Table of contents for September 2019 in Custom PC UK

AMD has mounted an all-out assault this month. Not only has it unleashed a new wave of Ryzen CPUs based on its Zen 2 architecture, but it’s also sent out a force of new GPUs for backup. Meanwhile, there’s also support from the new X570 chipset, bringing the first PCI-E 4 devices, including super-fast NVMe SSDs, with it. That’s new CPUs, motherboards, graphics cards and SSDs all in one hit. This month’s issue is dedicated to this onslaught. I don’t think we’ve ever tested so much new hardware in such a short space of time before. There’s been so much new hardware to cover that we’ve had to sacrifice a few pages here and there to make room for it, which is why there’s no Letters page this month. I…

Nvidia releases Super RTX GPUs Nvidia introduced three new RTX GPUs using the ‘Super’ brand. Let’s start with the RTX 2060 Super, which uses the same TU106 Turing core found in the original RTX 2060 and 2070. However, it has four more streaming multiprocessors (SMs) enabled than the original RTX 2060, giving it 256 more stream processors, as well as more RT and Tensor cores. It also ups the memory from 6GB to 8GB, and it’s now attached to a 256-bit memory interface. Meanwhile, the RTX 2070 Super now uses the TU104 Turing core first used in the RTX 2080, marking a step up from the original 2070. It only has 40 SMs enabled, compared to 46 on the 2080, but that still gives it 256 more stream processors than…

AMD’s Ryzen Master is great for fine-tuning tweaks from Windows, and it now has more controls. We’ll run through it here, including testing your settings, before heading into the EFI to apply your overclock every time you boot your PC. We’ve stuck to a 24/7 vcore limit of 1.425V, as AMD states that 1.45V and above should only be used for temporary benchmarking. We were unable to better our overclocks with a 1.45V vcore anyway. First, make sure your cooling is up to the job. Ryzen Master’s ‘Apply and test’ feature is useful for quick stability checking, but it’s not long enough for a proper cooling test. Grab Prime95 (mersenne.org), select the ‘Smallest FFTs’ test and disable any AVX options at the bottom. Click OK to run the test, and…

As the first X570 motherboard to grace our lab, the Gigabyte X570 Aorus Master sets a trend for a bunch of high-tech premium motherboards that seem to be dominating AMD’s 3rd-gen Ryzen launch. While X470 and B450 boards will work fine with AMD’s new CPUs, X570 brings a host of premium features, which is why most X570 boards are a tad on the expensive side. However, X570 isn’t a direct replacement for X470 – it’s merely aiming to match or topple Intel in the motherboard specification stakes, and it seems to be succeeding too. You get PCI-E 4 support, for starters, which spans two of the 16x PCI-E slots, as well as all three M.2 ports. These connectors remain backwards compatible with PCI-E 3 devices too, so you can use…

Somehow, ARCTIC has managed to include two fans with the £30 Freezer 34 Esports DUO, making it the joint cheapest heatsink on test as well as the most affordable dual-fan model. The heatsink is coated in black and has angled fins, which help to contain airflow through the heatsink, instead of allowing it all to spill out into your case. It looks fairly plain, but the black gives it a moody appearance. The contact plate is rather small, which will leave a lot of your CPU’s heatspreader uncovered, especially on LGA2066 CPUs. However, the heatpipes make direct contact with the contact plate, and they’ve been well machined, with no large gaps between them. There are only four 6mm heatpipes, but that’s still more than the three with the Cryorig H7…

While it edges over the £40 price point, the Cryorig H7 Plus at least sports the biggest heatsink on test, and by quite a margin too, reaching outwards to 126mm deep when both its 120mm fans are installed. Its heatpipes also lean to one side, which Cryorig claims removes any memory compatibility issues, even when two fans are installed. Strangely, it also stands just 145mm tall, making it one of the shortest tower heatsinks we’ve ever reviewed. It looks quite different to the other coolers on test as a result, but also because of what Cryorig calls a Hive Fin design. The fins are bent at certain points, creating small channels that Cryorig claims will boost airflow and reduce turbulence. The two included 120mm fans are rated to spin at…

