Ask B2G: Razer Game Booster vs. GeForce Experience vs. AMD Gaming Evolved – Which is the Best Gaming Utility?

Welcome to Ask B2G where we answer questions from you our readers and share it with your fellow gamers and enthusiasts. Today we have a question from reader “Deathsight” and he writes:

[blockquote]

I have an NVIDIA graphics card and Razer keyboard and mouse but my PC is only Core i3 and 4GB RAM, I don’t want to install a lot of applications. Which do I install?

[/blockquote]

B2G Says:

First off let’s address the question of what these software actually do before we decide which is best.

The Razer Game Booster is a collaboration between Razer and IOBit to repackage their existing Game Booster software with Razer’s branding. What the software does is manage background application and processes to optimize system resources and prioritize games when they are run. It also allows further tweaking to disable certain tasks, services and processes when games are being run based on the user’s tastes. Razer’s version of the Game Booster adds a screencast option allowing users to capture screenshots and videos in-game. Further features include system maintenance tools such as a defragmentation tool and driver updater. The software also integrates with Steam.

You can download the software for FREE from the Razer Game Booster page.

[singlepic id=12679 w=600 h=300 float=center]

NVIDIA’s own utility is the GeForce Experience. This software lists your games and offer a couple of functions but its main purpose is to optimize your in-game settings (for supported games) for the best experience with your GeForce GTX Titan/7xx/6xx GPU. The software lists detected games from your system and offers optimized settings for you to apply to your games, automatically with a single click if you so desire. With the latest version released, NVIDIA GeForce Experience now offers ShadowPlay, a video capture and screenshot utility that leverages the power of NVIDIA GPUs to capture frames instead of using up CPU resources. It also features a continuous record option called Shadow Mode that records up to 20 minutes of footage, flushing older footage as it goes so it doesn’t take up your entire hard disk. Great for capturing moments of epic. Twitch.tv support is also under development. A built-in updater also keeps your driver up to date. Read our review of the NVIDIA GeForce Experience.

Download GeForce Experience from NVIDIA.

If you do not have an NVIDIA card, you won’t be able to use this software. 

AMD‘s Gaming Evolved app is Team Ruby’s own bid at creating gaming utility for its Radeon graphics cards. AMD has teamed up with gaming social media app developer Raptr and has adapted their application to provide functions similar to that of the GeForce Experience. Whereas NVIDIA creates their own optimization profiles, AMD is reliant in the Raptr community to generate data for game optimizations. Read our impressions of AMD’s Gaming Evolved for our thoughts on the app.

The AMD Gaming Evolved app features support for screen capture, social media updates, etc. via Raptr with the detail settings the sole addition for this AMD rebrand. Based on our experience, it supports both AMD and NVIDIA cards and will optimize both accordingly (verified working with latest update.)

Download AMD Gaming Evolved from Raptr.

What to choose?

Now that we have those out of the way and know what the utilities are capable of we now go back to the question of which is the best amongst the three and let’s recount what your current requirements are:

• NVIDIA Geforce card
• Core i3 processor
• Razer peripherals
• Don’t want to install a lot of applications

I don’t have much to go on from that, a bit of specifics could help but let’s assume you have at least a GTX650 from there we can already assume you have a lower-midrange gaming PC. So to answer your question and if I really can only install one of the three choices, I would go with Razer Game Booster.

This is based on the information you have provided and I would assume you are the kind of guy that likes to keep his PC in tip-top condition. This is where the Game Booster shines as it manages your resources well enough to make sure your games don’t get bogged down by other running tasks.

If you haven’t noticed already, the Razer Game Booster is a system management application which is totally different from both the Geforce Experience and Gaming Evolved app as those applications are game detail optimization software which manage performance via in-game settings and not via system settings and task management.

For further discussion, say you’re a social media mogul and you definitely want to share all your stuff on the web. Then I highly recommend installing the AMD Gaming Evolved app as Raptr’s community functions are very solid and gives you a rewarding experience by tracking game statistics and allowing your accomplishments to be shared across different social media platforms as well as Raptr’s own community.

[blockquote]NVIDIA’s ShadowPlay function is one damn good reason to get a GeForce[/blockquote]

If you are a gameplay video maker or a game commentator, shoutcaster, etc. and have an NVIDIA GeForce GTX card then its a no-brainer. NVIDIA’s ShadowPlay function is one damn good reason to get a GeForce if you are into video creation of gameplay footages.

There is no best amongst the three in a general sense, it all depends on your requirements and we hope that we’ve shared some useful tips that can be helpful to those interested in these applications. Heck they’re all free. Try them now!

If you are a bit of a hands-on kind of person, you can try our quick guide at optimizing games for Windows. Got an SSD and Windows 8? Optimize it with our SSD optimization guide for Windows 8.