Table of contents for October 2017 in Custom PC UK

The Core i3-7350K was clearly ridiculously overpriced at £180 inc VAT when it came out If Ryzen has taught us anything over the past few months, it’s that we desperately need competition in the industry to avoid stagnation and overinflated prices. The latest chip to break all the rules that Intel has been setting for the past few years is AMD’s Ryzen 3 1200 (see p20), which is now available from www.scan.co.uk for the magic £99 inc VAT figure. That’s a quad-core CPU for under £100, and it’s even overclockable. Intel is acting quick to counter Ryzen’s impact, with the price of the Core i3-7350K dropping to £99 at the same retailer just as we went to press, and the 10-core Core i9-7900X dropping in price to £860 inc VAT…

AMD unveils first Threadripper CPUs Not satisfied with beating Intel’s mainstream desktop CPUs into a silicon pulp, AMD is now setting its sights on the high-end desktop market, unveiling its latest many-core Threadripper CPUs. The Ryzen Threadripper 1950X has 16 cores, with the ability to handle 32 threads with AMD’s simultaneous multi-threading (SMT) tech. It will be clocked at 3.4GHz at stock speed, with a turbo speed of 4GHz. The CPU is also physically massive, as it effectively combines two 8-core Ryzen dies in a single package, which will have interesting implications for cooling. Several people online have also cracked the heatspreader off early samples and apparently confirmed that AMD uses solder between the die and heatspreader, unlike Intel’s Skylake-X chips, which use thermal paste between these components. There’s no…

The colours adhere precisely to the hues you set in the software 16GB G.Skill Trident Z RGB / £169 inc VAT (3200MHz, dual-channel) SUPPLIER www.ebuyer.com 32GB G.Skill Trident Z RGB / £329 inc VAT (3200MHz, quad-channel) SUPPLIER www.cclonline.com The RGB lighting trend shows no signs of abating, with most recent high-end Intel and AMD motherboards including on-board LEDs now. Memory manufacturers have been a little more reluctant, though, and we’re still left with a mere handful of kits with tweakable lighting. We’ve already looked at Corsair’s Vengeance RGB memory, but there’s now a new kid on the block in the form of G.Skill’s Trident Z RGB. Like Corsair’s RGB RAM, G.Skill’s memory communicates with its lighting software over the memory bus, so there’s no need for extra cables.…

It’s easily able to handle a system packed with the latest hardware Gigabyte AB350M-Gaming 3 / £80 inc VAT SUPPLIER www.ebuyer.com If you dip below £100 when buying an overclockable motherboard, it’s unlikely to be an Intel model, simply because only pricey motherboards based on Intel’s Z270 can take advantage of its K-series unlocked processors. However, AMD’s budget-focused B350 chipset allows you to overclock AMD’s Ryzen CPUs, providing scope to build cheap, overclockable systems. The micro-ATX Gigabyte AB350M-Gaming 3 is one of the cheapest B350 chipset boards around, retailing for just £80 – around £30 less than the Intel equivalent. It’s not going to win any medals for aesthetics, and Gigabyte has taken an axe to the specs to get down the price too. The most obvious omissions are…

How we test Our case testing method is simple – use real, overclocked hardware in a standard system to see how cases perform in terms of cooling. Our trusty test gear includes an Intel Core i7-870 overclocked to 3.4GHz using a 1.305V vcore and 1.9V CPU PLL, plus an AMD Radeon HD 5870 1GB. This gear is installed into a Biostar TPower I55 motherboard with 4GB of PNY DDR3 memory, a Corsair Force GT SSD and Antec Signature SG-650. While this setup might seem old by current standards, it’s ideal for thermal case testing where the speed of components is unimportant. The CPU cooler is a modest Gelid Tranquillo, and we’ve replaced the fan with a slow-spinning Noctua NF-S12B ULN, to really highlight the poorest and best-performing cases. Likewise, we…

How we test Nvidia’s G-Sync technology was a revelation when it first arrived. In one fell swoop, it made games look and feel better by not only eliminating the screen-tearing that appears when you don’t use V-Sync, but also removing the stuttering introduced by V-Sync. Now, every frame of your game was complete, unbroken and delivered just as soon as it was ready. It only works with Nvidia GPUs, though, and it also adds a premium. An entry-level 144Hz FreeSync monitor can be bought for under £250 inc VAT, but the cheapest G-Sync display currently available is the £360 AOC G2460PG. G-Sync has some advantages over FreeSync too, not least the fact that it often works at much lower refresh rates, meaning you don’t necessarily need loads of GPU power.…

