GMABooster helps to crank up netbook graphics

Whilst netbooks are not the most powerful devices around, one area in which they fall particularly short is the graphics side. GMABooster, a free application, sets to address that issue by providing a small boost to netbook graphics.

The majority of netbooks out there run on the Intel 945GM/GME/GMS/GSE chipset which all feature the same GMA 950 graphics. However, the graphics part is underclocked to help improve battery life. What GMABooster does is to bring the graphics clock rate from a lowly 133/166MHz up to a faster 400MHz.

Don’t be afraid of damaging your netbook, the app doesn’t overclock the chipset as all that it does is boost the clock speeds to its normal level. The tests run by UMPC Portal showed that it boosted the graphics element by over 20 percent in its synthetic benchmark tests. I’m not sure whether this will translate into real world results, but you can try it for yourself here. I imagine that an increase in performance is likely to impact on battery life as well as heat output, so this is worth considering.