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Literally 1-click overclocking!
Always wanted to get more performance out of your graphics card, but don’t know how overclocking works or simply don’t want to risk it? The new OC Scanner feature in MSI Afterburner will do the overclocking for you at the click of a button. It’s free, it works great and the best part is: it’s completely safe too! This blog article will explain in some detail how OC Scanner works and guide you on how to use it.
Overclocking: Not as scary as it sounds
Overclocking has long been a hobby for a relatively small group of hardware enthusiasts. Mostly because of the time it takes to understand the process and do it right. I can remember the first time I ever attempted overclocking, it was quite overwhelming and even scary at some point. Scary because I was afraid of causing any kind of damage to the expensive equipment inside my PC.
It seems the major chip manufacturers caught on to the worries of their customers about damaging their products. Over the course of recent years, we’ve seen those manufacturers engineer ways to minimize any chance of accidentally damaging their products. These days, most Graphics Processors have built-in safety measures that restrict the changes you can make with overclocking software like Afterburner to values they consider to be safe. The processors and drivers themselves also continually monitor things like temperature and power usage so that action can be taken to ensure the safety of the product. A great example of this is a thing we know as Thermal Throttling. If a GPU gets too hot, it will automatically reduce its effective clockspeeds to reduce the workload and output of heat until it reaches a level deemed safe.
This is good to know when you’re just getting into overclocking and you’re scared of damaging your precious hardware by simply changing some values. If you want to learn more about manual overclocking you can check out this blog article: https://www.
msi.com/blog/need-more-fps-try-overclocking
Here’s how OC Scanner works
The OC Scanner is essentially a tool that uses an algorithm developed by NVIDIA for the RTX 20 series graphics cards. Within just a few minutes it will run a process that will determine the highest stable overclock settings for your graphics card. The process consists out of the same basic steps as manual overclocking, being: increasing clockspeed by one step, then stressing the GPU to see if this clockspeed is stable. If the clockspeed is stable under load, the clockspeed will be upped by another step and the GPU will be stressed once more. This process repeats itself until the GPU fails to maintain stability under load. At that point, the last known stable clockspeed will be set as the maximum value. This process will repeat itself 4 times to cover 4 different Voltage levels. It does this because the OC Scanner algorithm uses the so-called Voltage/Frequency Curve.
This curve works by matching the values of clockspeeds to corresponding values of voltage that can sustain those clockspeeds. By doing this you will get a curve where higher voltages are required to run at higher clockspeeds. Out of the box the last few generations of graphics cards have used this curve. What OC Scanner does is to see how far the curve can be safely adjusted to provide higher clockspeeds.
How to get started with OC Scanner
Before you start the process of OC Scanner, we recommend that you enable detailed control of your graphics card in the Afterburner settings. You can do that by checking the boxes below.
After this, you should set the sliders for Core Voltage, Power Limit and Temp Limit all the way to the right.
After this, you can click apply at the bottom and nothing will happen yet. All this does is to allow your graphics card a bit more room to stretch its legs when you run OC Scanner.
As mentioned above, setting these sliders to their max values is completely safe as the values are defined by the manufacturer of the graphics chip to be considered safe.
When all of this is done, it’s time to start the OC Scanner!
Click on the button left of the “Core Clock (MHz)” text as highlighted below to open the Voltage/Frequency Curve window.
At the top right of the Voltage/Frequency Curve window you will see the OC Scanner button. When you click that, the OC Scanner window will open showing two options: Scan and Test.
Scanning is the actual process described above where the algorithm will determine the highest stable frequency on 4 different voltage levels.
This process should take around 15 minutes before presenting you with its conclusions. The value of the Core Clock in Afterburner should now show “Curve” instead of a number.
After running the Scanner, it’s recommended to run the Test option. The Test script will verify the stability of the profile generated by the OC Scanner and provide the results in a ‘confidence level’. Personally I haven’t see any other number than 90%, even after running the test script on stock settings. But anything above 60% should be fine to use.
You can now apply the OC Scanner values by clicking the Apply button in Afterburner. Usually I would recommend to save the values in a profile as well, in case you want to switch between default values and your OC profile.
You can do this by clicking on the Save Icon on the bottom right of Afterburner. The numbers on the left of the icon will start to flash to indicate that you can choose which number you would like to save this profile under. Once you choose a number by clicking on it, that button will become an active profile. This means you can easily switch back to default values by clicking the reset button, but also load up your OC profile by clicking on the profile number and then Apply.