The AOC G2460PG is the cheapest G-Sync monitor you can buy in the UK right now SUPPLIER www.cclonline.com The G-Sync display market is far smaller than you might imagine. If you want to save some money, you can only go as low as a 24in, 1080p, 144Hz monitor, and there are only three displays models now available that fit the bill, with all others being more premium options. As such, the AOC G2460PG, at £360 inc VAT, is the cheapest G-Sync monitor you can buy in the UK right now. This fact alone makes it a tempting proposition, and it backs up its price with perfectly acceptable performance and features too. Physical design isn’t this display’s strong suit though. Its faux brushed metal frame, bright green highlights and otherwise…

The classic RTS relies on a delicate balance of base building and army management Strategy gaming is more popular than it has ever been. Massive titles such as Civilization and XCOM rule the strategic roost, with dozens of smaller titles from which to choose, ranging from ridiculously involved war games such as Hearts of Iron, to niche titles for a specific audience, such as Motorsport Manager. But there’s one sub-genre of strategy gaming that doesn’t appear to have benefited from the strategy genre’s burgeoning popularity, and indeed seems to be on the verge of vanishing altogether, and that’s real-time strategy (RTS). Once the darling of strategy gaming, dominated by massive franchises such as Command and Conquer and Age of Empires, the RTS has almost completely vanished from the PC gaming…

For the past ten years, GameMaker has been fighting with one hand tied behind its back. The all-purpose development toolkit, originally created by Dutch computer scientist Marc Overmars and subsequently taken over by Dundee-based outfit YoYo Games, has been running on an ancient codebase that makes updating it for modern APIs nearly impossible. As a result, while GameMaker has remained perfectly adequate for building games, its tools have slowly fallen behind the times, and until recently, there was little YoYo Games could do to stop it. With the release of GameMaker Studio 2, however, that old codebase, named Delphi, is in the past, as the entire program has been rewritten in C#.‘Any changes that we want to make, we can now actually make,’ says Mike Dailly, head of engineering at…

REVIEW CubieBoard 6 When comparing hobby-centric single-board computers (SBCs) these days, it’s easy to forget that once upon a time they didn’t all come in minor variations of the now familiar credit-card footprint, with a 40-pin GPIO header-layout , which originated with the Raspberry Pi. CubieTech, though, is continuing to fight the good fight and stick to its own designs rather than slavishly copying the competition, and that approach is entirely evident in the new CubieBoard 6. Designed as a direct replacement to the CubieBoard 2 – which was followed by the larger CubieTruck, the even larger CubieBoard 4 and then the CubieTruck Plus – the CubieBoard 6 echoes its predecessors’ designs as closely as possible. This design sees the Ethernet port placed at one end, the HDMI and power…

We’ll have more cores than most of us know how to use Over the past decade, the uptick of CPU core counts has progressed slowly. Ten years ago, Intel launched the world’s first quad-core PC processor, the Core 2 Quad QX6700, and since that launch, Intel’s mainstream CPUs have still been stuck with four cores, and we’ve only had incremental updates on the Intel high-end desktop (HEDT) side until the Core i7-6950X launched last year. AMD made its own progress, pipping Intel to the post with a solid 6-core processor (the AMD Phenom II X6), followed by some less great ‘8-core’ (if you count the clustered multi-processing system in AMD’s Bulldozer architecture) CPUs before Ryzen arrived this year. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, AMD demonstrated Threadripper, throwing the cat…

Raise the roof I’ve noticed a lot of comments about fitting twin-fan all-in-one liquid coolers into the top of various cases. For me, though, the problem is always interference with memory and other motherboard components. I recently built a new PC in a Cooler Master N300 case, as I wanted the external drive slots and a smaller case than my old one. Trial fitting before installing the memory was fine, but once the memory was installed, the cooler fouled the memory heatsinks (not particularly tall ones). The radiator and fans needed to move away by around 20mm. To solve the issue, I made up two brackets from strip aluminium, drilled mounting holes for the original radiator screws, and drilled and tapped holes to take 3mm screws for the holes in…

