Stress Test

Bloodwing

Hello again.

Well my build has been up and running for the last couple of weeks and so far so good. I'm delighted with it so thanks for all the help.

I'm curious to see what sort of performance I can get from it under full load. I know prime95 is used to load the CPU but what about the GPU? What's the best way to go about it?

Any advice is appreciated or even a link to a recent post or forum about this would be great.

Cheers.

dwighet

furmark
3d mark 11
3d mark vantage

Give those a go..

nesf

Heaven Benchmark is ok too.

FlyingIrishMan

I'd also like to try a stress test, I don't know much about them other then that they test to see what performance your machine can give.
Can I damage my computer using these programs or is there safety features in them?

nesf

FlyingIrishMan wrote: »

I'd also like to try a stress test, I don't know much about them other then that they test to see what performance your machine can give.
Can I damage my computer using these programs or is there safety features in them?

Watch your temps, know the safe temps for what you're testing and abort the test if temps rise above a limit you set yourself for the hardware. e.g. for an i5 2500K that I'm overclocking I don't like seeing a temp over the low 80s and will abort a test if it looks like rising above it (only have seen this on a dodgy cooler and with Intel Burn Test).

Modern motherboards will power off if the CPU temp rises too high anyway (or at least any of the boards I've used this year have).

Bloodwing

nesf wrote: »

Watch your temps, know the safe temps for what you're testing and abort the test if temps rise above a limit you set yourself for the hardware. e.g. for an i5 2500K that I'm overclocking I don't like seeing a temp over the low 80s and will abort a test if it looks like rising above it (only have seen this on a dodgy cooler and with Intel Burn Test).

Modern motherboards will power off if the CPU temp rises too high anyway (or at least any of the boards I've used this year have).

This is exactly the kind of info I was looking for. Some of the fourms I've seen say to let prime run for 12 to 18 hours but obviously that wouldn't be advisable if I should be watching temps.

Also while we're on temps!! My GPU (EVGA GTX580) is running about 70 while playing BF3 on ultra. Does this sound right? Seems a bit hot to me.

Tea_Bag

the GTX 580 if doing well running at 'only' 70C. My 6950CF run at 69C under furmark torture testing but they have decent custom coolers on them and theyre not Nvidia

as for the I5 2500K temps, I don't know where ye got 80C from but the absolute limit I'd ever put mine is 75C, and that's pushing it, anything over that and you're risking permanent damage. these badboys run super cool but don't do high temps either like chips of old. that's still enough room for a decent 4.5ghz OC on even the cheap coolers.

for GPU stress testing, furmark is more of a stress than any game(using torture test settings, not benchmarking) (which is what you want) and for CPU stress testing, Sandy bridge is more stressed with the Intel burn test than with Prime 95.

nesf

Tea_Bag wrote: »

as for the I5 2500K temps, I don't know where ye got 80C from but the absolute limit I'd ever put mine is 75C, and that's pushing it, anything over that and you're risking permanent damage. these badboys run super cool but don't do high temps either like chips of old. that's still enough room for a decent 4.5ghz OC on even the cheap coolers.

The answer as to what temp cores should be allowed reach under something extreme like IBT varies a lot. Some people say mid 70s, some mid 80s (depending on what you're running, P95 you want low 70s, IBT you expect closer to 80 on the same overclock but you'll be running it for minutes at that load not hours). Either way for 5 minutes under IBT 80 degrees isn't going to make much difference (if it did the auto-shutoff wouldn't be as high as 95 on the chips) 24 hours under Prime95 at 80 would be another story however. But like I said, pick your own temp under the maximums. If you're paranoid stay under 70.

Serephucus

Well what everyone has to remember here is that there is a difference between "benchmark" and "stress test".

A benchmark is used solely to gauge performance. You run a pre-defined test, and you get a number back. A stress test on the other hand is used for stability. You don't get any sort of rating, you just get a pass, or failure.

So, to start off: I don't bother with CPU benchmarks at all, really. I don't do any video transcoding, or anything like that, so I don't need to know exactly how fast my CPU is. As long as it doesn't bottleneck my games or applications, I don't much care, so I'm only going to talk about CPU stress tests here.

One of the best - and an old favourite with many, is Prime95. This has three different tests within it, and you'll be asked to choose one upon running.
Small FFTs is usually the best to give the quickest indicator of stability. Usually, errors will show up here within an hour.
Large FFTs, tends to stress the parts of the CPU that aren't the core - cache, controller, etc. - and to be honest, I don't use it a whole lot.
The last Prime95 test is Blend. This tests everything in your CPU, as well as your memory.