Congratulations, you have just overclocked your graphics card!
That will most likely give you a nice boost in performance in games, however OC Scanner currently only overclocks your GPU. Your memory can also be overclocked for additional performance.
This has to be done manually by either adjusting the slider or typing in values by yourself.
I have found that on the RTX 20 Series graphics cards, the memory can be overclocked quite a bit, all the way up to +1000MHz in some cases. However you will have to find out how much for your card by yourself.
It’s relatively safe to do this though, so if you’ve come this far already we recommend giving it a go. A good place to start is +500MHz, which most cards should run just fine. If you want to find out how high you can take it, just keep adding +50MHz after that and run a benchmark until you start seeing visual artifacts or the benchmark crashes. Then go back to the last setting that would run without any issues.
Enjoy the additional performance!
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Afterburner instantly increases the speed of fighters
Night. A pair of fighters — the leader and the follower — froze on the runway. One is fifty meters behind the other. Combat vehicles are preparing to take off. The leader’s pilot is concentrated: he expects the command of the flight director is about to arrive … Yes! Takeoff is allowed, and the words fly from the master to the slave over the radio waves: “We are taking off. Fast and Furious!
Nikolai Tsygikalo
The host pronounces the last letter in the word «fast and furious». It’s a sign.
Both pilots at the same time move the engine control sticks all the way forward, in the «full afterburner» position, with a smooth movement.
The whistle of engines grows into a roar and without pause turns into an anguished roar. From the nozzles grow long, almost the size of the aircraft itself, jets of white-pink afterburner flame. The fighters begin their takeoff run under the influence of a sharply increased thrust. A large longitudinal overload makes the increase in speed rapid. That is why the take-off run is started synchronously, so that the rear plane does not catch up with the front one and does not lag behind it: meters and fractions of a second decide here.
Having turned up their noses and licking the concrete with long tongues of afterburner fire, the couple breaks away from the runway and rapidly rises into the night sky. The roar moves away, two stars with fiery tails go into the sky. They suddenly go out. After a couple of seconds, the distant roar abruptly stops.
Boost is off. The fighters continue to climb at maximum engine power.
Instantaneous force
Afterburner — enhanced engine operation. The word comes from the French forçage — «strengthening, coercion, forcing.» Afterburner gives a large, almost doubling, increase in engine thrust, which is already operating at maximum mode. Many tons of additional afterburner thrust, which allows you to quickly accelerate during takeoff, maintain speed in intense maneuvers, reach supersonic speed and catch up with the target for an attack.
In an afterburner, an afterburner is inserted between the turbine and the jet nozzle — a large pipe with fuel injectors in front. Additional kilograms of fuel are burned in the afterburner in the chamber. When they are burned, the gas is strongly heated before entering the jet nozzle. The exhaust velocity from the nozzle grows along with the jet force, giving an afterburner thrust increase.
At the same time, the amount of air passing through the engine does not change. The speed does not increase, and so the maximum. But greatly, several times, fuel consumption increases. Therefore, most aircraft are able to move in afterburner mode only for a short time. If this factor is not taken into account, the pilot may have big problems.
Everything went into the stream
In the Nizhny Tagil fighter regiment, a couple of aircraft practiced exercise 108 — interception of the AGM-28 Hound Dog cruise missile in the stratosphere. One fighter represents the target, the other detects it in the sky and attacks. Both are on supersonic, time is short; there are only three tons of fuel, it burns very quickly in afterburner. The pilot found the target, went on the attack, approached, launched without a rocket. He got out of the attack correctly, released the air brakes, reported to the command post: «The afterburner was removed.
» But in fact, he didn’t remove it, apparently having forgotten in the heat of the attack. The hour of the night. The pilot has already descended from the stratosphere, and the afterburner is still on fire. After a while, the pilot reports: «The lamp of the emergency remaining fuel lit up.» The flight director in response: «Duplicate the afterburner shutdown.» Only now the pilot removed the afterburner and reported for the second time that it had been turned off. But the fuel has already burned out. Removing up to a strip of one hundred and forty kilometers. Calculations «will last — will not last», requests for the current fuel balance have begun. The pilot reported: «The engine has stopped.» The RP gave the command to eject. The pilot left the plane ten kilometers from the runway. The duty helicopter delivered an unharmed pilot to the base at two in the morning. And the Soviet Air Force lost its combat vehicle.
