PC performance / monitoring tools - OC'er must have's

[kaispeth]

I am still quite new to the OC'ing game.
Before I get deeper into it I like to know what are the Over Clockers must have utilities. What are the best programs?

I am building a system right now and I am planning on adding a fan controller.
Do I need also one of these fancy LED consoles that display fan speed and temp?? I just want to get a fan controller (Lian-Li case)

What else do I need. How do you measure your PC performance?
CPU-Z is that enough?

Would love to know what are the must have's for you all.

Thanks

 

[shinigamiX]

No need for anything fancy other than top-notch cooling! And make sure to never overclock using Windows apps, always do it in the BIOS. Also get SuperPI, 3DMark06 and Prime95, those are all good.

 

[yakyb]

off the top of my head

cpu-z
everest (temp measurement also has overclock section and memory tests are quite good)
sisoft sandra (similar to above but i prefer everest)
super pi (i think 1.5 mod is latest version for cpu benching/ stability)
prime 95 (for stability)
a game to measure real life performance increase
encoding program (virtual dub, photoshop, mp3 encoder again to measure real life performance increase)
rivatuner (gpu OC'ing)
Aquamark (although not absolutly required it does split bench into cpu/gpu and i quite like it)

oh and finally excel to graph your results

 

[yakyb]

whilst i agree with the bios comment prime 95 and superPi i would put a bit of caution into using 3d mark 06 as its results tend to favour certain gpus and cpus and as such cannot really be used as a comparison against other systems (but its score can be used to compare your improvement) much in the same way doom 3 prefers NVidia cards 3d mark prefers some manufacturers over others (whilst i cant remember which one off hand)