
The only utilities I've ever found that come as close as possible to 100% TDP are Prime95 v26.6 Small FFT's as a steady workload for thermal testing, and Asus RealBench as a fluctuating workload for stability testing.Īlthough the topic of Prime95 (with and without AVX) was covered, I would like to have seen RealBench included in your test suite,since it's widely accepted as an excellent utility for testing overall system stability, and uses a realistic AVX workload. However, since Intel validates their thermal specifications at a steady 100% TDP, it's most appropriate to select utilities that don't overload or underload the CPU. Nevertheless, our results are very similar. The Intel Temperature Guide differs in its approach toward the topic of processor Core temperatures and cooling with respect to Intel's TDP specifications, and distinguishes between steady workloads for thermal testing versus fluctuating workloads for stability testing. This article provides a perspective and some excellent comparisons.
#Best cpu stress test software
Since most users test their rigs without a sense of scale for power and temperature, they can't compare apples to apples, especially when combined with major variables such as differences in ambient temperature, hardware configurations and software utilities. Its stress test is a very basic way of testing your clock speeds and CPU stability but it’s not as intense as the competition.As the author of the Intel Temperature Guide - I can fully appreciate how much work went into creating this outstanding article, which has been sorely needed! It has a very clean and user-friendly interface and shows the all the information regarding your CPU and its technical specifications.
#Best cpu stress test free
The best and easy to use free application from monitoring to testing your hardware is CPU-Z. It also gives out recommendations for upgrading your CPU and other component to get the optimum performance and reduce any chance of bottlenecking of hardware. It stresses the CPU’s cores and threads to the theoretical limit and compares it with others on its database. PassMark offers a comprehensive and variety of tests including hyper-threading, 3D simulation, Encryption, physics modelling and complex mathematical calculations. Due to its high load testing method it’s a go for testing your overclocking numbers.

It is generally a very high multi-core utilizing application which stresses out all the CPU cores and threads and gives out a final score according to the performance figures of your CPU. Its also has a database and compares the performance of your CPU with others who have performed the test on their systems. PCMark 10 is a loaded to the brim type of application and is generally used in stress testing CPUs with heavy simulation workloads.

It can also help you measure and tell you if your CPU is thermal throttling or not and help you prevent overvolting your CPU. If you are serious about extreme overclocking of more than 500mhz on the clock then this is the one app you need. It does cost you, however you can do basic task of monitoring your CPU temperatures and clock speeds on the free version. It is one of the most comprehensive stress tests application. You can also create custom tests and specifically test a number of cores or thread rather than the whole CPU. Tests like Small FFTs stress test and Blended tests are mostly used while checking for errors or unstable CPU and overclocks. Time is not an object when running the application as it is generally recommended to test a CPU, a 5-6 hour test is required. It stresses the CPU by finding Mersenne prime numbers and creates a heavy workload and tests the CPUs capability to handle the task. Anything to do with stress testing, Prime 95 has got it.

Prime 95 is one of the oldest stress testing applications in the industry.

It measures the rendering capabilities of your CPU and gives out a score which you can check on the graph and compare with other processors too.Īfter the launch of version R20 it now has added a more complex render task and further stresses your CPU. It’s a point-based benchmarking and stress test application which tests and measures the single core and multi core performance of your CPU. These are one of the best applications to test the might of your CPU and troubleshoot any issues: Cinebench R15/20Ĭinebench is one of the industry standard application to stress and test your CPU’s prowess.
