Ways to "showoff" new build?

[bikinpunk]

Well, I finally got my computer built:

Intel Core 2 Duo Conroe 6300 chip
Intel P965 mobo
Sapphire Radeon 1600xt 256 mb video card
250gb Western Digital HDD
80gb Maxtor External HDD
HP DVD-RW & HP DVD-ROM
Corsair 1gb RAM
AOpen Cobra AW850 5.1 Sound Card
Antec Sonata II Case w/ 450watt PSU
Generic Memory Card Reader
Tv Tuner
Windows XP Pro

I've been loading programs onto it most of the day, and it seems like it's going pretty fast. Music sounds better than on-board, so that's a plus for $12. Case is VERY quiet so far. Movies play well. I installed 3 programs at once while watching "Modern Marvels: Walt Disney World" without a hiccup from the system. However, I haven't done anything very intense yet as far as video graphics go.

I was just wondering what games, or benchmark programs I can use to show off it's abilities. I don't mean showoff as in impressing my friends, by the way. I'm not a gamer so I don't have any games to use, but if there's some way to test out the power of my computer I'd like to see what it's capable of. Any ideas?

Edit: Also, is/are there programs to show real-time temps/clock speeds, etc? Another thing I was thinking about doing is looking into overclocking, but I don't really think it's necessary and it would decrease the life of my components.

[Mr.Ferrari]

Temperatures:
Speedfan
Ati tool
Riva tuner
Everest Home Edition
SyS tool

Cpu info and memory info:
Everest
CPUZ <--Real time

Cpu stability testing when ocing:
Prime95
S&M
SP2004
CPU Burn
Memtest 86+
*always use two instances of one of these programs

Benchmarks:
SuperPi 1.5
3dmark 06
3Dmark 05
3D mark 03
Sandra
3dmark 01
Pcmark
Aquamark
CineBench 9.5

[Kov-Ice]

I don't know if Intel boards allow for overclocking. I know they didn't used to have that available.

[blue60007]

Nope, no overclocking on Intel boards. (you can check, I think the 975X Bad Axe board has some very limited overclocking options)

Quick question for you, are those IDE optical drives?

Any issues booting to an IDE optical drive? Since the 965 chipset doesn't have native IDE support I've heard of some issues booting to the IDE optical drive (ie, booting the Windows install CD)

[Mr.Ferrari]

Both correct no ocing options on intel boards. I think only on the premium ones they allow it. With a small hardware mod full bios options are unlocked with the bad axe motherboards. But then again not everyone wants to risk a 100+ dollar mobo.

I think your outta luck with the ocing unless you get a new mobo. And beware if you ever do overclock, you do risk voiding warranties, component failure, and data corruption .

[bikinpunk]

Originally Posted by blue60007 Nope, no overclocking on Intel boards. (you can check, I think the 975X Bad Axe board has some very limited overclocking options) Quick question for you, are those IDE optical drives? Any issues booting to an IDE optical drive? Since the 965 chipset doesn't have native IDE support I've heard of some issues booting to the IDE optical drive (ie, booting the Windows install CD)

Yes, they're IDE drives. I used a copy of XP Pro a shop owner gave me and had no trouble. One thing I screwed up is getting rid of the previous copy that was embedded in the HDD. I'm almost certain I deleted all partitions and formatted everything when installing the new version, but when I boot up I get the screen that asks which version I want to run. I had MCE 2005 before, but it was "tatooed" onto the HP mobo, so I couldn't use it again.

[blue60007]

That's good...haven't heard too many problems with booting with IDE drives yet...