EVGA, MSI Ready RTX 20-Series Overclocking Software

EVGA and MSI have released the latest revisions of their graphics card overclocking software to automate the task of overclocking on the latest GeForce RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti graphics cards.

With the release of the Turing architecture, Nvidia brought its partners the gift of Nvidia Scanner, a new API that supposedly facilitates the entire process of overclocking an RTX 20-series graphics card with a single click. Nvidia's proprietary algorithm works the same regardless of the third-party overclocking application. It automatically adjusts the graphics card's clock speed and voltage until it finds the maximum overclock on the graphics card. One drawback is that it only overclocks the GPU core, so consumers still have to overclock the memory manually.

In the case of EVGA, the graphics card manufacturer introduced the Precision X1 utility that features a brand new GUI (graphical user interface) built from the ground up. Apart from integrating Nvidia's Scanner API, Precision X1 also comes with upgraded fan and RGB lighting controls, among other new features. EVGA graphics card owners can fiddle with the individual fan settings on each of their RTX 20-series graphics card and synchronize the RGB lighting with other EVGA RGB components.

Nvidia promised that its Scanner API will eventually bring retroactive support for older generation graphics cards; however, the chipmaker didn't mention how far back or when it'll be available.

Meanwhile, MSI opted to maintain the same interface with its Afterburner utility. However, the latest version also brings a handful of improvements that include a better hardware monitoring module, upgraded RivaTuner Statistics Server, an updated hardware control interface and many more.

Both the latest Precision X1 (0.2.6. Beta) and Afterburner (4.6.0 Beta 9) applications are still in their Beta phase, so don't expect smooth sailing just yet. According to Unwinder, the creator of Afterburner, the Nvidia Scanner API looks produces satisfactory results for those who prefer to push a button to overclock their graphics over going through the hassle of trial and error.