One in the morning. The pilot has already descended from the stratosphere, and the afterburner is still on fire.
After a while, the pilot reports: «The lamp of the emergency remaining fuel lit up.» The flight director in response: «Duplicate the afterburner shutdown.» Only now the pilot removed the afterburner and reported for the second time that it had been turned off. But the fuel has already burned out. Removing up to a strip of one hundred and forty kilometers.
Myths about afterburner
Fast and furious works in full accordance with the laws of physics, but the principle of its operation is not at all obvious, and often the proposed interpretations turn out to be erroneous. What is going on there? The air flow into the air intake does not increase in the afterburner. Maybe the point is that the volume of new combustion products is added? Let’s count. When burning 1 kg of kerosene, 2.7 m 9 is consumed0035 3 oxygen, 2.6 m 3 carbon dioxide and water vapor are produced. The volume balance is negative. Burning afterburner kerosene will slightly reduce the volume of gases.
The mass flow rate at the nozzle inlet will increase due to kerosene by only a few percent. The engine sucks in more than a centner of air per second. A few kilograms of afterburner kerosene will increase this mass slightly. Why does the speed of the afterburner increase so much?
The answer suggests itself: due to the increase in pressure before entering the nozzle! Combustion of fuel in the chamber heats the gas, increases its pressure, which causes an afterburner increase in thrust. However, as common as this accessible explanation is, it is fundamentally wrong. All movement in an aircraft turbojet engine is created by its heart — a gas turbine. It rotates the compressor — the lungs of the engine, performing a huge, multiple compression of a centner of air per second and giving movement to all other devices. The turbine does a great job. To do this, gas flows around it with great force. On each of its blades, it creates a force that adds up the power of the turbine.
The pressure difference causes the gas to flow. The difference is large, several atmospheres, or two or three times. If the pressure difference is reduced, the flow of gas through the turbine will decrease. The drop in force on the shoulder blades will cause a loss of power. The compressor will immediately respond to a decrease in power, reduce the compression of hundreds of cubes of air per second. The air will be compressed less, pumped into the engine less. The gas pressure in front of the turbine will decrease. So a wave of landslide power drop will be reflected from the compressor and come to the front side of the turbine. The compression in the combustion chambers in front of the turbine will be weakened. After unstable burning, they will go out. The engine will stop.
Mechanics with hydraulics
This scenario will result in a decrease in pressure drop. The turbine exits with its gas-dynamic rear directly into the afterburner.
Even a small increase in pressure in the chamber will immediately approach the turbine blades. The difference will weaken, the turbine power will decrease.
Tricky mechanics are used to prevent the pressure from building up behind the turbine. The relief of additional thermal expansion of the gas is achieved by expanding the narrowest flow part of the nozzle. This tapering part is formed by cast movable trapezoidal sashes. There are 16 such valves on the Al-31F engine from the Su-27. Similar 16 valves also form the expanding part of the nozzle. The shutters change both the critical diameter of the nozzle and the diameter of the exit cut. The flaps of 16 hydraulic cylinders are controlled, the working fluid in which is fuel. When switching to the afterburner mode, the critical section of the nozzle expands and at the same time the exit section increases. The beginning increase in pressure from afterburner heating «merges» into the expansion.
To prevent accidental increases in pressure in the afterburner when the afterburner is ignited, the nozzle expands not synchronously with the increase in afterburner, but in advance.
The doors open ahead of afterburner. A situation is created when the nozzle has expanded, and the afterburner has not yet flared up. And then a classic traction failure occurs. Indeed, the usual pressure «merges» into the expanded nozzle, so far without afterburner. At the afterburner, the pressure is restored to the previous one in a couple of seconds, with the nozzle flaps open.
As a result, the pressure in the afterburner of the Al-31F engine not only does not increase during the afterburner, but even slightly drops by 0.1–0.2 atm. The pressure drop across the turbine remains virtually unchanged, and the compressor continues to compress and pump a hundredweight of air per second into the engine, which is so necessary for fuel combustion.
