What Is GMABooster?

GMABooster is a free software application that allows you to overclock the GPU inside your netbook or notebook easily. According to the FAQ page on the company website, the Intel GPU is a low voltage version of the Intel 945 chipset. The graphics core on the mobile versions of the GPU is underclocked to 166/133MHz rather than the 400MHz that the standard Intel 945 chipset runs at. However, the GPUs are the same, meaning that with slight tweaks the mobile GPU should be able to run much higher clock speeds. The software maker claims that GMABooster can boost game performance by about 25% in pure GPU tests like 3DMark2005 and 2006 providing for up to 2.4 times the performance.

To say we were a bit skeptical would be an understatement, so we decided to put the company's 3DMark06 claims to the test. To verify if in fact the software is able to meet the claims I am using an MSI Wind U100 netbook running the Intel GMA 945 GSE chipset and Intel GMA 950 GPU. The software promises that all you need to do to get your integrated GPU to run at 400MHz is start the application up and choose the speed from the drop down list; you don't even have to reboot the computer to get the faster speeds.

Installing the software is dead simple; you just download the app, run the exe file and you are done. The catch to the application being free is that you have to download it from a server that wants you to pay for an account. It does offer free downloads, but you have to sit for 90 seconds as it counts down before you can download the application. The other catch is that each week you are forced to download a new version of the application.