How are you testing your overclock stability?

[theone1989]

I've currently installed OCCT, Prime95 & IntelBurn Test.

Basically I seem to BSOD in OCCT after 10-15mins, while I run Prime95 for an hour say absolutely fine, I also pass the IntelBurn Test on "high" ok. (i5-2500k, msi gd65, 4.4ghz, 1.285v)

Which of these programs would you trust more?

 

[drescherjm]

You should not get a BSOD on any program if your system was "rock" stable.

I generally use IBT on maximum.

 

[rent.a.john]

how many passes are you doing for IBT? Usually 20 passes should be suffice, and 1 hr on prime is not really enough. But yeah, ideally, you should not be getting errors on any of these

 

[Rossi~]

10-20 passes of IBT on highest using all RAM, if it passes then 12 hours of Prime95 full threads on blend.

 

[Ehren8879]

Sounds like my 2500k. 4.3GHz is probably fine at that voltage, but for me 4.4 is where I have to start throwing more volts at the cpu

 

[unclewebb]

If you are doing any Linpack based testing on a Sandy Bridge CPU, make sure you upgrade to Windows 7 - SP1 and use the latest Linpack libraries. This will let your CPU use the new AVX registers. Be prepared for a significant increase in your core temperatures.

 

[Forceman]

There is no simple answer. For now, it appears the Prime95 (Small FTT) is harder on SB than the Linpack based programs (lots of guys can run Linpack fine, but fail quickly on Prime95). Haven't seen much reporting using SP1 yet, so time will tell on that end.

 

[robble]

I play my games and run my comp 24/7. If it doesn't crash from doing that I am happy.


I do not need to run Prime, cpu burn, or any of the other stuff to be happy.

 

[Falkentyne]

Prime blend for RAM.
Deep Rybka 4 in Chessbase for CPU.
And playing some games and enjoying myself.

 

[theone1989]

Sounds like my 2500k. 4.3GHz is probably fine at that voltage, but for me 4.4 is where I have to start throwing more volts at the cpu

Well 4.4ghz @ 1.285v passed 4 hours of Prime95 small blend (as well as 15x high intel burner), the only reason I had the patience to wait 4 hours was because I accidentally fell asleep as my rig is still new so I wouldn't sleep with it on.

 

[unclewebb]

There is no simple answer. For now, it appears the Prime95 (Small FTT) is harder on SB than the Linpack based programs (lots of guys can run Linpack fine, but fail quickly on Prime95). Haven't seen much reporting using SP1 yet, so time will tell on that end.

The SP1 update that lets Linpack use the new 256 bit AVX registers that are in the Sandy Bridge CPUs changes everything.

http://software.intel.com/en-us/avx/

My friend burebista compared Prime95 and LinX and created a little video that you can download here.

http://www.mediafire.com/?hee95uxv9sgl8a4

Various tests in Prime95 resulted in CPU power consumption numbers around 64W to 65W. Switching to LinX with SP1 caused power consumption to shoot up to 84W because it was using these new AVX registers. GFlops also goes way up with this new version.

Any overclock that is on the edge of stability is going to have to be turned down quite a bit when using this new test.

 

[stockwiz]

this pretty much 24/7 unless I stop it to game. Honestly I find I have to stop myself from going and order a 2nd rig just for folding. Kind of addicting. I'll upgrade to ivy and use my sandy as a folding rig... or upgrade to bulldozer if it performs. For sheer points per watt of power consumption, nothing beats a 2600k at the moment. No crashes at 4.3 ghz with everything on auto.. I may just leave it here, we'll see. Keep the temps low when stressing around the clock.