How we test For this group test, we’ve picked out some readily available, affordable and, perhaps most crucially of all, compact stereo PC speaker systems. These speakers will fit easily on your desk, won’t break the bank and hopefully they’ll sound good too. We take build quality, styling, features and, of course, price, into account in our reviews, as well as audio performance. To test the latter, we hooked up each set of speakers to a Focusrite 2i2 USB audio interface and played a variety of music and films to assess their sonic capabilities. Each speaker was tested at three main loudness levels (measured from 50cm away), in order to represent most people’s main uses for these speakers. The first is listening at a volume of 50dB, which is the…

SUPPLIER bose.co.uk Bose is well known for creating good-quality audio products that can sometimes lean a little too hard on design and gimmicks over true audiophile credentials, and to an extent, that’s the case with the Companion 2 Series III. This pair of stereo speakers comes with a reasonably premium price of £90 inc VAT, and deliver sound that’s impressive in some ways, but there’s quite a few shortcomings too. Starting with design, these units are surprisingly basic for products made by Bose that cost £90. There’s a certain elegance to the angles and proportions, but there are no premium flashes. The body of the speaker is all plastic, the graphics on the front are just grey paint, and a basic fabric grille covering the driver. You don’t even get…

SUPPLIER box.co.uk There’s a strange hole in Logitech’s speaker line-up. Move above the price for these Z200 speakers, and the company offers only one other stereo speaker system: the much more expensive MX Sound. All the other sets are 2.1 or 5.1 setups. What’s more, these Z200 speakers retail for far less than their list price in most places, with us finding them for just £18 inc VAT. It’s almost certain that a more premium pair of speakers retailing for around £50 would do well for the company. The Z200 speakers are about as good as you can expect for £18. In fact, they’re slightly better. They have a surprisingly stylish design and a more expansive feature list than some speakers. As well as the main audio input, there’s a…

DEVELOPER Asobo Studio / PUBLISHER Focus Home Interactive A Plague Tale is a third-person, character-driven horror adventure akin to The Last of Us, with rodents replacing zombies. Aligning so closely with such a notable game is usually a good way to get picked apart by critical vultures, but A Plague Tale escapes this criticism by using the clever strategy of being thoroughly excellent. It’s a terrifying, emotionally arresting adventure and one of the best-produced games this year. It’s set in 14th-century France, and centres around Amicia, the eldest daughter of Lord DeGune. Early in the game, Amicia’s home is ransacked by the Inquisition, forcing her to flee with her sickly brother Hugo. The Inquisition’s arrival coincides with an attack by a massive horde of plague rats, which surge up from…

DEVELOPER Triternion / PUBLISHER Triternion Mordhau is a medieval multiplayer fighting game that stands proudly on the decapitated shoulders of Chivalry: Medieval Warfare. Triternion’s entirelyunrelated-honest-guv successor owes a significant debt to Chivalry’s innovative first-person melee combat system. However, Mordhau builds on those foundations in many ways, while offering bigger encounters, a broader weapon selection and bloodier combat. It also adds horses. Chivalry players will be instantly familiar with the fundamentals. Swinging your weapon is performed by clicking the mouse, then turning it in the direction of your swing. Rolling the scroll wheel downwards will perform a vertical strike, while scrolling it upwards will perform a stab. You can also parry attacks with the right mouse button, and perform a feint by pressing Q. The latter interrupts your strike with the…

Whether it’s your prized collection of early-1980s anime, the complete works of an obscure jazz harmonicist or, like so many of us, those thousands of photos you’ll get around to sorting one day, our need for vast storage seems to be growing exponentially. If you’re considering using a dedicated server to store and serve your files, photos, movies and more, this project will show you how to do it all by yourself. We’re becoming much more accustomed to storing our data in the cloud, but there are still many advantages to running your own NAS. Firstly, and most importantly, you maintain control and ownership of your data. Then there are other factors, such as speed of access and fixed costs for capacity. Unlike high-end gaming PC builds, a good NAS…

There’s a lot more to a NAS than just serving files. To make sure we get the most out of this system, we can forgo the usual Windows or Linux and instead install FreeNAS, an open source, BSD-based dedicated NAS operating system. This distribution provides features normally that you normally only see in enterprise-grade kit for exactly zero cost. One of its most significant features is the use of OpenZFS for the file system. ZFS is a next-generation system for safe file handling. Features such as versioning, snapshots and RAID are baked-in, making it a perfect choice for a NAS. Download the installation image from freenas.org and burn it to a USB thumb drive using a utility such as Etcher (balena.io/etcher). Insert the drive into one of the system’s ports and…

