Stability Testing Questions

[erdem84]

Hi guys,

I have some questions to you and will be glad if you help me.

1. Prime95 26.6 is recommended for thermal testing. What is the reason with this about AVX stuff? Is AVX FPU an overkill or consider a case that I tune my OC in 26.6 for 90 degrees and AVX FPU works then my temps go as high as 110 degrees because of the differences in Prime versions. Won't that be a problem?
2. Small FFT for 10 mins is enough to see max temps. Am I correct?
3. How do I stress test? Large FFT, Blend or Custom mode? There are a lot of various threads saying different things such as: http://overclocking.guide/stability-testing-with-prime-95/
4. How can I know that prime95 has finished a cycle?
5. Some people suggest to run p95 & IBT & and a cpu intensive game at the same time. Some people suggest using OCCT. I even found a thread about using Furmark & IBT at the same time.

I am kind of lost here. Can you guide me?

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

if Prime runs on it's default setting for ~30mins, you are stable and will know your max temps. longest i bother is about 15mins. some people go nuts and let it run for hours with higher settings.
run Furmark separately for GPU testing. same should apply.

90°C is very high in my opinion. if i get near 80° i will downclock. maybe try a better CPU cooler.

 

[erdem84]

if Prime runs on it's default setting for ~30mins, you are stable and will know your max temps. longest i bother is about 15mins. some people go nuts and let it run for hours with higher settings.
run Furmark separately for GPU testing. same should apply.

90°C is very high in my opinion. if i get near 80° i will downclock. maybe try a better CPU cooler.

Prime's default setting is Blend mode as far as I know. However, Small FFT rises temperature levels excessively. There are some claims about prime giving an error after 18 hrs or such and I am concerned about data consistency. What do you mean separately? Wait for prime to finish and then run Furmark or separately at the same time? I have NH-D14 as a cooler and seems fine as my core max temps are at 79, 89, 87, 78 respectively. Since I do gaming and surfing and some virtual machines for testing purposes in general and since I will never do folding video editing or 3D modelling the temps will never get these values because there is no game or app stressing the cpu at this level. BTW I am at 4.7 GHz with 1.28 Vcore with these temps.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

separately: run Prime to test your CPU, run Furmark to test the GPU. not at the same time.
if you're using onboard graphics you may want to run both at the same time, but i would imagine you're using a dedicated GPU since you mention gaming.
what softwares will you be running that use FFT so much that you are worried?

my 4790K has never passed 70°C at 4.6GHz/1.25v running Prime at its default settings so you are probably on par or near with what you should be temp-wise.
have never had an issue with over a year of 3DS Max modeling, video editing, ultra 1440p gaming; that's about the highest processing this system does. GPU has never passed 66°C running Furmark at default settings and also handles these applications fine.

 

[erdem84]

separately: run Prime to test your CPU, run Furmark to test the GPU. not at the same time.
if you're using onboard graphics you may want to run both at the same time, but i would imagine you're using a dedicated GPU since you mention gaming.
what softwares will you be running that use FFT so much that you are worried?

my 4790K has never passed 70°C at 4.6GHz/1.25v running Prime at its default settings so you are probably on par or near with what you should be temp-wise.
have never had an issue with over a year of 3DS Max modeling, video editing, ultra 1440p gaming; that's about the highest processing this system does. GPU has never passed 66°C running Furmark at default settings and also handles these applications fine.

I am using discrete graphics and forgot to mention that I have 3770K. I mean I don't know if any of the software I use uses FFT. I am running small FFT because all the guides recommend using it for 10 mins or so to see the max temps you will hit. I even game on 1080p. That's why I have no clue on how to stress test properly for my usage and opened this topic. There are so different ideas all over the place and I'm very confused about it. So shortly you suggest me running default mode for several hours (12 or 24) - I'm not sure how much will be enough - and a separate Furmark for how long exactly or approximately?

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

...shortly you suggest me running default mode for several hours (12 or 24) - I'm not sure how much will be enough - and a separate Furmark for how long exactly or approximately?

no, i stated if they run for 15-30mins with no problem then you should be fine.
why exactly are you so concerned? if your system is running fine and your games have no problem then you have nothing to worry about. just keep an eye on the temps while gaming and if they get out of hand then start to troubleshoot. anything below 70°C at stressed levels, like gaming, is good for me but others allow even higher. do a search here for safe temps with an overclocked 3770K.

 

[erdem84]

...shortly you suggest me running default mode for several hours (12 or 24) - I'm not sure how much will be enough - and a separate Furmark for how long exactly or approximately?

no, i stated if they run for 15-30mins with no problem then you should be fine.
why exactly are you so concerned? if your system is running fine and your games have no problem then you have nothing to worry about. just keep an eye on the temps while gaming and if they get out of hand then start to troubleshoot. anything below 70°C at stressed levels, like gaming, is good for me but others allow even higher. do a search here for safe temps with an overclocked 3770K.

