Suggestions for burn-in tools before OC

[keithfree]

Hi,

I'm new to this forum so be gentle...I've built several machines in the past few years but never attempted to overclock them. I'm looking for some suggestions on how to measure stability, etc before and after overclocking. Any suggestions, tutorial links, etc would be great.

Here are the components I'm building with. I've read that I might be able to get lucky and unlock a 4th core with this CPU and get it up to 4Ghz w/o increasing voltage, etc but I need a little help!

■AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition Heka 2.8GHz
■GIGABYTE GA-MA790XT-UD4P AM3 DDR3 AMD 790X ATX AMD Motherboard
■XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler
■G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 1600
■POWERCOLOR AX5770 512MD5-H Radeon HD 5770 512MB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 CrossFireX Support Video Card
■Intel X25-M Mainstream SSDSA2M080G2XXX 2.5" 80GB SATA
■Sony Optiarc AD-7240S-0B 24X DVD/CD Rewritable Drive
■Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower
■OCZ ModXStream Pro OCZ500MXSP 500W ATX12V V2.2 / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified
■MS Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

Thanks!

 

[gracefully]

It's great that you're taking steps to overclocking.

I would suggest prime95 and/or OCCT for load-testing the CPU. A quick google search will turn them up quickly.

As for overclocking, I'm not familiar with how it's done with AMD processors. But I'm sure the stress-testers that we use are all the same.