Tribes 2 better then Prime95! Seriously!

Ok, most of us use Prime95 to stress-test our CPU's for stability when overclocking, but recently I have discovered a better stability test....Tribes 2. I picked this game up at Fry's for $9.99 and have been playing alot of it lately...now I was testing a new overclock speed with aggresive memory timings and Prime95 was rock stable...but I went to play Tribes 2 and within 5 minutes the game hardlocked, rebooted and lowered memory my OC a little and Tribes 2 ran fine.

I went ahead and tested this a few more times with different settings to see if Tribes 2 was actually just having another issue or if it really was heating the CPU up more then Prime95, it was. Tribes 2 can get my CPU hotter then P95 by 3c! So with this knowledge in hand I went on to test other overclocks I know are stable on my system and Prime95 approved....Tribes 2 locked up on a few of them. I went "ok then", lets try stock speeds for a bit...I didnt bother with P95, I know it will run fine and go to T2 for 5 hours of gaming, rock stable...little by little I overclock in 5mhz incraments and end up hard-locking @ 150 FSB (2.7Ghz) at stock voltage.even though everything else will run ok @ 150 FSB, T2 will lock...so now I know what to use for OC'ing...T2! I raised the voltage a little and went further all the way up to 165 FSB when T2 locked on me once again...raised voltage and went to 175 FSB (hard locked T2 of course), raised voltage and so on.

P95 is good, but T2 seems to be a little better at testing stability, and here is the kicker...in my testing over the last week, I have noticed if T2 can last 10 minutes, then the system is rock stable...to back it up I also ran P95 for 24 hours @ T2 approved stability and it was stable. So Im not even going to bother using P95 anymore and wasting 24+ hours to test stability, just toss in tribes 2, play a little and if I dont lock im golden

Hmm, I think I'll download the tribes 2 demo later today and try this out. Thanks for the info.

Welcome, the Demo also works the same for this test.

my preferred method of stress testing is prime 95, sisoft sandra professional, and RTCW all at once.. if u dont crash there, u never will.

Hmm. In my experience, running multiple stress programs has never pushed my processor's temperature as high as simply running the most stressfull program you can find (ie: prime 95), on its own. IMO, Prime95 is more stressfull than Sandra, so my train of thought is why not use 100% of your cpu's clock cycles on the most stressfull program you can find, rather than have it constantly alternating between a very stressfull program and a slightly less stressfull one. Maybe it's just me, but that's what I've found.

tio said:

Hmm. In my experience, running multiple stress programs has never pushed my processor's temperature as high as simply running the most stressfull program you can find (ie: prime 95), on its own. IMO, Prime95 is more stressfull than Sandra, so my train of thought is why not use 100% of your cpu's clock cycles on the most stressfull program you can find, rather than have it constantly alternating between a very stressfull program and a slightly less stressfull one. Maybe it's just me, but that's what I've found.

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I agree, I have the same findings. Tribes 2 is my new bend over the CPU stress tester

Can't wait to try this out and see if my machine is "Tribes stable".

tio said:

Can't wait to try this out and see if my machine is "Tribes stable".

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LOL, I know, I think this might start a new revolution for overclocking stress testing, lets all jump in a game and see whos stable! ROFL

lol! Ya, we could set up an overclockers Tribes server, specifically for members to stress their CPUs while fragging each other.

HELL YEAH! OC guys set it up! GREAT IDEA!

With my new 120mm intake mod in progress my temps have dropped to 47c full load, booyah!

YES!! yesyesyesyes

finally people recognize the virtues of T2. that game is so hard on hardware. when it first came out, you needed an insane machine to get good results out of it. I had a vid card OC that was fine in both 3dmarks but locked after 10 mins of T2.

I will second the T2 OC.com stability server as long as it's Renegades

Yes! Finally something entertaining to do while you're burning in that new chip or testing for stability!

setting up a Tribes2 server now... =p

24.201.164.100:28000

its a normal setup but with your suggestions it can be a kick *** server = ) OC4Ever!

haha, this is awesome...
no longer will i have to sit around twiddling my thumbs waiting for my PC to crash after a fresh OC, i can play until i crash

IMHO games based on the original Unreal engine work pretty well too.

nice! Screw the demo, I'll see if I can pick up a copy on the way home!

This is very sweet. The only thing I am wondering is if T2 tests every single aspect of your cpu like prime95 does. I like the idea of getting a T2 stability apporved o/c, then testing with p95 afterwards. That seems perfect to me.

Mi6 said:

setting up a Tribes2 server now... =p

24.201.164.100:28000

its a normal setup but with your suggestions it can be a kick *** server = ) OC4Ever!

Click to expand...

WOOHOO! Joining now! Thankyou and this is going to rock! Now I have to figure out how to join by IP?

Can't wait to get home tonight!

Server isnt in the list and I have no clue on how to join by IP, dont see an option for it...I will keep looking for it throughout the day. We need a new thread with the server listed and a sticky for it, The new evolution of stress testing!