FreeSync worked well on our RX 580 in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided LG 34UC79G-B / £480 inc VAT SUPPLIER www.ebuyer.com LG’s 34UC79G-B is a curved 34in widescreen unit that supports FreeSync at 144Hz, so we were surprised that it costs just £480, seriously undercutting many other curved panels on the market. The biggest reason for the affordable price is the 2,560 x 1,080 resolution. That’s lower than many other large, curved screens and it means individual pixels can be seen up-close, but it’s not all bad, as the lesser pixel count means it’s easier to get this screen running with mid-range graphics cards. It also makes it easier to achieve smooth frame rates with FreeSync, which functions at a minimum of 50fps and a huge peak of 144fps. It…

PROCESSORS TESTS: We use Custom PC RealBench 2015, Cinebench and Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation, installed on Windows 10 Home 64-bit, and record the power draw of the test PC. These tests cover a broad range of performance characteristics, including image editing, gaming, video encoding and 3D rendering. We run all tests at stock speed and at the CPU’s highest overclocked frequency. GRAPHICS CARDS Graphics cards are mainly evaluated on how fast they are for their price. However, we also consider the efficacy and quietness of the cooler. Every graphics card is tested in the same PC, so all results are directly comparable. TESTS : By using the fast PC detailed on the left, we can be sure that any limitations are due to the graphics card on test, rather…

This Acer monitor comfortably offers the best contrast of all the displays on test SUPPLIER www.overclockers.co.uk The Acer XB241H bmipr is the second cheapest monitor on test, but you’d be hard pushed to tell why. While the cheaper AOC G2460PG instantly has that slightly cheaper feel to it, this Acer display has more of a premium vibe. Like the Asus ROG Swift PG248Q, it has an overclocked 180Hz option, plus its base is made partly from metal – its red feet are solid aluminium pieces. There are no lights or other extras, but the rest of the build definitely feels a cut above your average low-budget monitor. That said, it can’t quite match up with the Asus and Dell models on test when it comes to design. You miss…

The external bezel around the top and sides measures just 1.5mm SUPPLIER www.currys.co.uk As the most expensive display in this group test, the Dell S2417DG has plenty of expectations riding on its shoulders, but it thankfully largely lives up to them. Like the other monitors on test, it’s a 24in display but it has a 2,560 x 1,440 resolution, which is the primary reason for its higher price over 24in 1080p displays, giving it a higher pixel density. The other reason is that, along with the Asus PG248Q, it’s one of only two displays on test that use a more expensive low-profile bezel. The external bezel around the top and sides measures just 1.5mm, with the rest of the bezel hidden below the plastic front of the panel itself.…

DEVELOPER Three Fields Entertainment / PUBLISHER Three Fields Entertainment / WEBSITE www.threefieldsentertainment.com/danger-zone Three, two, one, go! VROOM! SCREEeee! CRSSHH, BEEP BEEP! NEEE-NAAW! REeeek, SSSsss. Danger Zone takes children’s inner monologues when they’re playing with cars, and splashes them across a screen for your entertainment. The premise couldn’t be simpler. Take one car, add speed and direct it towards heavy traffic. Smash through busy intersections, pile into convoys of trucks and bounce around the highways like a fiery pinball. The bigger pile-up you cause, the more points you earn. Get a high enough score and you unlock the next level. If you’ve played the Burnout games, Danger Zone is much like their Crash Mode. The main evolution comes from the ‘Smashbreaker’ mechanic. Once you’ve caused a set number of crashes, you…

Looking at what I’ve played recently, it’s striking that I’m mainly playing tried and tested stalwarts rather than cool new releases. Neo Scavenger and Civilization V on the PC; Superhot and Batman in VR. Compelled partly by the guilt of having just put my 200th hour into Neo Scavenger, I’ve got to ask why I keep coming back to these games again and again. It’s not like I’m short of new games to play – there’ isn’t even a shortage of decent Batman games. Revisiting Arkham City would require less exertion and it offers more depth than Batman VR, yet here I am strapping on the headset for the third time this week. So why am I playing these games on these platforms, and what does that tell us about…

Water-cooling Skylake-X While AMD’s AM4 platform had its fair share of teething issues a few months ago, Intel’s new high-end desktop (HEDT) X299 platform is also receiving a fair amount of negative press. There are reports of hot-running VRMs, and processors getting toasty quickly when you start overclocking them. The latter is clearly an issue that enthusiasts such as myself like to address with our water-cooling gear, but there’s a potential issue with Skylake-X that hasn’t been a problem with previous iterations of Intel’s HEDT processors. The issue is that thermal paste is now being used between the CPU core and heatspreader on all of Intel’s new LGA2066 desktop CPUs. What’s more, the higher thermal design power (TDP) of Skylake-X CPUs means that there’s even more heat to shift, and…