The next CPU test that I use is called Intel Burn Test (IBT). This uses the Linpack algorithm, and is the same test used by Intel to bin CPUs. You want to run it at its maximum settings, for a minimum of 5 passes. If you're going for long(er)-term stability, try 20-25, but I wouldn't use more than that - Linpack isn't really something you want to leave running for 24 hours like Prime.

For complete stability in an overclock, I usually:
Use IBT for 5-10 passes each increment, as well as ~15 minutes of Small FFTs. When I've found an overclock I'm happy with, I use 24 hours of Blend, 24 hours of S-FFTs, and about two hours of IBT. If it passes all that - along with the usual games / whatever else I normally do, of course - then I deem a CPU OC stable.


GPU stress tests:
I don't know about AMD GPUs, but NVIDIA recently changed the type of memory is uses in its GPUs, with the result that the 4xx/5xx series GPUs almost never show artifacts now, so tests like Furmark don't really work as well as you'd think. The best test, is to play the most intensive game you can - jack up the AA if it's not stressful enough - and just keep playing. If you see drops in performance, and your temps are still ok, then it's the card throttling for stability reasons, and you know your OC isn't stable.

For testing, benchmark loops or heavy gameplay will almost always be better than synthetic stress tests. Don't ask me why, they just are.

As for good benchmarks and/or stress tests to use, 3DMark 11, Heaven 2.5, GTA IV, Just Cause 2, and pretty much any other modern games with a built-in benchmark is a good bet.


A word on temperatures... As nesf has already pointed out, they vary wildly depending on what CPU you have, but if you google for the thermal specs, you'll usually get the manufacturer's guidelines (Intel's ARK is great for this). If, for example, Intel specs 72.6°C as the max. temp. for a 2500K, then if you start getting anything like 75° or so in Prime95, you'll want to back off a bit. IBT usually pushes processors a lot harder* than normal, so you could probably got up to around 80° and be fine.

* Under IBT, my processor maxes out at around 64°, while, when gaming, even with a 250W GTX 580 in the same loop, my processor only gets to about 52° or so. Prime95 gives temps around 59°.


Hope that helps...

nesf

Serephucus wrote: »

If, for example, Intel specs 72.6°C as the max. temp. for a 2500K, then if you start getting anything like 75° or so in Prime95, you'll want to back off a bit.

Intel gives case temps for the chip rather than core temps. There's some disagreement how one should convert. Thus the 75-85 range being given for core temps.

Regardless, I think that's a sustained load temp rather than a short term load temp limit, I think.

Tea_Bag

great post Serephucus, thanks for taking the time to write it out.

Serephucus

nesf wrote: »

I think that's a sustained load temp rather than a short term load temp limit, I think.

It is, yeah. It's obviously not healthy for a CPU to operate at those sorts of temperatures, but it can.

Tea_Bag wrote: »

great post Serephucus, thanks for taking the time to write it out.

Thanks. I was thinking of writing up a full beginners guide for the forum as well. Might start that once the exams are out of the way.

On the topic of cpu temperatures, the amd atlon cpu in my laptop reached 88°c last week while I was just watching a movie in divx. Screen kept freezing and stalling. CPU usage was also at 100%. Wasn't blocking ventilation either

uberpixie

Deleted User wrote: »

On the topic of cpu temperatures, the amd atlon cpu in my laptop reached 88°c last week while I was just watching a movie in divx. Screen kept freezing and stalling. CPU usage was also at 100%. Wasn't blocking ventilation either

How long have you the laptop? They tend to get clogged with skin/ciggie ash/hair/dust balls etc if you have em a while, this reduces cooling effectiveness of the laptop which causes parts to overheat.

uberpixie

uberpixie wrote: »

How long have you the laptop? They tend to get clogged with skin/ciggie ash/hair/dust balls etc if you have em a while, this reduces cooling effectiveness of the laptop which causes parts to overheat.

Its 3 years old but its in very good condition (feel like im selling it ). so you can get the image out of your head of some lazy guy eating spaghetti bolognaise on top of the laptop

Anyway, its an acer aspire 5536.
whats the best way/easiest way of removing dust? Do i remove all screws underneath it and try and poke up the cover?