If you’ve been following the news from Computex, you’ll likely have seen some interesting news about the next-generation motherboards for AMD’s X570 chipset. For the first time in over a decade, it’s AMD that has the most interesting motherboards, with some great-looking high-end models coming our way. There’s a couple of areas on which need to keep an eye here though. Firstly, X570 motherboards are going to be expensive. This might not be the case for every board, but manufacturers told me on the ground at their Computex booths that costs could be up to 30 per cent more than equivalent X470 models. That’s likely down to the introduction of PCI-E 4 support, as well as more lavish power circuitry to deal with the 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X. Secondly, the…

To enter your machine for possible inclusion in Readers’ Drives, your build needs to be fully working and, ideally, based in the UK. Simply send us a couple of photos on Twitter CustomPCMag) or Facebook (CPCMagazine), or email low-res ones to custompc@raspberrypi.org. Fame isn’t the only prize; you’ll also get your hands on some fabulous prizes. Corsair K70 LUX RGB keyboard with your choice of switches Corsair’s K70 LUX RGB keyboard features Cherry MX key switches backed by a lightweight, durable aluminium frame and dynamic, multi-coloured lighting. The USB pass-through port is positioned for uninterrupted gameplay, and ready for your mouse or wireless headset adaptor. You can  also use CUE for sophisticated macro programming and dramatic lighting effects. Meanwhile, 100 per cent anti-ghosting with full key rollover helps to ensure…

This time last year, memory prices were stratospheric and the companies that make DRAM chips, such as Samsung, Micron and SK Hynix, were reaping record profits as a result. Thankfully, during the last few months of 2018, the tide started to turn, and prices began to dip. The receding waters have continued through 2019, and I’ve talked to industry insiders who expect prices to continue dropping to the end of the year. Around 18 months ago (see Issue 176), I predicted that we’d hit maximum memory affordability now, but it looks as though prices are going to drop even lower. However, let me stress that no one knows for sure. There are many factors pulling the price of memory in all directions, because memory chips are used in every part…

While the main selling points of AMD’s 3rd-gen Ryzen CPUs are their improved performance, the X570 chipset brings a sizeable leap in technology too, courtesy of PCI-E 4 support. This new interface boosts bandwidth for both PCI-E slots and M.2 ports, which are the likely candidates for PCI-E 4.devices, which already include AMD’s Navi graphics cards (see p24). However, while graphics cards don’t really take full advantage of this kind of bandwidth yet, PCI-E 4 NVMe SSDs should be able to get much faster speeds than their PCI-E 3 counterparts. Corsair and Gigabyte will offer various models of PCI-E 4 SSD, with capacities of up to 2TB, from day one of the AMD Zen 2 launch on 7 July. While Gigabyte was being tight-lipped about the pricing for its 2TB…

The Asus ROG Strix XG49VQ isn’t the first 49in widescreen monitor, but it’s the first specifically designed for gaming. Its 3,840 x 1,080 resolution is lower than the 5,120 x 1,440 used by the sub-£900 Philips Brilliance 499P9H. That’s an easier resolution for a GPU to handle, but it’s also not as sharp as the Philips across that massive 49in diagonal. Also, while the 32:9 aspect ratio and the 1800R curve makes racing games and some FPS and strategy titles immersive, some games won’t run at that aspect ratio. The underlying panel uses VA hardware with 10-bit colour, but it only has a stated 4ms response time – that’s fine for most people, but it’s slow for fast-paced competitive gaming pros. It’s great to see a 144Hz refresh rate on…

The Alienware Area 51m is a desktop replacement that takes the first part of that moniker seriously, because it uses desktop components. The key part is the RTX 2080 GPU, which has the usual 2,944 stream processors and 8GB of memory, and it runs with small overclocks. The base speed of 1515MHz rises by 30MHz, and the original 1710MHz boost is improved by 15MHz. Comparatively, the mobile RTX 2080 runs at 1380MHz. The CPU is similarly overpowered. The Core i9-9900K has eight Hyper-Threaded cores running at 3.6GHz with a 5GHz turbo speed. The Core i7-8750H is more common in gaming laptops, but it only has six cores at 2.9GHz and 4.8GHz. The rest of the specification is good, but not without quibbles. There’s an ample 32GB of DDR4 memory, but…

