Stability
Many people take for granted their hardware components are consistently stable and reliable. Even though I am personally very aware of hardware stability issues, I still find myself from time to time with problematic hardware situations that only the proper testing can confirm for me what is actually happening.
Don't wait, test now. You don't want to be confused by weird OS or game behaviour like crashes, glitch graphics, or black screens before you test your hardware. If you make sure it's stable to begin with, you'll have a much better time.
Testing
- Memory: Memtest, Bitcoin Core (12-24h of full blockchain download)
- CPU: Prime95, Memtest (Also a good CPU workout), Bitcoin Core (12-24h of full blockchain download)
- GPU: Unigine Benchmarks (Superposition, Valley, Heaven, etc.)
- NVME/SSD/HDD: Bitcoin Core (12-24h of full blockchain download), Smart
- Power Supply: Unigine Benchmarks (Causes GPU to draw lots of power)
Why Bitcoin Core?
Bitcoin Core is one of the most intense workloads your computer will ever do short of highly specialized GPU tasks. When you download the blockchain you're also mathematically verifying every single transaction that has ever occurred on it. This makes it a decent, if not technically thorough, workout for CPU, memory, and storage.