another "state" of presets. When gaming, it should step up to fastest speed. Problem is, the card might be fluctuating between states, etc. K-Boost "locks" in the fastest state and prevents the lower states from engaging. You'll typically see a jump with in-game performance as the card will actually be forced to do it's rated numbers.
When you open EVGA Precision X, it'll display the current clock rate. As long as you aren't running a windowed 3D game on the side, it'll be a low number. Turning K-Boost "on", that number will jump to whatever the card's rated at. It's an easy way tell. K-Boost is "safe" and does NOT overclock the card. It just locks top speed in. Be warned, overclocking a GPU can actually damage it or at the very least cause crashes and unstable behavior in-game, so don't mess with anything else.
K-Boost will stay on after you close the EVGA X program, so turn K-Boost on,, close voltage tab and EVGA Precision X, start your game, enjoy the better responsiveness, when done with game and closed, open EVGA again and turn K-Boost "off". You can leave it on if you want, but it'll just pull more power from the power supply and will run a little warmer. IF you leave K-Boost on, if you shut the PC down and restart, it'll still be on. until you manually turn it off.
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