Best performance settings for gaming (iCUE / Windows / GPU Driver)

Everyone is always trying to do more with less and for the extra competitive players out there, squeezing the most of your system is not just about getting an enjoyable experience, it’s about getting an advantage. If a few clicks of a button can get increase your FPS and make your gaming experience more enjoyable you might as well give it a shot! Let’s go over some of the settings you might want to change to improve frame rates and responsiveness in a wide variety of games.

The first thing we’re going to do is make sure you are getting the most out of your hardware. You might have heard about squeezing more performance from overclocking but it is a little more advanced and does come with tradeoffs, so we won’t be going over that in this guide. In the BIOS we’re only going to touch the RAM. There are slight differences depending on what CPU brand you have but you want to enable Intel XMP or AMD EXPO. It may be hidden under a “Memory” menu, but every motherboard is different so consult your motherboard manual or search online if you’re having trouble. This will give a little extra speed and power and allow your RAM to run at its full potential. Check out our short video on how to enable XMP below.

Now getting into the system, the first step is to have your general maintenance is order. After updating Windows and drivers, closing any background tasks that might be using excess processing power is the simplest things you can do to get extra performance. This especially includes internet browsers and any downloads that might be happening from Steam or another game launcher.

Finally diving into the windows settings, you might notice a tab labeled “gaming.” We’re actually going to recommend you turn all of these settings off here. All of these settings add an extra layer between your processor and your game.

• Xbox Game Bar: Off
• Captures: Off
• Game Mode: Off

One more setting we’re going to change while we’re here is a power setting. Simply making sure your power mode is set to Best Performance will obviously make sure you are getting the best performance.

Here is where you’ll update your drivers if you are using any CORSAIR products, as they can all benefit from iCUE. Be sure to update both the firmware and software. For optimal performance be sure to go into your mice and keyboard settings and turn up the polling rate. 1,000 Hz is the lowest we recommend for any gaming equipment, but it may go up to 2,000 Hz on some of our high-end wireless devices, like the M75 AIR or up to 8,000 Hz while plugged in for some devices.

If you have CORSAIR fans or an AIO you can also adjust the fan and pump speeds for the best cooling while you’re gaming. Simply go into your fan settings and change the setting to “Extreme” or create your own custom cooling preset.

After changing your display resolution to the highest available with the highest refresh rate, head on over to the “3D settings.” You can use a simplified slider by going to “Adjust image settings with preview” and setting your preference to Performance. But if you’re looking for more control you can go to “Manage 3D settings” where you will find an overwhelming list of options. Many of these will look familiar if you have ever looked into the graphics settings of your favorite game and these will function similarly. Here is where a lot of the personal preference comes in. Lowering these settings will give you better performance but you’ll impact the graphical fidelity of your games in more obvious ways. Here are some settings that we would recommend in most situations.

• Low Latency Mode: Ultra
• Max Frame Rate: Off
• Power Management Mode: Prefer maximum performance
• Threaded optimization: On
• Triple buffering: Off
• Vertical sync: Off