SUPPLIER scan.co.uk Deepcool’s Gammaxx GT BK costs just £35 inc VAT, but it still features an RGBlit top cap and fan. The cap is a diffusing slab of acrylic that looks fantastic and also shines light through holes in an aluminium plate on top. All the lighting can be configured using a bundled controller, which cycles through colours and lighting modes, but the Deepcool can also be controlled by ASRock, Asus, Gigabyte and MSI’s RGB software. The downside is that you have to deal with several more cables than usual, but at least the cable for the top cap is routed through the heatsink to keep it out of sight. The cooler also feels well made and sits at 156mm tall, so it will fit in the vast majority of…

SUPPLIER amazon.co.uk Edifier has managed to carve out quite a niche for itself in the speaker market. There are very few companies producing such a wide range of good-quality, active speakers that aren’t either cheap boxes or very expensive studio-grade monitors. The R1280DB, then, is the cheapest conventional stereo speaker set that the company produces. However, despite its modest price, it still boasts an impressive feature set. For inputs, you get two sets of analogue phono sockets, along with another phono socket that provides a coaxial digital input, as well as an optical input. You can also connect via Bluetooth, making it easy to sling your phone’s music to your speakers. The R1280DB also includes a remote control. It’s a basic affair with those little unsatisfying popper buttons, but it…

SUPPLIER creative.com the Creative T20 has been a stalwart of the PC speaker market for over a decade. Arriving in its original guise when the industry was still far more obsessed with big subwoofers and surround sound, this set’s focus on a good-quality stereo arrangement was a breath of fresh air. Many years later, the T20 Series II is still a great option for people who just want a simple, decent-quality set of speakers for general desktop listening. The appeal starts with the design. The black plastic cabinet is reasonably tidy and attractively offset by the silver knobs, gold-plated sockets and yellow speaker cones. A removable fabric cover also lets you choose between the covered or exposed style. The design could do with some slight modernisation, but it’s no eyesore. The…

SUPPLIER scan.co.uk Razer’s Nommo Chroma is one of the most striking PC speaker sets you can buy, with 3in glass fibre drivers housed in large cylinders that sit atop slender stands. As well as looking intriguing, there’s some reasonably sound logic to this approach. The cylinder is a rigid structure that should help to reduce cabinet vibration, plus the cylinder’s length allows for a deep bass resonance without needing the whole speaker to be so large. Keeping the driver well above the desk surface also reduces interference from sound reflections. The counterpoint is that you don’t save any significant desk space by mounting the speakers on stalks – you could get the same benefits while having a more conventional boxy design. It also doesn’t help that any cables you plug…

Core component bundles The fundamental specifications we recommend for various types of PC. Just add your preferred case and power supply, and double-check there’s room in your case for your chosen components, especially the GPU cooler and graphics card. We’ve largely stopped reviewing power supplies, as the 80 Plus certification scheme has now effectively eliminated unstable PSUs. Instead, we’ve recommended the wattage and minimum 80 Plus certification you should consider for each component bundle. You can then choose whether you want a PSU with modular or captive cables. Core component bundles cont … Mini PCs Our favourite components for building a micro-ATX or mini-ITX PC. Always double-check how much room is available in your chosen case before buying your components. Some mini-ITX cases don’t have room for large all-in-one liquid…

DEVELOPER Avalanche Studios (with id Software) / PUBLISHER Bethesda Was anybody truly asking for Rage 2? The original Rage was by far the weakest of id Software’s shooters. The shooting was enjoyable enough, but by the time it launched after five years in development, its open world felt decidedly underbaked, while the much-touted vehicle combat barely made an impact. Nonetheless, the game industry will attempt to milk even the scrawniest of cows, so we find ourselves with a sequel to a game that was largely received with a shrug. That said, publisher Bethesda had a smart idea for Rage 2. Since Rage is about open-world shooting, it’s given it to a developer known for making open-world shooters. Hence, development duties have been handed to Just Cause creator Avalanche Studios, with…

OPINION The benefit of physical limits Much of the scepticism surrounding VR as a mainstream gaming platform revolves around its physical limitations, and how that affects the games developers can make. As open-world games chase ever more distant horizons, having a system that’s restricted by physical walls is often viewed as one of VR’s biggest pitfalls. Yet finding ways around this obstacle has resulted in some of VR’s most innovative games. Moss, for example, puts you in the role of an omniscient narrator who never has to move, while your tiny mouse companion traverses through a miniature world. Meanwhile, A Fisherman’s Tale takes the concept of being boxed into a small space, and uses it to produce some truly mind-bending puzzles. I believe that, without these limitations, VR would be…

