[SOLVED] Is MSI Afterburner 100% safe ?

[skywalker8831]

Is it safe to use MSI Afterburner 100%?
- Like, can I play with the sliders all I want without damaging my graphics card?
. I understand "crashes" by overclocking too much, and I Understand "degrading" the life of the graphics card by a lot by Overclocking.

But I gotta ask...
1.) Will playing with any of the sliders damage my graphics card?
(This is including the voltage setting you have to enable in options.)

2.) Is MSI Afterburner 100% fool-proof?


My personal question is: Will playing with the Core Clock/Memory "the main sliders" damage the graphics card?
Because I touched those and not the voltage.
...
Or will it shut-down, (the graphics card) automatically before it reaches way too hot temps?



I just feel just because I overclocked the graphics card, I've lost value and the "pristine" feeling to my graphics card. (Next time I get a PC I'm stay VERY far away from this program)

Please be cut and clear with responses. I'm sick of endlessly looking through forums with people who give 50/50 answers. Just cut to the chase.

 

[Colif]

Its safe

By and large, and based on videos from Jayz Two Cents, Steve at Nexus, Pauls Hardware, etc. if you are using MSI Afterburner, it basically isn't going to allow anything that would just outright damage your card. It will work or crash, and generally won't allow it to slide or be increased beyond a certain point.

[SOLVED] - is it safe to increase GPU voltage ?

Is it safe practice to increase voltage on my GTX 1660 for better overclocking ? and what are the risks ? note ill im looking to increase voltage via MSI afterburner.

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[Phaaze88]

It is safe as long as you don't select the option to apply your custom settings upon Windows startup. That's still a thing, if I recall correctly.
Since 10 series, the voltage slider doesn't do what you'd expect. The algorithm decides whether to increase voltage or not. Raising the slider is more of a 'suggestion' to it that it's allowed to use more, but it probably won't.
The way to turn that suggestion into a command is to use the Curve Editor, but I don't recommend doing that - they use enough voltage already. Instead, try to maintain the max boost clock while using a little less voltage.

Another IIRC: Some 900 series and below allowed the user more control over voltage, but the number of dead cards that resulted from that is what made Nvidia wrest voltage control away... XD

 

[hotaru.hino]

MSI Afterburner and similar apps only offer "suggestions" to the video card. The video card has firmware in it with limits that prevent it from going into a catastrophic zone. So even if you jack up the clock speed, power limit, and voltage sliders, the video card will not actually honor that if it thinks it's exceeding some limit.

 

[drea.drechsler]

...
Please be cut and clear with responses. I'm sick of endlessly looking through forums with people who give 50/50 answers. Just cut to the chase.

The state of hardware design and overclocking as a selling feature and the extremely wide variability of cooling capabilities in finished home-built PC's make it a bit of a 50/50 answer like it or not. For one thing, any answer presumes you have a PSU capable of adequate power delivery to both the CPU and GPU for any demands they may make on it, whether separately or simultaneously. A low-spec, underpowered or even just old PSU cooking off when an overclocked GPU and CPU get maxed out in a stress test can be the very definition of catastrophic.

PSU aside, I agree that any setting you make with Afterburner is not likely to be immediately 'catastrophic' to itself or the PC simply because of the way GPU's and CPU's are designed today. However: running any semiconductor device at extremely high temperatures will degrade it earlier in life. For many GPU's Afterburner is perfectly capable of setting up an overclock under a high (but safely under catastrophic maximum) voltage and clock that will run a poorly cooled GPU at very high temperatures.

That may not be catastrophic... until it won't run stable even at stock clocks and voltage in a year or so.

True, most GPU's will throttle back at such high temperatures (the reason it's not likely to be catastrophic) but bouncing off the limiters will still degrade it much faster than staying in lower temp ranges. Doing so is an indicator better cooling is needed or throttling back on voltage and clock is called for.