I have read the Intel Temperature Guide topic and I decided my max as 80 degrees on load. I am still on the OC process and trying to find my max and be on the safe side as much as possible. 100 MHz difference is not so much difference but if I will be able to hit 5 GHz within reasonable limits why shouldn't I? And BTW what is all the fuss about long hours if 30 mins is enough?

Last Minute Update: I started to run IBT with max for 20 times and the temperature has risen to 93 degrees even though it hasn't completed the first test so I stopped. I'm considering about going down a notch

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

the higher the temps the shorter the lifespan of the CPU. hitting 90+° a few times may not be catastrophic but running at those temps for any extended amount of time will seriously degrade it. just a warning.

if you're(anyone in general) using your system for very intense processing like very large algorithms or large-scale 3D modeling, etc you may want to make sure your system can handle those processes for long periods without having a problem and losing all the work. then you may want to run tests like Prime or Furmark or something even more demanding for many hours first. i think this just kind of crossed over to the overclocking enthusiast community without any real merit as to why they want to do it.

 

[erdem84]

the higher the temps the shorter the lifespan of the CPU. hitting 90+° a few times may not be catastrophic but running at those temps for any extended amount of time will seriously degrade it. just a warning.

if you're(anyone in general) using your system for very intense processing like very large algorithms or large-scale 3D modeling, etc you may want to make sure your system can handle those processes for long periods without having a problem and losing all the work. then you may want to run tests like Prime or Furmark or something even more demanding for many hours first. i think this just kind of crossed over to the overclocking enthusiast community without any real merit as to why they want to do it.

Ah finally I see. I don't want my CPU be warmer than 80 C or 85 C at load for extended period of time. So as a conclusion:

1. Run 30 mins prime95 in default mode.
2. Run FurMark
3. Run 3DMark (Optional but I prefer this)

And then my OC will be stable in general usage. Right? Another point, I use VMWare for testing purposes. Will I be even fine with virtualization?

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

running in virtualization shouldn't effect anything. if regular processes run fine, they'll run fine inside of this environment too.
like I said, just keep an eye on your temps while gaming. that and if you get graphical anomalys like artifacts on the screen; static lines or odd shapes or colors appearing while games are running. you'd probably want to tone down the OC a bit. this shouldn't happen though if FurMark runs fine.

even at whatever OC speed you decide, you can still create a custom fan speed curve profile for your CPU cooler and/or case fans to help bring down the temps to something better, 85°C is pretty high.
i have a couple case fans set to 0% until GPU hits ~38°C then slowly climb up with the temperature until at 60° they are at 75%.
CPU cooler also, climbs steadily from 25% at 40° to 65% at 60° and flattens out there.
you would have to see what fan speeds work best with your CPU/GPU

SpeedFan is a great application for this or you can get a good external fan controller.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004OEDYHY?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=ox_sc_sfl_title_7&smid=AZCEI3EMXUPTH

 

[erdem84]

running in virtualization shouldn't effect anything. if regular processes run fine, they'll run fine inside of this environment too.
like I said, just keep an eye on your temps while gaming. that and if you get graphical anomalys like artifacts on the screen; static lines or odd shapes or colors appearing while games are running. you'd probably want to tone down the OC a bit. this shouldn't happen though if FurMark runs fine.

even at whatever OC speed you decide, you can still create a custom fan speed curve profile for your CPU cooler and/or case fans to help bring down the temps to something better, 85°C is pretty high.
i have a couple case fans set to 0% until GPU hits ~38°C then slowly climb up with the temperature until at 60° they are at 75%.
CPU cooler also, climbs steadily from 25% at 40° to 65% at 60° and flattens out there.
you would have to see what fan speeds work best with your CPU/GPU

SpeedFan is a great application for this or you can get a good external fan controller.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004OEDYHY?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=ox_sc_sfl_title_7&smid=AZCEI3EMXUPTH

I have been using SpeedFan quite a while but for monitoring purposes only. I have my fans run at 100% because they're pretty silent. As my cooling I have decided and established negative pressure system. 1x120 + 2x140 for exhaust and 2x120 and psu for intake. So my temp levels hit 79, 90, 89, 81 using IBT (MAX Setting) but when I run prime in default mode for 20 mins as for now my max temps are 73, 83, 82, 73 respectively. So which one should I take as base IBT or prime?

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

I wouldn't base it on either though it won't hurt to do so. will actually keep you a bit cooler than intended because nothing you do should stress the system as much as they do.
running high-end games like Witcher 3 or Fallout 4 and doing light video editing is the most stress my system is going to get so I base my temps on these. just regularly watch MSI Afterburner and CoreTemp in my taskbar for my GPU & CPU temperatures and that is real world scenario temps.