Stress Test

Regardless of which monitoring program you use, run a stress test. Real Temp has the ability built in. The stress test will load the computer and heat up the chips. If the computer is adequately cooled you should only see 10 to 30 degrees (F) of increase. The further the temperature stays under 80C the better.

Note: The CPU temp shown (-64C) is SpeedFan being confused about my motherboard. The CPU temp is shown in Temp2.

Intel CPU’s have a protective feature that prevents the CPU from burning up. The TJMax is the maximum temperature at which the CPU will run at 100% speed. Once that temperature is reached, the CPU protects itself by slowing down, which will degrade performance. If you can force your CPU to that limit, you need way more cooling. If you are reaching it during game play, you most definitely need more cooling.

In 2006 Tom’s Hardware made a video showing the affect. Toms Hardware: CPU Cooling. Don’t let it scare you away from AMD CPU’s. Overheat protection is built into motherboards now. So, they won’t toast like the video shows… at least they are not supposed to.

P & T Summary – What to Do

You need to check your computer’s power needs and cooling. The above pretty well tells you how to do that. Now, what to do with the information?

With either a newly purchased computer or an existing computer you plan to upgrade, check the numbers. On a new computer you may find your computer vendor may not have done a good job designing it. They may be cutting corners to lower the price, which is good or bad depending on your viewpoint. An existing computer will likely be dirty and if so, possibly overheating or likely running hotter than necessary. If you find its at its power and temperature limits, you’ll need to do more then just add a new video card.

If your CPU is going over 70C or your GPU over 80C, your cooling is probably inadequate. If your computer is overheating you will need to add more cooling.

Overheating

You can add more or better fans to the case to improve cooling. If your CPU is overheating, consider a new CPU heat sink and fan. There are some exotic looking heat sink-fan combinations. They are in the US$50 to $90 range. If you are not a geek, a CPU heat sink change is something to have a computer shop do.

 < Thermaltake SpinQ Processor cooler $45 to $70

>  Thermaltake V1 CL-P0401 Processor cooler $32

Case fans are easy to add provided your computer’s case has room for them. Often you can replace a fan with a higher capacity fan to move more air.

Also, when you open the case, turn the computer on for a few seconds to see that all the fans are turning. My experience is fans last about 3 years or less in dirty environments, like near the floor. You may need to use a flashlight to see if the fan inside the power supply is turning. Replace any fans that are not working. If it is a power supply fan, replace the power supply.

Power

Once you know your power supply’s rating, you need to know if it is big enough for your grand plans. Antec has the best power supply calculator I know of, but it is down for updating. Check to see if it is up. If so, use it.

Outer Vision Extreme has a power supply calculator. I’m not happy with it because it under sizes the power demands for my computer. I would add 25% to whatever it recommends. But, it is one of the more complete calculators. They have a retail version that is probably more accurate. The promo material says they give you more of the important details by breaking down by specific voltage bus demands.

Someone into the green movement has made a decent Power Calculator. It gives results more like what I know my computer needs. It is much less complete than Extreme’s but it works.

Whatever calculator you use, you will need the information from CPU-Z.

Once you know your computer’s power demand you can decide if your power supply can handle the new video card. If not, get a new power supply. The cost of 650 to 750 watt power supplies is in the US$75 to $150 range.

Which Video Card Brand

The two major players in the video card world are nVidia and AMD. AMD video cards were formerly made by ATI. As of now the absolute fastest video card is made by AMD. But, like anything computer related there are complications and advertising spin.

The fastest AMD card today is the Radeon HD 6990, at least it is what I see claimed. The GTX 580Ti is the fastest single GPU one can buy according to nVidia. GPU’s are like CPU’s with multiple cores. GPU’s come as several GPU’s built into a single chip. Radeon gets their performance by placing two of their GPU chips on one board. nVidia gets their spin by using only a single chip on their board.

The nVidia 590 is a board with two 580 chips. But, it is slower than the 6990. nVidia reduced clock speeds to control power consumption. Because of that the 590 is slower than twin 580 cards by 16%. The 590 is about 38% faster than a single 580 card. You can start to see how things are getting complex.

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