Case and PSU CFI-A7879 4-Bay NAS Chassis Price £95 inc VAT Supplier mini-itx.com When building a NAS, the case and PSU are arguably the most important decisions – a NAS should be neither seen nor heard. Of course, if you want to make it a centrepiece of the office, be our guest, but instead we’re going with small and quiet as our first priority. One of our key requirements is the ability to swap out failed drives or upgrade capacity without having to shut down the server and manually migrate data. If the case doesn’t have drive caddies, or they can’t be retrofitted, you’re going to be disassembling the case to make changes to your drives. Thankfully, we’re long past the days of IDE, so we can use SATA…

Just as we were finalising this issue, the Raspberry Pi 4 was launched (read our review at custompc.co.uk/pi4 ). Prices start at £35 inc VAT, and the Pi 4 has some big advantages over its predecessors when it comes to building a NAS, namely USB 3 support, with massively improved Gigabit Ethernet speeds. The networking on previous models was throttled by the USB bus to 300Mb/sec, but now we’re seeing solid 943Mb/sec Ethernet speeds, making the Pi 4 a very tempting choice as a NAS controller at this price.…

I’m all for automation and efficiency savings. I’m notoriously lackadaisical when it comes to DIY around the house, but I’m beginning to wonder if modern PCs are too easy. After all, what really separates a PC enthusiast from a PC gamer is that enthusiasts derive pleasure not only from using their PCs, but also from speccing, building and tweaking them. Take overclocking, for example. The original idea behind overclocking was a sneaky way of boosting the performance of cheaper CPUs, so that enthusiasts with a limited budget could enjoy some of the performance of more expensive high-end processors. Back in the early days, that meant mucking around with DIP switches or jumpers on the motherboard, and in some instances even using tiny pieces of wire to short pins on the…

A quick recap – Gaming Disorder was recently added to the World Health Organisation’s diagnostic manual ICD-11, despite protests from professionals that it’s not really a thing. But now it’s officially a thing; a whole industry has sprung up around it. The first ad I was served in a Google search for ‘gaming disorder’ was titled ‘Internet Gaming Disorder | Young Men Can Get Help Now’, promoting expensive therapy in Thailand. This is very worrying,not least because that particular business’ interventions don’t seem to be based on scientific evidence. While these quack treatments are worrying, they’re not surprising, given that Gaming Disorder itself isn’t particularly based on evidence. The general idea is that extreme cases of uncontrolled gaming behaviour and excessive game playing should have a diagnosis, and specific interventions…

AMD’s 1st-gen Ryzen CPUs brought some welcome competition back to the CPU market, where Intel had been idly knocking out mildly tweaked quad-core mainstream CPUs year after year. However, it was clearly lacking in a few areas, some of which were addressed by Zen+, but it’s with Zen 2 that AMD is moving in for the kill. It brings more boosting algorithm tweaks, a move to 7nm transistors, a transition to a chiplet design, as well as increased core counts, all for much less money than the equivalent Intel CPUs. This month we’re looking at the 8-core Ryzen 7 3700X and 12-core Ryzen 9 3900X, although the 8-core Ryzen 7 3800X, plus the 6-core Ryzen 5 3600X and Ryzen 5 3600 will also be available by the time you read…

Memory compatibility was the standout problem for Ryzen in the spring of 2017, specifically its inability to reach memory frequencies above 3000MHz. High memory speeds were important, because Infinity Fabric is directly linked to memory speed, so it has a big impact on general system performance. Thankfully, specific memory dies were soon identified that worked best. Then, following several AMD Generic Encapsulated Software Architecture (AGESA) updates via new BIOS versions, more fast memory kits worked with Ryzen CPUs. Fast forward to 2019 and 3466MHz is now relatively easy to achieve on Threadripper and mainstream Ryzen platforms, even going back to 1st-gen models. With Zen 2, however, AMD has now improved the memory controller, bringing a few significant changes. Firstly, the Infinity Fabric is now geared to operating at up to…

