Hi there,

I have just finished a new build with an E8400 CPU, 8800GT O/C Video Card and 2GB Ram. I just wanted to know what you guys think are the essential programs you can't live without.

I know there are programs like CPU-Z and 3DMark06, but what are some other useful programs for a gaming machine these days?

riva tuner and ntune i use them alot rivatuner for overclocking and ntune to play around with video card

core temp
speedfan
realtemp
super pi mod
orthos x2

Just out of curiosity, what is the difference between core temp and real temp?

And what is Orthos x2?

Don't forget your anti-virus, firewall, and disaster recovery (BartPE or WinPE) software
HardwareLogic Software Recommendations
Everest Free Edition is a good system diagnostics and benchmarking utility [b][/b]

Thanks WR2! That link was really useful.

For gaming the only ones I see so far that have been posted here are your anti virus software and firewall. Benchmarking software isn't going to help much. Your video card came already overclocked so your not going to squeez much more out of it to make any difference. Overclocking your CPU may gain you a few tenths over what you already have but your really not going to see any differnce in gaming. I'm sure there will be a few overclockers that will argue with that, but if your just really into gaming the headaches of trying to get a stable overclock that is higher to where you can really see a difference in your computers performance can be a pain.

I agree Stoner, not going to be overclocking my cpu at this stage so no use in getting programs to do that. Apart from Crysis most games out now will fly on it, so going from 168 fps to 186 fps is not going to help much.

Currently the programs on the HardwareLogic website posted above are looking really good. The only other programs I can really think of I would add are 3DMark06, Vantage and Steam.