Substitute for Gaming When Overclocking?

[LoserXLeet]

Hello everyone! The common thought when overclocking seems to be, after you raise your CPU's HTT 5mhz or so, you test for stability by gaming. Here's my dilemma: The video card for my system has not arrived yet, so I assume testing stability by gaming wouldn't be possible/efficient. I plan on using a high end graphics card for gaming, and overclocking my system for the like. If accomplishing a high and solid CPU overclock for gaming ,and performance in general, is possible without the use of a video card, how would I go about doing so? Thanks for reading!

 

[Dark Prodigy]

Run Prime95 Torture test for at least 6 hours with an old videocard to check stability. If everything is kosher, then putting in your new one when it arrives should be just fine and ready to go...

 

[Erasmus354]

Read the overclocking guide which is stickied in the A64 section. If you do you will realize that gaming is actually not recommended for checking stability (not for CPU overclocking at least).

 

[cornelious0_0]

Read the overclocking guide which is stickied in the A64 section. If you do you will realize that gaming is actually not recommended for checking stability (not for CPU overclocking at least).

Exactly what I was going to say. In my opinion, stability testing in/with games is too risky...as the load on your processor is not very consistent...and there's still a good chance you can run into speed related issues down the road.

Whether you have your new videocard or not, I would use Prime95 to check for stability, push your CPU to a certain point...and let it sit running a Prime95 torture test for a good 6-12 hours. The only way that adding your new(er) video card after OC'ing your processor could cause trouble is if your PSU isn't up to par, the added load on your 12v rail(s) from the video card could easily throw off your previously stable CPU overclock.

Go at it for now, see what it'll do...but make sure to re-run your stability test(s) after the card arrives just to confirm.