After squeezing every last drop of blood from the husk of Graphics Core Next (GCN), AMD has finally come up with a new GPU architecture. Built from the ground up, RDNA marks the first new AMD GPU architecture since we first saw GCN at the beginning of 2012, while Nvidia has given us Maxwell, Pascal and Turing in the meantime. That’s well over seven years, so RDNA really needs to make an impact if it’s going to take on Nvidia’s Turing architecture. A new compute engine The first new cards to be based on RDNA are the Radeon RX 5700 and 5700 XT. They both use AMD’s Navi 10 core, which has a 251mm² die manufactured on a 7nm process from TSMC – this tiny die contains 10.3 billion transistors.…

How we test We test performance on the three main current CPU sockets. Our LGA1151 rig uses an MSI Z370 PC Pro motherboard and an Intel Core i5-9600K overclocked to 4.8GHz with a 1.32V vcore. Next is LGA2066, using an MSI X299M Gaming Pro Carbon AC motherboard and Intel Core i9-7900X overclocked to 4.2GHz using a 1.15V vcore. Finally, our Socket AM4 rig uses an Asus ROG Strix B350-F Gaming motherboard and AMD Ryzen 7 1700 overclocked to 3.9GHz using a 1.425V vcore. The rest of our test setup is 16GB of 3000MHz Corsair Vengeance LPX memory, a Samsung 960 Pro SSD, Corsair RM850 PSU and a Fractal Design Meshify C case. We use CoreTemp to measure Intel CPU temperatures, and HWMonitor for AMD CPUs, and subtract the ambient air…

Despite looking very similar to the be quiet! Dark Rock Slim (see opposite), the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Black Edition is a little smaller, and boasts a much higher maximum fan speed of 2,000rpm. Like both other single-fan coolers on test this month, extra clips are included to install a second fan and create a push-pull configuration, and they suit 120mm fans with a standard frame and mounting holes. Cooler Master has gone to some extra effort with the Hyper 212 Black Edition’s aesthetics too, and despite the very reasonable price tag, you get heatpipe caps to cover up their unattractive tips, plus a thick section of aluminium on top, which also acts to protect the heatsinks. The latter have also been anodised a grey nickel colour, unlike the black…

SUPPLIER overclockers.co.uk Amazingly, Raijintek’s Leto Pro RGB not only includes RGB lighting for just £35 inc VAT, but also throws two fans into the mix. It looks like a fantastic deal, at least on paper. The lighting all comes from the two fans, which have glowing rings on either side of their frames, with eight RGB LEDs embedded into each of them. The lighting can be controlled using your motherboard’s 4-pin 12V RGB headers, so it should be compatible with any motherboard that has one. We have to admit, though, that the lighting isn’t quite as elegant as that of the Deepcool Gammaxx GT BK (see p52). The Leto Pro RGB uses a fairly standard heatsink. It’s equipped with four 6mm direct contact heatpipes, but it has none of the…

SUPPLIER amazon.co.uk Although far from a household name, the AudioEngine A2+ has quickly gained a reputation as a great set of speakers for people looking to get close to audiophile-grade sound for their computer. These pint-sized speakers measure just 152 x 102 x 135mm, yet they pack in some serious hardware. Each cabinet houses a 2.75in bass driver and a 19mm tweeter, which are powered by a 15W RMS, dual-class A/B monolithic amp. The right speaker also includes a built-in DAC with a USB input, eliminating the need for a separate audio interface, as well as two analogue inputs. On the downside, the rear of the speaker is also home to the power/volume knob, making it decidedly inconvenient to reach. The cabinets are delightfully well crafted. Available in matt black,…

SUPPLIER currys.co.uk The price of Logitech’s MX Sound speakers can fluctuate wildly. On amazon.co.uk they’re currently discounted to just £60, and a quick check on camelcamelcamel.com shows they regularly drop to this level, but their list price is £90 inc VAT. As such, we’ll assess them largely based on their list pricing, but with the caveat that you might be able to get them much cheaper. The speakers employ a shape that’s both odd-looking and rather impractical. The circular shape is inherently unstable, and the lack of depth to the cabinet doesn’t help sonically. The second little circle that stabilises the speakers houses a bass port, which is quite a clever bit of industrial design. Overall build quality is good. There’s a premium feel to the plastic used, and a…

