Guide

How to Overclock Your Monitor to Get Higher Refresh Rate

How to Overclock Your Monitor

Overclocking is not a new term for the computer nerds and gaming lovers. But, for the new comers and rookies in the computing field, it might create some wonder & excitement if I say you can overclock your CPU, RAM, graphics card, monitor, tablet, and even your mobile device! Yes, it’s true that we can overclock our monitor and other essential computer parts to get higher performance values from them.

How to Overclock Your Monitor

Today, I am going to provide the top ways on how to overclock monitor to get a higher refresh rate for gaming and other needs.

What is overclocking?

Overclocking a device or system means to extend its limits of performance to get higher speeds and better experience than that deliberated by the manufacturers.

What is a refresh rate of a monitor?

When you see any image or video on your computer or mobile display, the screen refreshed a number of times. This helps in preventing distortion and getting a better viewing experience. The measure of this number of the image regeneration per second on the screen is known as the refresh rate. For example, if your monitor is specified to be a 144Hz gaming monitor, that means its screen refreshes 144 times in one second.

Why do I need overclocking?

You may ask that I am playing games and do much other stuff on my PC and don’t have a single problem with its working, then why should I overclock my monitor? Well, if you just spend a couple of hours in a week to play games and don’t use high-level applications like Photoshop much, then it’s not at all needed. But if you are a gaming geek like me who sticks in front of the monitor whole nights playing online games and do animation editing as a professional, then overclocking the monitor will surely give you a different and high-level performance than usual.

How can I overclock my monitor?

Almost, all the monitors have the capability of overclocking. And doing this is an easy-to-follow process which can be done by any normal computer user. So, let’s take a look at it.

Depending on the graphics card you use like Intel, NVIDIA or AMD, the control panels and commands may change, but the basic process would be the same. I will provide ways to overclock the monitor for the Intel, AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards.

1) Overclocking monitor in Intel graphics cards

I am using the Intel HD Graphics on my system (my monitor has a 60Hz refresh rate), and so here I will show you how you can overclock the monitor using the Intel Graphics Control Panel.

Step-1: Right click on the Desktop and select Graphics Properties

Step-2: The Intel HD Graphics Control Panel will open. In that click on ‘Display.’

Intel-graphics-control-panel-image

Step-3: From the menu on the sidebar, click on ‘Custom Resolution’

Intel-custom-resolution-image

Step-4: When prompted, click on ‘Yes’ and the resolution properties window will open

Step-5: Now, enter the desired values and click on ‘ADD.’

Desired-refresh-rate (1)

Step-6: Again click on ‘Yes’ in the popup window and your settings will be saved

Step-7: Restart your system and check whether your monitor has a higher refresh rate

2) Monitor overclocking in AMD graphics

For the AMD users, there are two ways to overclock the monitor. Using AMD Radeon settings and through the Custom Resolution Utility (CRU).

Changing AMD Radeon settings

For the systems using AMD GPUs, changing the settings in AMD Radeon application can help in overclocking the display. For this, follow the same steps mentioned above for the Intel graphics card. You will need to click on ‘Create’ and ‘Save’ instead of ‘Yes’ and ‘Add’ in that, all other things are same.

radeon-refresh-rate (1)

Using Custom Resolution Utility (CRU)

  • Open the CRU in your system
  • When shown, select ‘Detailed Resolution’ option from the two
  • Now change the Timing to ‘LCD standard.’
  • Add the refresh rate you want for your display and click on ‘Ok.’
  • Shut Down and Restart your system

AMD-CRU-image

Note: I will recommend you to make increase of the only 5Hz in the refresh rate at the initial stages to get the high-end performance.

After doing this, you need to change the refresh rate in your Windows system. For this,

  • Right click on the desktop and choose ‘Display settings.’
  • Click on ‘Display adapter properties’ and go to ‘Monitor’ tab
  • Then select the desired refresh rate from the drop-down menu and click on ‘Apply’ followed by a click on ‘Ok.’
  • Reboot your PC and check the refresh rate

 

Display-monitor-refresh-rate (1)

3) Overclocking Monitor in NVIDIA graphics

Same as we have done for the AMD control panel, we can set the screen refresh rate in the NVIDIA graphics. The latter provides more customizable options and looks more practical though.

  1. In your desktop screen, right click and select ‘NVIDIA control panel.’
  2. On the sidebar, you will see a list of tasks including 3D settings, Display, Stereoscopic 3D, and Video
  3. Click and expand the menu of Display
  4. Choose ‘Change resolution’ and then select ‘Create Custom Resolution.’
  5. After entering the desired values, click on ‘Test’ button to check the changes
  6. If you are satisfied with the results, then click on Apply, otherwise change the values and re-test

nvidia-control-panel-resolution-setting (1)   7. Restart your system and enjoy the higher refresh rate of your monitor

Is monitor overclocking safe?

Even if you are using the best monitor on the market, you have to take a risk when you overclock the monitor for getting a higher refresh rate. Yes, it is safe and will not make the short circuit in your home, but there is no bullet proof for it. So, be careful when you try to upgrade the performance of something particular than mentioned by the manufacturer.

The overclocking depends on the different monitor resolutions too. Generally, monitors with the lower resolution like 720P can be easily overclocked, but you need to take care properly when you upgrade with the higher resolutions like 1080P or 1440P monitors.

PS: Some of the monitor panels come as pre-overclocked from the company. So if you try to upgrade such, then it might create problems. Check the specifications first.

Howard Tavares

About Howard Tavares

Hi, Howard here. I love the computer displays, and I enjoy working on my dual monitor setup. After a lot of experiments, failures, successes, and reviews, I started Best Monitor Hz to helpmates like me who want to talk about a screen that can fulfil their working or gaming needs.

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