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PRIME Don't Place Much Faith In It?

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dfox

Member
Joined
Nov 11, 2005
Someone told me this:

AruisDante said:
That's a CPU error IRRC. If you get a RAM error it gives you a much longer message.

But really, prime stability means nothing to me. If it can do what I want without crashing, I don't care if it fails instantly. So don't place too much value on prime stability, test it by doing what you'd actually want the thing to do.

My reply:

I thought people SWEAR by PRIME, that if you get any errors then there is a miscalculation on the hardware, and it's not running correct.

See being somewhat of a PRIME newbie in understanding it this way I don't really know, but I'm not a newbie as far as the program is concerned, I've known it for years.

Well the thing is I ran PRIME on my box one time without any overclock, and with it all stock, and from what I can tell if someone has a stock system then PRIME isn't going to give errors, and if it does that means you have bad hardware.

I don't want to ruin my CPU if it's giving me errors. I thought the hardcore overclocking geeks swore by PRIME, and if you get an error, then it's not correct, and you fix it till it doesn't give you an error.

Anyhow as far as killing my CPU is concerned the volts are at 1.5 and it runs cool, 43c idle and 50c loaded with PRIME. So maybe as far as PRIME is concerned even though it gives an error if I can game and never crash and the box seems to run stable, and I have the CPU cool enough maybe it's ok?

THANKS
 
DasFox said:
So maybe as far as PRIME is concerned even though it gives an error if I can game and never crash and the box seems to run stable, and I have the CPU cool enough maybe it's ok?

THANKS

If you ignore, then a BSOD will be around the corner! :eek: :temper:

I remembered going right to a game anyways then when in the middle of playing, boom! BSOD and reboot.

That sucks!
 
hardcore overclockers swear by it because it is one of the most intensive programs to run and matches results up to known quantities to see if there are discrepancies. Sure a prime unstable machine might be ok for the most part and maybe for everything that you use your computer for it would be windows stable but that does not mean it is perfectly stable. And that is what hardcore overclockers are all about. 100% stability. Not 99.5%
 
Prime is just one step towards verifying system stability. I like it, and use it extensively for testing. I don't however trust prime passing endlessly to mean the system is stable, rather I run a magnitude of other tests too...

I have often seen people discredit prime because "their system is fully stable and passes all other benchmarks", but still fails prime even when they significantly lower their overclock. Still almost allways they will also pass prime when they lower it enough.

Sometimes it's just hard to face the truth. Here on the forums you see people with amazing overclocks, and it can be tough to accept your rig does not, especially when it seemingly does. It can be easier to try to convince yourself that it is stable when it seems to pass every other test you give, and does'nt crash in normal use.

Personally I prefer my computer to be as stable as possible, and the reason I use alot of differant programs while testing is to remove as many possibilities of crashing that I can. This includes crashes that could result from operations that are not part of my "normal computer use". Your milage might vary, but I find most people with opinions like the one you quoted tend to be pretty young kids who mainly use their computer for listning to music and gaming. There maximum stability might not matter alot. I don't understand why they often try to share their limited view so strongly though.
 
I wouldn't listen to that quote, personally i think having a 100% stable system is far more important that having a faster system. If the system is producing errors then it's silly to continue using it. The system might crash at a bad time.

I remember someone overclocked their system and it wasn't prime stable and they were folding, but what's the use in folding if you're possibly corrupting the data anyway.
Overclocking isn't always about speed, i ran prime for 2 weeks straight without any errors and with a decent overclock.
 
Every PC built should pass prime over a 24hr period. It doesn't matter if it's a Dell, HP, or custom built. If it doesn't pass then that means when you are typing up that long essay or your leading the pack in a long CS:S game you don't need to worry that your PC will lock up. There is no excuse why you should have a PC that isn't Prime stable.
 
Nebuchadnazzar said:
I wouldn't listen to that quote, personally i think having a 100% stable system is far more important that having a faster system. If the system is producing errors then it's silly to continue using it. The system might crash at a bad time.

I remember someone overclocked their system and it wasn't prime stable and they were folding, but what's the use in folding if you're possibly corrupting the data anyway.
Overclocking isn't always about speed, i ran prime for 2 weeks straight without any errors and with a decent overclock.

Neb,

I agree. If a person thinks Prime is lying, what's an alternative test to be sure? The longer Prime runs without an error, the more stable a system is and the percentage of stability goes up considerably. From what I have seen, most who don't believe Prime95 are in denial about their system.

As layman most of us depend on the experts regarding Prime95. That's my ultimate test of several I perform for stability. And just because a system is "new" and not overclocked doesn't mean there is not a defect. Anything new can be defective and most of us have witnessed that with items we have bought new.

To me any overclock is worthless to use daily unless it can finally pass Prime95 for whatever arguable amount of time it should run. I use 8-12 hours as a minimum. Many run it much longer and the longer the better.
 
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