How to overclock your monitor

Overclocking the monitor matrix makes sense only if you have a fairly fast video card. Otherwise, this activity is not particularly useful and practical. Monitor overclocking is needed in order to increase the refresh rate, get rid of horizontal and vertical image artifacts, and also increase the clarity of the display in dynamic scenes.

Usually monitors are overclocked with a stock frame rate of 50-60 Hz. It can be increased to 70-80 Hz. It makes no sense to overclock monitors at 144 Hz — it will only be possible to increase this parameter by 5-10%, which will not visually improve anything.

It is also worth noting that inexpensive displays with a low margin of «performance» can only be overclocked by 10-15%. Increasing from 60 Hz to 65 Hz will not make a special “weather”, so the game is not worth the candle.

But, nevertheless, we will tell you how to overclock the monitor.

Instructions on how to overclock your monitor

Before overclocking, it is worth checking the interface through which the screen is connected. Some connection methods do not allow you to increase the «frame rate» above the maximum supported:

1. DVI at Full HD resolution — 65 Hz;

2. HDMI 1.4 at Full HD resolution — 75 Hz.

3. But HDMI 2.0, DisplayPort, Thunderbolt 3.0 and laptop matrices can be easily overclocked to any desired value.

Matrix overclocking methods vary depending on the video card used. So, at NVIDIA, the desired refresh rate is set directly in the control panel. But owners of AMD and Intel video cards will have to download a third-party program.

How to overclock monitor with nvidia graphics card

An important feature of the displays is that they are not equipped with a built-in refresh rate controller. Therefore, they are overclocked through the graphics card settings. And it is especially easy for owners of NVIDIA graphics accelerators to do this.

Instruction:

1. Launch the NVIDIA Control Panel by double-clicking on the tray icon or once by right-clicking anywhere on the desktop;

2. Go to the «Change Permission» tab;

3. Click the «Settings» button;

4. Check the box next to «Enable modes not supported by the display»;

5. Click the «Create your own resolution» button.

6. A window will open in which you can already configure the refresh rate. Increase it by 5 Hz at a time, then press the «Test» button. As soon as artifacts begin to appear on the display after starting testing, it means that the maximum refresh rate has been reached. Reduce it by 5 Hz and save.

How to overclock a monitor with an AMD or Intel graphics card

And here it is much more difficult. AMD supports overclocking anything in general, but not displays. So you have to download a special program called the Custom Resolution Utility.

The main problem with the Custom Resolution Utility is that it doesn’t have a test mode. The frequency is set once and «forever» (well, that is, until entering safe mode or until further changes).

Instruction:

1. Create a system restore point;

2. Download and run the Custom Resolution Utility (CRU);

3. In the left part of the main program window, uncheck all the boxes. On the right side, in the Standard resolutions section, click the Delete all button;

4. In the Detailed resolution section, click the Add button;

5. In the window that appears, set the timing to Automatic — LCD reduced, and in the input field near Refresh rate — the desired refresh rate;

6. Restart your computer;

7. Now open the Intel or AMD graphics settings and set the desired frequency.

8. Regarding point 5. As in the case with NVIDIA, you need to overclock gradually. That is, increase the clock speed by 3-5 Hz at a time, then reboot, and so on.

If suddenly after overclocking the screen turns black, then there are two options:

1. Connect a second monitor and, using it, set the previous workable clock frequency;

2. Boot into safe mode, start the CRU and set the previous working parameters.

3. Since getting into safe mode in the Windows 10 operating system is a completely separate quest, it’s easier to “roll back” to a working state using the restore point that was created in step 1.