He once had to ban another moderator for abusing their power Last month I looked at in-game bullying and whether players are entitled to an environment they consider safe. I demonstrated that online bullying is real and sometimes has consequences for the bullied, but now I’d like to examine the consequences for the bully, and how people running an online service – games or social media – deal with them. Yep, I’m going to talk about moderators. It’s an ugly word that conjures up images of authoritarians mad with power, passing down judgement on the little people at the whim of mood or too heavily interpreted rules. This stereotype exists because it can be true – I’ll never forget a particularly heavy-handed mod suspending anyone who used the word ‘nimrod’…

Intel created the Core i7-7740X for overclocking enthusiasts Intel Core i7-7740X / £318 inc VAT SUPPLIER www.ebuyer.com We’ll probably never know whether Intel’s extensive X299 CPU line-up is due to AMD’s return to form, or if Intel was just trying to extend its high-end desktop platform’s reach, but there are some strange decisions in there nonetheless. Half the range is still missing a couple of months after launch, with most of the top-end CPUs arriving in October. However, the weirdest addition of all are the two quad-core CPUs, one of which is the Core i7-7740X. Initially we thought the new CPUs might offer a cheap way of accessing the benefits of Intel’s X299 platform, such as the increased number of PCI-E lanes or quad-channel memory. However, as the i7-7740X…

SUPPLIER www.cclonline.com / MODEL NUMBER CA-1E8-00M1WN-02 If you need a massive PC case to cater for gargantuan amounts of hardware, Thermaltake’s cube-shaped Core X-series cases are definitely worth a look. The mini-ITX Core X1, for example, is the biggest mini-ITX case we’ve ever seen and could quite easily house an ATX system with a bit of modding. Meanwhile, its bigger sibling, the Core X5, is capable of taking E-ATX motherboards, and amazingly, it isn’t even the biggest Core X case. However, it still offers the most extensive water-cooling support of the range, and has the biggest volume of any case on test this month. Our sample has had a makeover compared with the original case too, and is now called the Core X5 Tempered Glass Edition, with the obvious…

It uses a mini-joystick and four buttons on the rear SUPPLIER www.ebuyer.com Asus’ G-Sync monitors have been among the most popular since the technology first arrived, thanks in large part to the company’s eye for design. Asus consistently produces some of the best-looking displays in their class, and that’s largely the case with the ROG Swift PG248Q too. Reassuringly expensive, with a price that comes in at £40-£60 higher than the other two 1080p displays on test, this monitor vies with the Dell S2417DG for the style top spot. Its slim and low-profile bezel kicks off the swish appearance, and while the bezel isn’t quite as tiny as that of the Dell, it clearly puts this display’s physical appearance ahead of the competition from Acer and AOC. Backing up…

The big news is the use of a 2,560 x 1,440 resolution rather than 1,920 x 1,080 SUPPLIER www.currys.co.uk Like the Dell S2417DG, the big news with the AOC AG241QG is its use of a 2,560 x 1,440 resolution rather than 1,920 x 1,080. Along with it having a premium stand and a few extra features, this resolution goes a long way to justifying its £60 premium over its cheaper sibling in this test. The AG241QG can’t, however, quite reach the designer heights of the Dell or Asus displays. The all-metal stand looks the business, while the panel, with its red writing on the front and red plastic panel on the back, is subtle enough not to feel garish. You miss out on a low-profile bezel, though, so it…

MILESTONES THIS MONTH TOP 20 OVERALL TOP 20 PRODUCERS WHAT IS FOLDING? Folding@home uses the spare processing cycles from your PC’s CPU and graphics cards for medical research. You can download the client from http://folding.stanford.edu and our team’s ID is 35947. Once you pass a significant milestone, you’ll get your name in the mag. You can also discuss folding with us and other readers online at the www.bit-tech.net forums.…

Oculus has struggled to convince gamers to buy the Rift in anywhere near the same volume as the Vive I’ve been waiting for VR to fulfil its promise for decades, and written about it being ‘just being around the corner’ several times. However, at the risk of having to write this column again sometime, this summer it really feels like VR is nearly there. The biggest problem has been a lack of content. Sure, Elite Dangerous is gobsmacking the first time you try it in VR, but due to the comparatively low resolution of today’s VR headsets, I still prefer playing for extended periods on a monitor, as all the text and other complex HUD displays are much clearer. As a result, I typically only use my VR headset for…