Hello everyone on the LTT's Forum! I am makething a guide for software that people may use weather they are a experienced PC enthusiast's or a beginner. I know when I started out building PC's I dident know any of the hardware temp monitoring software or what antivirus was good and what was blotware, with this guide I hope to make the learning curve easyer with a list of software and a short write up of what they do.
MSI Afterburner MSI Afterburner is a system utility to overclock your GPU adjusting fan speeds giving you the option to make a custom fan speed curve for when you want your fans to ramp up in RPM or keep them quiet or just leave it on auto and let MSI Afterburner take care of that for you. If you're the type who likes to get every last gain in performace or just one more point in a benchmark MSI Afterburner allows you to ajuest the cards. Core Voltage,Power Limit,Core Clock & Memory Clock and giving you a temperature graph read out in real time allows you to do so.
MSI Kombustor MSI Kombustor is a software application which allows you to perform a benchmark test on your graphics card.There are three 3D tests available for you to run - Wavy Plane (GL2), Fractal Frame (GL3) and Triangle of Death (GL2). So, you can run a stress tests and find out the average frames per second.
EVGA Precision X EVGA Precision X is another graphics card monitering tool for you're graphics card allowing you to overclock and keep it cool but insead of me telling you how it works a'l let Logan from Tek Syndicate do it. >
Heaven Benchmark Heaven Benchmark with its current version 4.0 is a GPU-intensive benchmark that hammers graphics cards to the limits. This powerful tool can be effectively used to determine the stability of a GPU under extremely stressful conditions, as well as check the cooling system's potential under maximum heat output. It provides completely unbiased results and generates true in-game rendering workloads across all platforms, such as Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.
Driver Fusion Driver Fusion is the complete device and driver solution for your PC that can manage and monitor your devices and their drivers. You can uninstall, backup and restore drivers and also disable, enable and restart devices while Windows is running. In addition, Driver Fusion can help you to identify devices that Windows does not recognize, generate a device and driver report, backup and restore your desktop icons and screen resolution, or read the sensor values of your devices. Driver Fusion provides you with all the information that you need to know about your devices and their drivers, allowing you to detect and solve problems or simply find your computer specifications in one place.
CCleaner CCleaner is a freeware system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. Additionally it contains a fully featured registry cleaner. But the best part is that it's fast. A must have for an PC Tech!
Core Temp core temp is a compact, no fuss, small footprint, yet powerful program to monitor processor temperature and other vital information. What makes Core Temp unique is the way it works. It is capable of displaying a temperature of each individual core of every processor in your system! You can see temperature fluctuations in real time with varying workloads. Core Temp is also motherboard agnostic. (And it now supports AMD CPU's)
Defraggler Use Defraggler to defrag your entire hard drive, or individual files When Defraggler reads or writes a file, it uses the exact same techniques that Windows uses. Using Defraggler is just as safe for your files as using Windows. At a glance, you can see how fragmented your hard drive is. Defraggler's drive map shows you blocks that are empty, not fragmented, or needing defragmentation.
Spy Bot Search & Destroy Spybot Search & Destroy is a free antispyware utility that targets adware, malicious code, and other threats. It also cleans security tracks, shreds files, and tweaks the Registry. Spybot isn't a replacement for a full antivirus program, though it does detect and remove some threats. It's a constantly updated, on-demand adware and malware scanner you can run regularly to sweep your system.
Microsoft Security Essentials guard against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software. It provides real-time protection for your home or small business PCs.
Microsoft Security Essentials is free* and we designed it to be simple to install and easy to use. It runs quietly and efficiently in the background so you don't have to worry about interruptions or making updates ( It works great I use it myself)
Malwarebytes Malwarebytes utilizes powerful technology to detect and remove all traces of malware including worms, trojans, rootkits, rogues, dialers, spyware and more.
Should I remove it? Its advice and feedback-sourced ratings can actually help you decide what to keep and what to toss when you're cleaning out the forgotten, unused, and unwanted apps that pile up on your PC.
DATA LifeGuard It will test WD internal and external drives. In additional, it can provide you with the model and serial of WD drives attached to the system. and much more (It's very cool software I suggest you give it a look.)
HD Tune is a hard disk / SSD utility with many functions. It can be used to measure the drive's performance, scan for errors, check the health status (S.M.A.R.T.), securely erase all data
Secunia PSI The Secunia Personal Software Inspector (PSI) is a free computer security solution that identifies vulnerabilities inprograms which can leave your PC open to attacks.Simply put, it scans software on your system and identifies programs in need of security updates to safeguard your PC against cybercriminals. It then supplies your computer with the necessary software security updates to keep it safe.
Thats all I can think of for now folks if you have any you would like to add to the list send me a PM and it will be done!
Lot of badly worded (even though correct) replies here. Here is my take;
If you are planning on doing any real gaming in near HD or above HD resolutions you will need a dedicated graphics card. While having a dedicated graphics card you will not be gaining performance from the CPUs graphics power (this would be the A8/Intel HD 3000, etc that you are referring to).
For gaming without a graphics card the AMD APUs destroy anything else from AMD or Intel. With this said they still are not that powerful, and should only be used at very low resolutions with low details.
For gaming WITH a graphics card (which you should be doing if you even remotely serious about gaming) you don't shop via what graphics the CPU has. Instead you just go based on the CPU architecture. Right now Intel has the best performance for gaming in this category, but AMD isn't far behind (FOR GAMING) and is much cheaper.
A codec is a way to compress/decompress a video file. If you compress the file, it makes it smaller at the cost of quality. Using a lossless codec preserves the quality. I've heard of the Lagarith Lossless Codec for Dxtory, but I don't know a good codec to use with Fraps.
Also, please edit your posts with better spelling. It is a little harsh on the eyes when reading.
Dont get a headset. Get headphones with a modmic much better sound and mic quality you can also use a soundcard with them. Any of the headphones that LAwLz listed are good.
Here in the uk, Don't ever go to these 3 shops, maplin,currys/pc world. All three are a complete joke i've applied to work at currys before as i am a tech freak, But no reply.
Back to the point they stock old tech, that no one wants.
They don't know anything about pc's.
I asked for a sata cable once as i could not find it, So he went off and came back with a usb lead for printers. I just started laughing and walked out.