Building a desktop gaming computer may be a fantastic pastime, however, games demand a lot from your computer. For that reason there are 3 important statistics you must keep an eye fixed on as well component temperatures, frame rates, and disk health.
3 Important things that PC Gamer should monitor
Unlike consoles and a few pre-built PCs that are tested and re-tested, you won’t really know how well your computer works until you begin using it. For that reason, it’s a decent plan to understand if your computer is getting too hot, which may damage all those latest parts. Plus, as time goes on parts will degrade and perform worse over time. Keeping an eye on these three important factors can keep your computer humming on, and provide you with a warning when it’s time to fix something that’s gone wrong or replace a part.
Here are some tools to assist you to retain an eye on your computer and understanding when things aren’t working as they should.
Component Temperatures
If there’s one critical issue for your gaming computer it has to be temperatures. when things get too hot, only unhealthy follows. Your pc can start to struggle underneath load with stuttering, game crashes, or the whole system crashes. If your parts stay too hot for too long they’ll additionally sustain damage. Most of the time that won’t happen, because a system will often shut down before the warmth goes too far.
Still, there are surprises from time to time. issues with some early Nvidia GeForce RTX cards like faulty solder joints, in addition to power draw problems, were exposed while playing Amazon’s demanding MMO, New World. whether keeping a better eye on temps could have prevented a number of those cards from dying is unclear, however, it’s going to have.
When it comes to gaming there are two key components to watch for high temperatures: the C.P.U. and the GPU. These two parts are the main drivers of warmth in a computer case and are by far the most important to stay cool. typically speaking, CPUs ought to keep safely below eighty degrees Celsius, whereas GPUs ought to be below eighty-five Celsius, though this can vary greatly by specific GPU model. the most effective thing to do is check out the manufacturer tolerances for your specific parts and so build in a safety margin below that variety (say ten degrees) as an ideal operating temperature.
There are many ways to keep a watch on these temps. If you want as very little extra software package on your computer as possible, then Task Manager in Windows eleven and later versions of Windows ten can help.
Check the temperature of your graphics in the Task Manager
Open the Task Manager click on the Performance tab, and so scroll down the left-hand navigation column to the GPU section, There you will be able to see the temperature of your graphics card (or GPU on a pc). Clicking on that will also show active resource usage graphs, as well as alternative key stats towards the lowest including temperature.
The thing with observation GPU temperatures in Task Manager is it isn’t very practical without a second monitor since you can’t see what’s happening whereas in-game. Still, as a fast way to peek at what’s going on this can be helpful.
For easier in-game monitoring AMD’s Radeon software can show an overlay that features all types of stats including C.P.U. utilization, GPU power draw, and GPU temperature. Nvidia fans will get similar info using the company’s GeForce expertise, which also has a Performance Overlay feature. If you have AN AMD graphics card with the Radeon software package installed and configured, you’ll be able to activate the overlay with Ctrl+Shift+O, whereas Nvidia users can hit Alt+R after installing and configuring the GeForce experience.
A lot of gamers also swear by MSI Afterburner’s overlay, which works in concert with Riva-Tuner Statistics Server to deliver an extremely cool-looking overlay that may show stats like per-core utilization for the C.P.U., CPU and GPU temps, and even RAM usage. Be warned there are a lot of choices for this overlay and you can definitely overdo the real-time stats.
MSI afterburner and Riva-Tuner Statistics Server displaying stats with a game overlay.
For monitoring C.P.U. temperature, you can turn to afterburner, but you may additionally need to stay an eye on C.P.U. the heat outside of gaming. when that’s the case, try something like Core temp, a free program that shows per-core temperatures in the system tray, or different choices such as HWMonitor and HWiNFO.
Another simple way to monitor C.P.U. temperatures are to get a C.P.U. liquid cooler with RGB lighting. These coolers will typically be established to display specific coolers reflecting the CPU’s temperature like blue when things are cool and red when it’s getting to heat.
Frame Rates
Once you’ve got your temperatures monitored, the next factor to keep a watch on is frame rates. Checking frame rates will tell you whether or not you ought to dial down the graphics on that killer aaa title from ultra to High. It can also alert you to issues if your system is troubled to hit the gold standard of sixty frames per second on a game where you’d expect it to.
Monitoring frame rates is simple. As before the overlays from AMD Radeon software and Nvidia’s GeForce experience will show the frame rates. Another popular alternative is Fraps, which is a free program.
One last possibility we’ll mention is the built-in Xbox Game Bar, which stopped being a simple bar a long time ago. currently, it’s a full-featured overlay a bit like those from AMD and Nvidia, complete with a frame rate monitor. To activate the game Bar press Windows+G on your keyboard. then press the pin icon on the stats window to show it while you’re playing.
Halo Game Bar’s stats overlay sitting within the higher right corner of Halo Infinite.
The Xbox Game Bar’s stats overlay shows this machine would possibly need to dial back the graphics settings.
Drive Health
The final key stat to observe drives health. this can be additional of a long-term goal once your internal drives get a bit longer within the tooth. Newer drives shouldn’t really require monitoring as they haven’t been skilled in any wear and tear, however. Still, it can’t hurt to monitor them, and you would possibly actually discover a defect with a newer drive and capitalize on its warranty.
Monitoring disk health would require a third-party software system as Windows doesn’t provide a simple way to keep tabs on your drives with a graphical program. a fast and straightforward way to monitor your drive is CrystalDiskInfo, which can show you information regarding the health status your drive is reportage. Most drive manufacturers also provide their own drive health software package like Samsung Magician or Crucial Storage executive.
Crystal Disk info displaying the standing status of an important P1, NVMe, SSD, HDD.
CrystalDiskInfo shows an outline of your drive’s health.
Once you have got your software system up and running the easiest thing to do is simply to check whether it’s reportage a healthy drive or not. Once it starts reporting that the drive isn’t healthy then it’s time to start out looking for a newer drive.
You can also get additional details by diving into the various attributes that CrystalDiskInfo reports, however, if you don’t want to get that detailed there’s no need. simply keep an eye on the disk from time to time to check the drive’s overall condition.
There are a lot of different stats and settings to keep a watch on with a computer, however, these three are some of the foremost vital and will help you get the most out of your gaming rig.
