13 Tips, Tricks And Secrets To Boost Your PC Gaming Performance

7. Monitor Your PC Temperature

If you only recently made the switch to PC after years of playing on consoles, you should be aware that your PC's going to be more high-maintenance, but treat it well and it will reward you with gaming performance like you've never experienced before. During game sessions you're going to need to track your CPU (processor) and GPU (graphics card) temperature if want to get the best performance; if your temperatures are too high, your graphics card might start 'throttling' and reducing clock speeds. A great program to monitor your PC temperature is MSI Afterburner, which lets you keep track of and tweak components like fans, CPU and GPU. When you install Afterburner, make sure to install RivaTuner as well when the option appears. Once you've done this: Go to Settings (cog icon, if you have the same weird 90s-futuristic interface as me) > Monitoring tab Select GPU temperature from the list, then tick the Show in On-Screen Display box. Do the same for CPU temperature and Framerate Click the On-Screen Display tab, select a button to Toggle On-Screen Display, then click OK. Next time you run a game, make sure Afterburner is running in the background, then use the button you selected to toggle the on-screen display So what are reasonable temperatures? When you're not running games, both your CPU and GPU should be running no higher than 50-60C. As a general guideline, under maximum strain your GPU shouldn't be hotter than 85C at most, while your CPU should be no higher than around 70C.