A Step By Step Guide To OverClock Monitor (Process)

You may have heard of the word overclock, if not, it means making changes or boosting a certain component’s speed, ability or performance. 

So, when you overclock a monitor, you boost the refresh rate of the monitor. You push its basic set limit more because you want to perform a certain task with a more refresh rate.

Refresh rate is measured in Hertz, and the number of times that the screen refreshes in one second can be called its refresh rate. 

Usually, most monitors have a refresh rate of 60 Hz and 120 Hz. So when you overclock the monitor, it pushes its refresh rate to more than 60 Hz or 120 Hz to help you achieve your desired results.

Is it necessary to overclock the monitor?

The reason that you may want to overclock the monitor could be that you want better graphics when gaming. Most of the budget gaming monitors supports overclocking. Hence it is completely safe to overclock the monitor.

After all, a high refresh rate will ensure that you have a smoother gaming experience. But overclocking the monitor is not always a good choice, especially if you want to do it all the time. 

Any device has its limit, if you want to you can push the limits but only for a while. Because eventually the life span of the device will start degrading. According to the study done by PCSynced, 40% of pc devices started losing their performance in less then 6 months.

Overclocking necessarily doesn’t always improve the graphics quality of the monitor. Sometimes, overclocking too much in certain monitors can result in a blank and glitch screen.

How to overclock a monitor?

There are three ways in which you can overclock your monitor, depending on the type of graphic card that is in your computer. 

In this article, we’ll talk about how you can overclock your monitor using the software provided by AMD, NVidia and Intel. Also, how we can overclock using secondary software called CRU.

Using AMD 

1. If you are using a GPU supported by AMD, then right click on the main desktop and click on ‘AMD Radeon Software’.
2. Then click on the ‘Display Settings’.
3. Click on create and change the refresh rate settings according to your need.
4. Finally, hit save.

Using NVidia

1. This method will work with NVidia graphic card in your monitor, so right click on your desktop screen and click on ‘NVidia Control Panel’.
2. A tab will appear where on the left middle you’ll see a label ‘Display’, under it click on ‘Change resolution’.
3. On the right of the same tab, you’ll see a dropdown with the label refresh rate, the drop down items will contain your monitor’s refresh late limit and some under clock refresh rates. But because you have to exceed the limit and overclock, you will select ‘Customize’ on the bottom.
4. Then, make sure that ‘Enable resolutions not exposed by the display’ box is checked. Follow this by clicking on ‘Create Custom Resolution.’
5. You’ll see a refresh rate label in which you can now increase the refresh rate little by little and your monitor will test that to see if that is the refresh rate you’re looking for. Finally, you can save the changes.

Using Intel

1. Most laptops have the Intel Graphics.  To overclock the monitor go to control panel and open HD Graphics control panel.
2. Click on display, and on the left side you’ll see ‘Custom Resolutions’ which you need to select.
3. Now, on the top click on the ‘Add’ tab. This will allow you to adjust the refresh rate and other resolutions according to your need.
4. Once chosen, click on ‘Add’ at the bottom right to save this change. You can now restart the monitor to see if that worked.

Using CRU 

1. This method may or may not work depending upon the brand of computer. First of all, you need to download the CRU software on your monitor.
2. Then, open ‘CRU.exe’ on your monitor and run it as administrator.
3. You can add resolutions now under the ‘Standard Resolution’ label.
4. All you need to do is to change the resolution from the ‘Display Settings’.
5. Once you’re done, restart the monitor to see if that worked.

Conclusion

In conclusion, you should overclock the monitor only if it is required to do so, because unnecessary overclocking all the time will significantly reduce the life span of the monitor or your monitor may even stop working a sometimes. 

The above methods should be preceded at your own risk, as some monitors may not accept the change and stop working. 

If you are a gamer, playing with larger refresh rates and high customizations may seem attractive, but it would not be beneficial for the life of a monitor to exceed the limit of what it can do. 

Therefore, we would recommend to proceed with overclocking only if it’s absolutely necessary, or for a short period of time.