Overclocking Utitlites

[Elemental_Dragon]

I figured I've posted this information more than enough times into individual topics, so I'd like to make a thread on it. The following is a handy set of stress testing, monitoring and benchmarking tools for both Intel and AMD rigs.

:: Temperature Monitoring ::
Core Temp - My personal favourite. Highly acurate listing the temp and CPU's maximum safety temp.
Real Temp - Alternative to Core Temp.
Everest - Used to monitor all hardware temps and voltages, but at a cost. Highly effective software though.

:: Hardware Monitoring ::
CPU-Z - Little program for checking your CPU type, clock speed and voltage. Also checks your RAM and motherboard type.
GPU-Z - Same again except for GPU's.
Rivatune - GPU monitoring and overclocking for both ATI and Nvidia cards

:: Stress Testing ::
Memtest - Best thing for finding if your memory is faulty (whether it's latency errors, addressing or physical)
Prime95 - Excellent program for stress testing. 8Hrs of this and you've pretty much got a solid result.
SuperPI - Quick program for testing memory and CPU overclocks for stability.

:: Benchmarking ::
3D Mark 06 - Probably the most commonly used program for testing your PC's performance. (test before and after your OC to see how much your rig improves)
3D Mark Vantage - Another PC performance tester, but can only be used on Vista O/S or higher.
Aquamark - Another PC performance tester.
Cinebench - Another PC performance tester.
HD Tune - HDD performance tester. A good way to compare HDD speeds - find out which is your fastest and test arrays such as RAID 0 to compare for performance increases
*it's also a good idea to run this as part of your stress testing especially if you are overclocking your GPU as it may reveal problems other than stability e.g. Graphical tearing


For those who might ask how I test, I personally run CPUZ, Core temp and Prime95 all at once for 8hrs to stress test my CPU overclocks. Using Prime95 will push your rig to 100% load, something which is a rare case for many PC's so it's the very edge of pushing your PC should push come to shove. After that I tend to work on my GPU and run the likes of 3D Mark and Furmark.


Where can you easily find all these programs I hear you ask? Right here : http://www.benchmarkhq.ru/english.html?/b_e.html


As you can see, there are plenty more on there, so I'd highly recommend bookmarking that page and having a read through the selection, but the above are my absolute recommendations for quick, easy tuning and testing.

~Bex

[oggmonster]

Ah nice one, was going to make a list like that at some point. But you saved me the bother Hopefully the mods will pin this

[Pottypete]

Hi, Bex
Glad you posted that link again, I had lost it when win7 went mammaries vertical,
Cheers

Vote for a STICKY

[runn3R]

(...)
Vote for a STICKY

done! 

[Pottypete]

OK Thanks, runn3R,
1 Karma for you mate

[Pottypete]

Yeah go for it,
O Ye of little faith,
Elemental dragon posted a cracking o/c set of tools,
below
Regards

I figured I've posted this information more than enough times into individual topics, so I'd like to make a thread on it. The following is a handy set of stress testing, monitoring and benchmarking tools for both Intel and AMD rigs.

:: Temperature Monitoring ::
Core Temp - My personal favourite. Highly acurate listing the temp and CPU's maximum safety temp.
Real Temp - Alternative to Core Temp.
Everest - Used to monitor all hardware temps and voltages, but at a cost. Highly effective software though.

:: Hardware Monitoring ::
CPU-Z - Little program for checking your CPU type, clock speed and voltage. Also checks your RAM and motherboard type.
GPU-Z - Same again except for GPU's.
Rivatune - GPU monitoring and overclocking for both ATI and Nvidia cards

:: Stress Testing ::
Memtest - Best thing for finding if your memory is faulty (whether it's latency errors, addressing or physical)
Prime95 - Excellent program for stress testing. 8Hrs of this and you've pretty much got a solid result.
SuperPI - Quick program for testing memory and CPU overclocks for stability.

:: Benchmarking ::
3D Mark 06 - Probably the most commonly used program for testing your PC's performance. (test before and after your OC to see how much your rig improves)
3D Mark Vantage - Another PC performance tester, but can only be used on Vista O/S or higher.
Aquamark - Another PC performance tester.
Cinebench - Another PC performance tester.
HD Tune - HDD performance tester. A good way to compare HDD speeds - find out which is your fastest and test arrays such as RAID 0 to compare for performance increases
*it's also a good idea to run this as part of your stress testing especially if you are overclocking your GPU as it may reveal problems other than stability e.g. Graphical tearing


For those who might ask how I test, I personally run CPUZ, Core temp and Prime95 all at once for 8hrs to stress test my CPU overclocks. Using Prime95 will push your rig to 100% load, something which is a rare case for many PC's so it's the very edge of pushing your PC should push come to shove. After that I tend to work on my GPU and run the likes of 3D Mark and Furmark.