Where does the afterburner increase in thrust come from? A nozzle is a heat engine that does work by accelerating gas with a reserve of energy. The nozzle transforms the potential energy of heat and elastic compression of the gas into the kinetic energy of the outflowing jet and thrust.
Both compression and heating of the gas are converted into the exhaust velocity. An increase in energy to any of them leads to an increase in speed. If heat is added to the gas while maintaining pressure, the velocity of the jet will increase. The thrust will also increase with an increase in pressure at a constant temperature. In a single process, the nozzle converts the addition of either of the two forms of energy. Therefore, heating the gas in front of the nozzle leads to an increase in the jet velocity and thrust. And so the afterburner arises. We can say that the afterburner is a large kerosene oven. It intensifies the heat, heating the stream in front of the nozzle to seventeen hundred degrees. This is her whole point. The nozzle, like a wizard’s hat, by direct action turns heat into additional force.
It remains to look at the afterburner. Its color depends on the completeness of combustion. Blue, white, pinkish, yellow… Dust in the air can change the colors of the fire.
The supersonic jet, leaving the nozzle, is decelerated to subsonic speed. A series of supersonic shocks arise in the jet. They stand one after another as bright spots, making the jet visually striped. With distance from the nozzle, there are more spots: the jet slows down, the jumps approach each other until they disappear. As later, the jet itself, roaring away the plane and dying down in the sky.
Turbojet engine with afterburner (TRDF).
F-18A launch from the deck of an aircraft carrier. Boost is on.
Let’s start today’s conversation with the well-known word «fast and the furious». However, today the most frequent association in this case is with a series of famous films «Fast and the Furious». I watched only the first three, then I already lost count, it became boring. Therefore, we will not talk about them today :-). Let’s talk about afterburner in relation to aviation.
Let us recall the meaning of this word from the point of view of the Russian language.
It came to us from French (forsage — to force) and means an enhanced mode of operation of any mechanism or device in order to obtain the most power from it. Usually this mode implies short-term operation, since the loads are greatly increased and the mechanism wears out quickly.
This definition also applies to aircraft engines. However, here, in my opinion, there is some difference in concepts. For example, for piston engines afterburner means an increase in power due to an increase in speed, boost, additional fuel injection or special components (methanol, water). For a simple turbojet engine, this is most often an additional supply of fuel to the combustion chamber. At the same time, the temperature increases and further, as a consequence, the rate of outflow of gases from the nozzle and an increase in the power of the turbojet engine.
In all these cases, these modes of operation are usually heavily loaded and are used in special circumstances and for a short time. On many planes they are called like that (they were called :-)) — emergency mode (CR).
The conditions and time of operation in this mode are always strictly defined.
MIG-29 takeoff. Afterburner in all its glory ? …
However, there is a class of aircraft engines, the design of which (as well as the theory :-)) predetermines the possibility of working in a special afterburner mode. These are turbojet engines with afterburner (or afterburner :-)), or TRDF .
Why do modern aircraft need afterburner? I think it is clear that for a sharp and tangible increase in engine thrust and, accordingly, a rapid increase in the speed of the aircraft. It happens that a conventional turbojet engine, even at the maximum operating mode, cannot perform such a task. In this case, just the afterburner is used.
The fact is that in a turbojet engine, the gas flow passing through the turbine still has a sufficient amount of oxygen. This oxygen is quite possible, as they say, to «burn». To do this, additional fuel is supplied to the after-turbine space, ignited and burned.
Thus, the temperature of the gas stream rises, that is, its energy. Accordingly, the rate of gas outflow from the nozzle increases and, as a result, the engine thrust increases.
turbofan AL-21F3.
SU-24M front-line bomber with AL-21F3 turbofan engine (2 pcs.).
SU-17M4 with AL-21F3 engine
It is growing very noticeably. Typically, this increase is between 30% and 50%, and in many cases more. For example, the maximum thrust on the AL-21F3 turbofan engine (it is on my favorite ? SU-24, as well as the SU-17M family of aircraft) is 7650 kgf, and the maximum afterburner is 11050 kgf (data for the SU-24, for the SU-17 these figures are more for 200 kgf). The difference — you can see for yourself ? …
TRD afterburner scheme.
«Afterburning» is organized in a special engine assembly called the afterburner. This is a kind of pipe (with an average diameter of the engine) located between the turbine and the nozzle. For proper organization of the flow, special swirlers (3) are made in it, between which fuel injectors (2) are fixed.
