DCA Computers Recommended Testing and Benchmarking Utilities

 

Heres our pick of the best testing and benchmarking utilities out there. These are the tired and true choice of the DCA technical team.

Prime 95

Prime 95 itself is a program designed to try and discover new Prime numbers as part of GIMPS, the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search. Prime 95 uses all spare CPU cycles on all CPU cores and is a great way to run a CPU at maximum capacity. It has a built in stress testing function which has been widely used for CPU stability testing and endorsed by overclockers for over 10 years. Available in either 32 bit or 64 bit formats.

Download : Prime 95 32 bit version

Download : Prime 95 64 bit version

Prime95

 

CPU-Z

CPU-Z has been a standard part of every technician’s software collection for as long as I care to remember. CPU-Z provides an in depth analysis of your CPU including Name, Specifications, Stepping, Cache, Voltage  and real time readout of current CPU frequency. Very handy to advise you exactly what speed your CPU is running at if you are overclocking. Also has information tabs for your Motherboard, Memory, Memory SPD Timings and more. Regularly revised and updated for new CPU models and is available in 32 and 64 bit versions.

Download : CPU-Z 32 bit version

Download : CPU-Z 64 bit version

CPU-Z

 

CPUID Hardware Monitor

Hardware monitor is another very useful piece of software from CPUID, the creators of CPU-Z. Hardware Monitor provides real time readouts of Voltages, Temperatures and system fan speeds. DCA techs  regularly use this utility to keep an eye on system parameters during overclocking stability testing.

Download : Hardware Monitor 32 bit version

Download : Hardware Monitor 64 bit version

HW Monitor

 

ATTO Disk Benchmark

ATTO Disk benchmark is widely used in the computer industry to provide accurate performance analysis of hard disk drives, Solid State drives and RAID arrays by measuring read and write speeds of blocks of data ranging from 0.5KB to 8192KB. This can give a good indication as to whether the HDD is performing in line with the manufacturer’s specifications and can also give comparisons between different HDD controller chips with the same HDD attached.

Download : ATTO Disk benchmark

atto

 

GPU-Z

GPU-Z by Techpowerup is a utility which can probe your graphics card and display a wide range of information including GPU and memory frequency, temperature, fan speeds as well as detailed statistics of your specific GPU core such as pixel fill rate, memory bandwidth and number of shader units.

Download : GPU-Z

GPU-Z

 

oZone3D Furmark

Furmark is a Graphics Card benchmarking and stability testing program which we regularly use here at DCA Computers, particularly if we suspect hardware faults in a graphics card which may be causing artefacting or other graphics anomalies.  Furmark pushes a graphics card very hard and generates maximum heat output, which Furmark also logs with a handy graph.

Download : Furmark

Furmark

 

Super Pi

Super Pi is a simple program which calculates Pi to a predefined number of decimal places. This program runs entirely in CPU cache and is a direct test of the calculating power of your CPU. The less time it takes for your CPU to calculate the result, the “faster” of more powerful your CPU is, and is a good test of relative CPU horsepower. Get all your friends to run Super Pi on their PCs to see who has the most powerful CPU!

Download : Super Pi

Super Pi

 

3D Mark

3D Mark by Futuremark Corporation is pretty much a legend in the computer industry. For over 10 years, various versions of the 3Dmark program have been used to test the 3D graphics capabilities of gaming PCs. The most recent versions of 3D Mark are 3D Mark 2006 which can be used under Windows XP with a Direct X 9 compatible Graphics Card, 3D Mark Vantage, designed for Windows 7 or Windows Vista with a DirectX 10 compatible Graphics Card, and the latest incarnation 3D Mark11, designed for Windows 7 or Windows Vista and a DirectX 11 compatible Graphics Card.

To download Futuremark products please follow this link

3D11

 

Unigine Heaven Benchmark

Unigine produces several graphics benchmark tools, the most popular of which is the “Heaven” benchmark. It was originally launched in conjunction with Windows 7 in October 2009 as the world’s first Direct X 11 benchmark, and has gained great favour amongst many hardware review sites for testing the graphics horsepower of modern gaming graphics cards.

To download Unigine products please follow this link

Unigine