How to test,use and maintain a new GPU

[farz_ahmed]

Hi Guys,
I have ordered an MSI gtx 760 Twin Frozr 2gb OC edition GPU which is expected to be delivered in a couple of days.
I'll be gaming at 1600x900 so mostly ultra settings with 4xMSAA.
SPECS-
Intel i5 3470 Processor
2x4gb corsair vengeance at 1600MHz
corsair VS650 PSU
MSI B75-P45 Mobo
1 tb WD HDD
I have jumped from a 9500 gt to gtx 760. So I dont have any experience of handling a mid/high end GPU. I will not manually overclock the GPU by tweaking voltages, but only use the turbo mode(the GPU has silent,gaming and turbo mode) only for very heavy games....
Please give me step-by-step guide for testing this GPU, using which benchmark,what things to monitor(ex.temp),using which monitoring software..I dont have any previous experience so please be as descriptive as possible..
Also, please give me any information regarding overclocking using the three modes if you feel i need it.
THANX IN ADVANCE!

 

[nikoli707]

well running furmark/kombustor(a furry mathmatical algorithim) is a great way to test for stablility. recently many gpu vendors and others try to discourage users to test gpus with this type of "stress" test as it is an extremely unrealistic load compared to "gaming". i personally think this is just the vendors covering their butts. and in certain cases where high/extreme overclocking with water and such.... it might not be a good idea. but on the safer side, use unigine heaven 4.0 and unigine valley 1.0 and run the benchmark to see your score, and also let them just loop over and over for a couple hours. use programs like cpuz, gpuz, and hwmonitor to log temps and speeds etc. with a twin frozr 760 if out the box your gpu is getting above 82c, then i would be either making sure my case has plenty of airflow or something is wrong. the twin frozr 760 should be able to at least overclock 100-200mhz higher than what the "turbo" setting is and stay under 80c. granted the card can handle higher than 80/82c easily, but temps should never be that high. compare your heaven/valley score to others with similar systems. if temps seem close to what reviews show, and there are many reviews for the msi tf 760, and your score is within range and it can pass a few hours of looping the benchmark or even furmark/kombustor, then it is a stable card.

if you dont trust the nvidia uninstall program and dont want to manually uninstall everything, just go download the latest display driver uninstallerm 12.6.3 at this time...
http://www.wagnardmobile.com/DDU/downloads.html
let it do a safe mode clean uninstall

then install the latest nvidia beta drivers... 337.50. but download them first before you run the display driver uninstaller so their ready to install

 

[farz_ahmed]

well running furmark/kombustor(a furry mathmatical algorithim) is a great way to test for stablility. recently many gpu vendors and others try to discourage users to test gpus with this type of "stress" test as it is an extremely unrealistic load compared to "gaming". i personally think this is just the vendors covering their butts. and in certain cases where high/extreme overclocking with water and such.... it might not be a good idea. but on the safer side, use unigine heaven 4.0 and unigine valley 1.0 and run the benchmark to see your score, and also let them just loop over and over for a couple hours. use programs like cpuz, gpuz, and hwmonitor to log temps and speeds etc. with a twin frozr 760 if out the box your gpu is getting above 82c, then i would be either making sure my case has plenty of airflow or something is wrong. the twin frozr 760 should be able to at least overclock 100-200mhz higher than what the "turbo" setting is and stay under 80c. granted the card can handle higher than 80/82c easily, but temps should never be that high. compare your heaven/valley score to others with similar systems. if temps seem close to what reviews show, and there are many reviews for the msi tf 760, and your score is within range and it can pass a few hours of looping the benchmark or even furmark/kombustor, then it is a stable card.

if you dont trust the nvidia uninstall program and dont want to manually uninstall everything, just go download the latest display driver uninstallerm 12.6.3 at this time...
http://www.wagnardmobile.com/DDU/downloads.html
let it do a safe mode clean uninstall

then install the latest nvidia beta drivers... 337.50. but download them first before you run the display driver uninstaller so their ready to install

Thanks for the reply....
I have downloaded 3DMark 11 Advanced Edition 1.0.3 benchmark... Is it equally good as heaven/valley???

 

[nikoli707]

yes its a good benchmark too. using more than one is nice though. unigine heaven/valley are fun to watch anyways.

 

[farz_ahmed]

yes its a good benchmark too. using more than one is nice though. unigine heaven/valley are fun to watch anyways.

ok...
Thank you very much for the help!!!!