Opinions on another newbie OC, please.

xibxang

xibxang

xibxang

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Joined
22 Nov 2005
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75
Just wondering if I could get some opinions here, please? I'm just wondering if I've done OK for a first attempt. I'm quite happy to stay at this level but if anyone thinks that there's any particular part that I should trim, then please by all means impart some wisdom?

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I was wondering if the vcore was too high. In saying that, it's the lowest I can go to get Prime95 to run for more than 5 hours. Anything smaller and it'll only run for about an hour. Could someone let me know if this is OK, please?
 
Yeah, my CPU normally sits at 36-38 under load (26 idle), Memory/Northbridge at 40 (37idle). I'm thinking I'll get another 120mm fan for the front intake of my case to see if it cools the two warmer parts but otherwise I think that's ok (?).

Cheers for the quick feedback.
 
Just a quick question: Could someone advise whether being able to run Prime95 for a maximum of 5 hours is an absolute fail? I know that it's much more preferable for it to run 8+ hours but I'm just trying to get a gauge on how 'unstable' my system is.

The only thing that I think is keeping my system back is the fact that I run 4 x 512 Kingston RAM, which does tend to get a little bit on the warm side (~43 degrees - a bit higher than I quoted in the previous post) under the more extreme testing section of a Prime95 Blend Test. I know this isn't ideal, but I'm looking at another month before I can get the money together to buy better stuff. I might also have a wee issue that this RAM might be getting a bit hot under a big load. However, I've just ordered an 80mm fan to put onto an intake vent on the side of my case so that might help.

I just don't want to go obsessing over how long Prime95 is able to run for without halting. Like I say, I can get 5 hours out of it and my system will run everything else that I ask it to (EverQuest 2, Half Life 2 all run for hours on end with no issues). Obviously, I'd prefer if it would go for 8+ hours at a time, but I don't want to start adding more to the vcore just to get the extra hours out of a test that doesn't really feel that important to me.

Can someone advise on this? Is it really really really that important to be able to run Prime95 for half a day or so?
 
This is a good question and one I would like to know the answer to, for instance I ran prime95 for 10 hours the other day without error, no in my opinion if it runs for 10 hours without fault then to me its stable, I think anything more may be a bit excessive but I suppose its down to personal preference.

Would be good to get some opinions from shall we say 'the more experienced' among us :)

Cheers
 
I've been googling a bit since I posted this question and I think the short answer is: Prime95 should be able to run for 24 hours. Just because. Except, in theory, it actually won't. Except it does. On some machines.

TBH I think it's down to the end user. Some people are a bit more pedantic than others so I htink there never will be a universally agreed answer. I also found a link that led to a poll on another forum and the majority agreement seemed to be that if Prime 95 ran for 2-5 hours, then your system is 'stable'.

Of course, I could be talking rot, but I have a sneaky suspicion that each individual has their own take on what they'd consider to be 'stable'.
 
Think me myself am in agreement with the people in the forum you mentioned but I'm a noob to this OC'ing game so what do I know :D

Also its recommended that memtest86 should also be run for 12hrs (some people say they are happy with 8 runs of test 8) but is prime95 not enough for memory testing? I know it puts your CPU @ 100% usage and from what I gather it gives your memory quite a bit of stick aswell.

Everyone is welcome to there own opinion and like you said mate everyone has different comfort levels.

Thing to remember is failures and errors can occur at any given moment whether a PC is overclocked or not and as long as PC's are around thats going to be the case (especially with Microsoft Windows installed on them!!)

But like you say everyone is different and everyone is entitled to do what they feel happy with, you will never get an agreement from a group of people on a subject like this..... just impossible :)
 
Heh, this is turning in to a little newbie discussion (I'm a total n00b). :)

I can easily get quite obsessive with things like this. I used to go mental for running the Quake2 demo to test FPS rates using different drivers way back when I used to run a Celeron 333 with 2 x vodoo 2's in SLI. At one point the average FPS became more important than the actual game itself.

Since then, I've started to watch how much importance I place on things like the above, memtest86 and Prime95 (and everything else in between). I think going forward, I'll use these tests as a rough guide, but at the end of the day I'll put the importance on my machine being able to run games and applications with as little fuss as possible (Which I get right now).

Good luck on your overclocking hobby. Hope to see you around. :)
 
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