"Prime95 has been a popular choice for stress / torture testing a CPU since it's introduction, especially with overclockers and system builders. Since the software makes heavy use of the processor's integer and floating point instructions, it feeds the processor a consistent and verifiable workload to test the stability of the CPU and the L1/L2/L3 processor cache. Additionally, it uses all of the cores of a multi-CPU / multi-core system to ensure a high-load stress test environment.Source and binaries available for FreeBSD, Linux, OS X, and Windows 95-10.
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The Prime95 Wikipedia page has an excellent overview on using Prime95 to test your system and ensure it is working properly. The tips presented there should be helpful regarding how long to run the torture test and provide a solid guideline on how long to run the Prime95 stress test.
Performing a stress test is simple:
- Download the software and unzip the files to your desired location.
- Run the Prime95 executable and select "Just Stress Testing" when asked.
- The default options are sufficient to do a well balanced stress test on the system."
/misc | Jun 14, 2016