What is Prime 95 good for?

[twistedbrntucker]

I downloaded it and ran a stress test for 15+ hours.It passed, but what did it do? Was it long enough?What was it checking?What was it looking for?

[eRaDicaTor]

Most stress tests are used to check new hardware (cpu's and motherboards and memory) for defects. Every once in a while you will see a bad egg come from a cpu batch. The stress tests put a huge load on the components and "burn in" the hardware. If it was going to fail, it would do it during the stress test when the system is being taxed the most for long periods of time.

HOpe this helps.

SiSoft Sandra also has a stress test used for the same purpose but i don't know enough about prime 95 to tell you which is better.

[twistedbrntucker]

I will try Sandra. I mainly wanted to get a better understanding on what it was doing inside my PC.Thanks

Sandra's stress test is a bit weaker than Prime 95's, IMO. Any app which uses 100% of the CPU for a sustained time is a good burn in test, as it helps to check whether your CPU gets too hot under load, and if the RAM is happy with much activity or not.

Many folks use stress tests to check out how overclocking affects their systems reliability. If you overclock (CPU, RAM, video or anything) then you are risking some stability. Burn in tests will help to see if your system is still stable after overclocking.

Another useful stress test in Passmark's Burn-in-test. Has a free trial version.

Cheers
Mick