Essential Free Programs Every Gaming PC Needs!
So, you’ve just bought yourself a new gaming PC (hopefully from us), and you’re wondering what programs you should install. Many programs and software you find on the internet that are deemed ‘essential’ will come with a price premium. So I’ve gone and done the heavy lifting for you and scoured the web for the most essential FREE programs every new gaming PC should have!
TechPowerUp’s GPU-Z
When it comes to owning a Gaming PC, one of the most important, if not the most crucial component within your system will be the graphics card. So making sure everything runs like it should is vital if you want the smoothest PC gaming experience! That’s where TechPowerUp’s GPU-Z comes in. GPU-Z is a FREE, lightweight system utility designed to provide vital information about your graphics card. This free software will tell you everything you need to know about your graphics card and its processes. It will detail information like when the card came out, the bios version, base, memory & boost clocks, and its minimum and maximum temperatures.
HWMonitor
HWMonitor is another hardware monitoring program similar to GPU-Z, but instead of focusing on one piece of hardware, it reads and displays your system’s primary health sensors. These include hardware voltages, temperatures and fan speeds. If you are unsure about exactly what components you have within your system, HWMonitor will have them displayed within its simple, easy to use layout. This program can also be great for identifying any underperforming or overheating components within your system. As all performance data is displayed in a table format, showing the correlating health sensors that go along with each component within your system.
MSI Afterburner
MSI Afterburner is one of the most used overclocking and GPU tuning tools out there. And despite its name leading you to think it’s only for MSI and Nvidia graphics cards, it’s, in fact, compatible with AMD. Not only can you use this program to tweak the performance of your GPU, you can also use it to enable a multitude of on-screen displays. These include information like your FPS, GPU usage and even clock speeds. One of the great features of MSI Afterburner is how you can easily tweak your GPU fan curve and speeds better to manage the temperature & noise of your GPU.
Discord
Discord is a FREE voice, video and text chat app that allows you to join and create private communities with your friends or like-minded gamers & individuals. Think of Discord as a kind of Skype/WhatsApp social media hybrid where it takes all their best features and integrates them into a user-friendly, easy to use app. You don’t even need to download the app as you are to access all of its features through the website itself.
VLC Media Player
In today’s internet age, the times you will make use of locally stored media are far and few between. But when the time comes, you will want a media player capable of playing nearly all video formats. That’s what makes VLC Media Player so useful, as no matter what format you throw at it, there is a good chance it can make it work. The standard windows media players will often only support a handful of formats, and VLC can take away that potential formatting headache before it arises.
7-zip
With every new Gaming PC, you will need the ability to unpack zipped files. How else are you going to download and install hundreds of Skyrim mods? Windows by default will come with basic support for zipping and unpacking simple files, but anything more complex and you will require a proper zipping tool. This is where 7-zip comes in. 7-Zip is a piece of software used to compress or zip & unpack files, and if you look past its timed appearance, it’s one of the best free programs out there for what it does.
Takeaways
Utilising the above hardware monitoring programmes will allow you to make sure everything is running smoothly and even detect abnormalities before they become significant issues. At the same time, the use of VLC, 7-Zip and Discord will make your day to day use that much smoother. So, go forth and make the most out of your new gaming PC!