Where can you easily find all these programs I hear you ask? Right here : http://www.benchmarkhq.ru/english.html?/b_e.html


As you can see, there are plenty more on there, so I'd highly recommend bookmarking that page and having a read through the selection, but the above are my absolute recommendations for quick, easy tuning and testing.

~Bex

[Elemental_Dragon]

Glad it's useful for you guys

~Bex

[Badbonji]

I wonder how long the HD5870 will take to come out, and a DX11 benchmark for that matter

[ETNiES]

Just thought I'd post this here, a DX 11 Benchmark :

http://unigine.com/download/

[Beekeeper]

thanks for this link ETNiES

[jonj678]

You've missed out intel burn test / LinX under stress testing. As this tends to achieve higher temperatures than those listed and fail quicker it is my favorite for testing intermediate clocks. This is a strange omission as it is a rather more effective stress test than superpi. LinX is currently more popular as ibt tends to suffer from slightly obscure bugs, but they're both front ends to the same simultaneous equation solver.

Cpuid's hwmonitor is worth considering. I'm using this for temperatures as it reports graphics cards, some voltages (obviously crude) and hdd smart temps. http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php

I feel I should append that no one stability test can be considered conclusive. I am presently ibt stable (five hours) and prime 95 stable (16 hours blend/small) yet freezing under normal use. I conceed f@h using 5gb of ram while I run multiple vm's isn't strictly speaking normal, but it's still crashing my system which ibt and prime don't.

Cheers all

[gilgamesh]

I figured I've posted this information more than enough times into individual topics, so I'd like to make a thread on it. The following is a handy set of stress testing, monitoring and benchmarking tools for both Intel and AMD rigs.

:: Temperature Monitoring ::
Core Temp - My personal favourite. Highly acurate listing the temp and CPU's maximum safety temp.
Real Temp - Alternative to Core Temp.
Everest - Used to monitor all hardware temps and voltages, but at a cost. Highly effective software though.

:: Hardware Monitoring ::
CPU-Z - Little program for checking your CPU type, clock speed and voltage. Also checks your RAM and motherboard type.
GPU-Z - Same again except for GPU's.
Rivatune - GPU monitoring and overclocking for both ATI and Nvidia cards

:: Stress Testing ::
Memtest - Best thing for finding if your memory is faulty (whether it's latency errors, addressing or physical)
Prime95 - Excellent program for stress testing. 8Hrs of this and you've pretty much got a solid result.
SuperPI - Quick program for testing memory and CPU overclocks for stability.

:: Benchmarking ::
3D Mark 06 - Probably the most commonly used program for testing your PC's performance. (test before and after your OC to see how much your rig improves)
3D Mark Vantage - Another PC performance tester, but can only be used on Vista O/S or higher.
Aquamark - Another PC performance tester.
Cinebench - Another PC performance tester.
HD Tune - HDD performance tester. A good way to compare HDD speeds - find out which is your fastest and test arrays such as RAID 0 to compare for performance increases
*it's also a good idea to run this as part of your stress testing especially if you are overclocking your GPU as it may reveal problems other than stability e.g. Graphical tearing


For those who might ask how I test, I personally run CPUZ, Core temp and Prime95 all at once for 8hrs to stress test my CPU overclocks. Using Prime95 will push your rig to 100% load, something which is a rare case for many PC's so it's the very edge of pushing your PC should push come to shove. After that I tend to work on my GPU and run the likes of 3D Mark and Furmark.


Where can you easily find all these programs I hear you ask? Right here : http://www.benchmarkhq.ru/english.html?/b_e.html


As you can see, there are plenty more on there, so I'd highly recommend bookmarking that page and having a read through the selection, but the above are my absolute recommendations for quick, easy tuning and testing.

~Bex

Just small contribution OCCT is a great alternative to prime95

Though strictly not oc-tools

When I review/bench SSD drives I use

HDTACH
HDTUNE
CrystalMark
ATTO Diskmark
and
AS-SSD  (this is a great new util and is DEDICATED for benching SSD's)


regards
gilgamesh

[Greed4Speed]

EasyTune6 worked well for me when I have overclocked.

[beaser]

I have a x58a-ud3r with i7-950 with 12 gig GSkill ((3x4) 1600mhz 9-9-9-24) that I have running and stable as stock

The message I'm getting is overclock from the bios, is that generally agreed on? I do need operational monitoring though and I see a good  assortment mentioned.

I've seen easytune mentioned but it wasn't distributed with my new mobo. I had a brief look at the smart 6 and didn't see much else.

Are there any utilities that help setup the fan control or is it all in the bios. I'll most likely be using the Noctua D14 which doesn't use PWM. I'd rteally like to controll the fans to some extent and may use voltage control on the outboard fan. Knocking off one fan in a push pull scenario doesn't usually reduce the velocity by much but I'll play.

Thanks

Beas

[Greed4Speed]

I've seen easytune mentioned but it wasn't distributed with my new mobo. I had a brief look at the smart 6 and didn't see much else.
Thanks

Beas

Try this pal
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3305&dl=1#utility