Last month saw the return of the biggest trade show in the game industry – the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3).For decades, E3 has been the most significant event in the gaming calendar, where the biggest developers and publishers in the world announce and showcase their latest games, often through lavish and expensive stage shows. Put it this way, you wouldn’t see Keanu Reeves come on-stage to talk about a developer’s game anywhere else. But beneath the veneer of this year’s festivities were growing concerns about the future of E3. This year was notable for the conspicuous absence of several of its biggest regular attendees. Sony, which has arguably been the biggest presence at E3 over the past few years, didn’t attend the event at all. Microsoft, meanwhile, put on its…

DEVELOPER NoCode / PUBLISHER Devolver Digital Space, 2026. The MNS Observation is orbiting Saturn. But there’s a problem. It should be orbiting Earth. There is extensive damaged to the solar arrays and localised areas of the hull. Primary systems are offline. Only one of the six crew members is known to be alive, medical officer Dr Emma Fisher, trapped inside one of the station modules. There’s also you, SAM, the station’s on-board AI. Your priority is to keep Dr Fisher alive and repair the crippled station. That is, provided you can ignore the nagging voice in your virtual head repeating ‘BRING HER HERE’ over and over. We’ll avoid discussing the plot, but it’s exceptionally well told. Both the script and voice acting are first-rate, balancing convincing technical jargon with cleverly…

AMD has been hyping up the arrival of Zen 2 almost since the 1st-generation Ryzen products launched. ‘If you’re excited about Ryzen, just wait for what we’ve got install for you with our next-generation products,’ was the refrain. Well, now Zen 2 is finally with us and, as our review has shown (see p14 ), it’s largely lived up to the hype. Not only is AMD able to offer more cores than we’ve ever seen before in a mainstream processor, but the whole lineup offers astonishingly good value, both in terms of the number of cores you get for any given price, and in terms of gaming and single-core performance as well. A lot of this improvement is down to the move to a new 7nm manufacturing process, which brings…

1/ Install CPU The LGA1151 socket is a remarkable feat of engineering, but very fragile. Release the retaining lever and slowly allow the top part of the socket to lift up, then remove the protective plastic cover. The CPU only fits one way around, and if you get it wrong, you risk damage to the socket. Look for the two side notches on the CPU and orientate them to line up with their partners on the socket. Bring the CPU slowly down into the socket and, when it’s place, bring down the socket cover and secure the lever. 2/ Install fan We’ve decided to stick with the stock cooler supplied with the Celeron, as it’s perfectly adequate for our needs. The only disadvantage is a very tight fit…

As with any PC build, the hardware requirements all come down to your intended use. A decent case and good quality drives are the most important parts to consider, and unless you want to use virtualisation, a cheaper processor and smaller memory offer a good way to control the budget. Our NAS build shows what can be achieved with cheap PC hardware and a free OS. Our CPU temperature maxed out at just 45˚C, with the hard drives peaking at 36˚C. We were also achieving consistent average transfer rates of 112MB/ sec for reads and 98MB/sec writes over wired Ethernet. The noise wasn’t bad either. We measured it at 12dBA from 1m away at the default settings, which was quite noisy. However, this figure dropped right down to 6dBA after…

Arduino launches Nano board family Microcontroller fans have a quartet of new boards from which to choose: the Arduino Nano range. The Arduino Nano Every (pictured) packs an ATMega4809 microcontroller in breadboard-compatible form factor; the Arduino Nano 33 IoT upgrades to the ATSAMD21 Arm Cortex-M0+, and adds an ESP32 Wi-Fi and Bluetooth module; the Arduino Nano 33 BLE uses the ublox NINA B306 to offer an ARM Cortex-M4F processor, nine-axis inertial measurement unit (IMU), and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) connectivity; and the Arduino Nano BLE Sense features the same module but a wider range of sensors including environmental, sound, and proximity. More information is available at arduino.cc…

TOTAL PROJECT TIME / 2 HOURS Case feet might seem like strange parts of your case to modify, but a decent set of case feet can provide better airflow to the underside of your PC and, as the standard feet on some cases lack rubber bases, they can also help to reduce vibration. Plenty of companies offer various options here, including milled aluminium feet for both ATX and mini-ITX cases. Whatever the size of your case, adding case feet can remove the often unattractive plastic plates that usually pass for feet with some solid and shiny alternatives. They’re easy to fit and you can even spray them to match your case’s colour scheme. 1 / IDENTIFY LOCATIONS FOR CASE FEET Your options will largely depend on the locations available for case…