Igniters (6) and special wall screens (4) are also located there. Under the number 5 in the figure are the walls of the afterburner, under the number 1 is the after-turbine space.
Afterburners and nozzles of AL-21F3 engines on SU-24M aircraft.
Takeoff of SU-17M4 in afterburner.
It must be said, however, that turbofan becomes very uneconomical when using afterburner. Fuel consumption increases from 60% to 130%. In addition, in this mode, the engine experiences significant thermal and mechanical loads. If the thrust is 11 tons, then imagine what pressure is on the walls and components of the chamber and nozzle flaps :-).
Transportation of the AL-21F3 engine. An engine in front, an afterburner with a jet nozzle in the back.
For these reasons, the afterburner time for most engines (and aircraft, respectively) is limited. Usually this time is up to several minutes. But there are, however, specially designed engines for high-altitude and high-speed aircraft that can work on afterburner for a long time.
These are, for example, the R15B-300 engine for the MIG-25 aircraft and the American Pratt & Whitney J58-P4, which was used on the Lockheed A-12 and Lockheed SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft. Here, the long-term afterburner is also justified by the fact that with increasing speed, the efficiency of the turbofan engine increases and at supersonic speed it is possible to increase engine thrust with lower fuel consumption.
R-15B-300 turbofan engine.
MIG-25RB takeoff. Engine afterburner is on.
Lockheed A12 Scout.
Lockheed SR-71 Scout.
Engine afterburner J58 (on the stand). The shock rings are visible.
The scope of TRDF is such that it is used mainly (and now completely :-)) only on military aircraft. The goal in this case is to perform emergency maneuvers with a set speed. This can be an attack on an air target, overcoming air defense, interception, taking an advantageous position, and, of course, takeoff and climb.
On civil aircraft , the TRDF was used only in two cases, on TU-144 and Concorde aircraft.
On the first, the engines were designed for long-term operation, and on the second, they were turned on for a short time to take off and overcome the sound barrier with reaching a certain speed. In this case, the high fuel consumption was compensated by the increased speed and, accordingly, the flight range.
Supersonic passenger liner TU-144.
Supersonic passenger liner «Concord».
Afterburner of Tu-144 — NK-144A aircraft engine.
Well, that’s about all. For a fundamental acquaintance with the afterburner for a turbojet engine, it is quite enough :-). I just want to draw your attention to the effectiveness of the spectacle of a working afterburner. It looks especially cool when the plane takes off in the evening or at night. Many have probably seen it. If not live, then in the movies or on TV. But it’s better, of course, to watch live :-).
MiG-31. Takeoff. Full afterburner.
FA-18A fighter launch from an aircraft carrier.
A narrow cone of reddish-yellowish or even violet flame.
.. Moreover, there are light rings in the cone that follow each other. For turbofan , the color of the afterburner flame depends on the completeness of fuel combustion (the more oxygen, the lighter the flame), and the rings are the so-called shock waves, which are formed due to a periodic change in speed in the gas jet when interacting with atmospheric air.
Still the same F-18. Well, isn’t it beautiful? ?
Takeoff of the strategic bomber TU-22M3. The color of the afterburner is purple.
But this is the case when after seeing the essence of the phenomenon recedes into the background. Too bad it looks beautiful. Especially if you look at it all up close. However, like everything else in aviation :-)…
P.S. Interestingly, according to the rules of the Russian language, you need to say “engine with afterburner” (accent on the letter and ). But in aviation, the pronunciation “with afterburner” was established (emphasis on about ).
As well as the chassis with an accent on a , although it is correct on and, just like a marine compass with an accent on a . Here are some interesting features ? …
P.S.S. I want to make one more remark. Strictly speaking, on the MIG-29, MIG-31, TU22M3, F-18 aircraft, the photographs of which are used in the article, there are not turbojets with afterburner, but bypass turbojets with afterburner or turbofan engines. We will talk about these engines in future articles. But regarding the operation of the afterburner, there are practically no differences between them. But as an example, they are quite spectacular, especially since the real TRDF gets smaller over time. They are slowly losing ground to bypass engines with an afterburner…
Finally, I suggest you watch two videos. One, short, shows the inclusion of afterburner on a bench engine. In the second one, you will be able to see the SU-27 piloting with a long afterburner.
See you soon.