Help a noob

[scroller52]

hi, i put together this conroe system about a month ago...and this is my 1st system ever

1st question: wat is the best system monitoring tool for core clocks, temps, fbs, voltage etc...
currently im just using the AI booster included with the asus mobo
the one thing missing from this is the gpu temperature...which program can do all of those at once and display it in a nice little graph or something

2nd question: which program do i use to benchmark the system, where do i download it or something and where do i find where my system compares to other similarly built system?

3rd question: which overclocking tool is the best, i dont plan on really oc'ing because i dont see the need to, but i want to know which program is the best

final question: what other little tweaks do i need to do in order to have my machine running at top speeds

this is my setup
asus p5w-dh
e6600
xfx xtreme 7900gt
ocz platinum ddr2 pc-6400 1gbX2
seagate barracuda 7200.10 320gb
antec smartpower2.0 500w
x-fi fatal1ty
acer al2216w
nec FE991sb

THANKS ALL!

 

[myocardia]

You won't be overclocking very far at all, with that power supply. As a matter of fact, I would suspect that your 12v rail is already fairly low, considering what you're running. I'd look into a better psu, before I started overclocking.

 

[KeithTalent]

Well 3Dmark is a pretty easy way to bench and compare your rig: http://www.futuremark.com/download/

You can also look at SuperPi and read this thread over at Xtremesystems as they have some different becnhing information there.

 

[scroller52]

is that psu that bad??? i heard antec was pretty good, it has good reviews n such....i mean, i dont plan on oc'ing that much but i'd like to keep it a possibility haha

 

[hennethannun]

umm, with a single video card and only one hard drive, i don't think the OP will have too much trouble with a 500W PSU.

you should have a bit of headroom on that processor.

although it sounds from his post that myocardia has a specific grudge against that particular psu. don't know why. Antec may not make the very very best psus available, but I don't think they are particularly bad.


mmm, although i read the post again and see that it is a smartpower PSU rather than a truepower or something better.

smart power is, i think, antec budget line of psus and they aren't spectucular, but it should still be fine with that rig. Not sure i would recommend getting another gfx card though...