Table of contents for August 2021 in Custom PC UK

Gigabyte has declared war on thermal throttling by launching a PCI-4 SSD with a behemoth of a heatsink attached to it. The new Aorus Gen4 7000s Prem. measures 44.7mm tall, with the SSD PCB sandwiched between an aluminium base plate and a dual heatsink arrangement on top of it, with the two sections linked by a pair of heatpipes. The SSD itself is based on the same Phison PS5018-E18 as the standard Aorus Gen4 7000s (see p46), which has a small, low-profile heatsink. This SSD became warmer than the Corsair MP600 Pro with its larger heatsink in our tests, but it still didn’t throttle under stress testing. As such, it’s unlikely the Prem. version of the SSD will be any quicker in most cases, but it will almost certainly be…

While AMD’s Zen 3 CPUs are killing it in the £300+ market, the company is relying on its older Zen 2 CPUs to offer alternatives to Intel at the cheaper end of the scale, with the likes of the Ryzen 5 3600 and Ryzen 7 3700X going up against Intel’s latest Core i5 chips, such as the Core i5-11400F, which costs just £149 inc VAT. The ‘F’ after the name indicates that this CPU lacks on-board graphics, but Ryzen desktop CPUs lack on-board graphics too, although the lack of a ‘K’ in its name means the Intel CPU can’t be multiplier-overclocked either. Compared to the Core i5-11600K, the Core i5-11400F has the same count of six cores with 12 threads. The two chips also have the same L3 cache at…

While you can’t buy graphics cards for reasonable money at the moment, memory upgrades are thankfully a little more affordable. However, if you want a cutting-edge kit using the latest features such as RGB lighting, you'll still pay a small premium, as is the case with Thermaltake ToughRAM. With a price of £132 inc VAT for a dual-channel 16GB kit of 3600MHz RAM, The ToughRAM costs a tad more than the Gigabyte Aorus RGB memory kit we also looked at this month (see opposite), and a good chunk more than Corsair’s 3600MHz Vengeance RGB Pro kits. The Thermaltake modules are quite tall too, measuring 48mm high compared to the super-low profile 41mm height of the Aorus modules. On the plus side, this extra money does at least buy you another…

Alienware’s laptops have had some of the boldest designs around, and the fourth iteration of the m17 continues that tradition. This white model pairs its bright finish with black accents, hexagonal air vents and loads of RGB LEDs. The m17 looks superb, and it’s available in an all-black shade if the white is too bright. As usual, Alienware also deploys high-end internals. This machine contains Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3080 laptop GPU, which uses a mighty 16GB of memory. It runs with a 165W TDP in this laptop, which is as high as this core can go and higher than most laptops with this GPU. It’s no surprise that the RTX 3080 is unfettered here – it has to output to a 360Hz display. Meanwhile, the 8-core Intel Core i9-10980HK has…

Both the Corsair MP600 Pro and Gigabyte Aorus Gen4 7000s use the latest version of Phison’s SSD controller – the E18. This is uprated over the original E16 controller used in the first PCI-E 4 SSDs, which were launched in conjunction with AMD’s X570 chipset a few years ago. Now, though, these Phison-based drives have some controller competition, from Samsung's Elpis, WD's Black G2 and ADATA with its InnoGrit IG5236. Under the hood, of course, the SSD is near identical to other SSDs based on the Phison E18, although Corsair has added some extra swagger with a large heatsink, as well as the option of a waterblock-equipped version, complete with its own inlet and outlet using G1/4in ports. The heatsink alone proved to be very effective on out 1TB sample,…

Samsung’s highly anticipated first PCI-E 4 SSD, the 980 Pro, uses Samsung’s own Elpis controller along with 3D TLC NAND memory. However, it failed to convincingly win us over in our last SSD Labs test thanks to a comparatively high price of £216 inc VAT for a 1TB drive. This has now fallen to £183, putting it in a similar price range to the latest Phison PCI-E 4 SSDs. Samsung has paired its V-NAND TLC memory with DRAM and SLC caches, with around 114GB available in total for stashing data at faster speeds than TLC NAND. That’s a smaller cache setup than the competition, but Samsung claims the drive can maintain up to a 2,000MB/sec write speed outside of TLC caching. The 2TB model also boasts an impressive 1,200 TBW…

How we test You’d be forgiven for thinking the gaming mouse market is fairly stable these days, with great optical sensors and some fantastic shapes having been around for many years. However, with the arrival of ultra-lightweight designs, as-good-aswired wireless mice and a general trend towards simple feature sets, there’s still plenty to pick apart. Given the dozens of genuinely capable mice available, we need some means of compartmentalising them into manageable and meaningful categories for Labs tests. As such, for this test we’ve concentrated on mice that have a symmetrical or ambidextrous shape (symmetrical with thumb buttons on both sides) and that are wired, rather than wireless. The former means you can zero in on the general style of mouse you like, while the latter means all these mice…

It has taken a long time for Corsair to embrace the current trend for compact, lightweight gaming mice, with its beefy long-time flagship, the M65 Pro RGB, tipping the scales at a whopping 136g. However, with the newest addition to its mouse line-up, Corsair has finally joined in the lightweight fun. The Katar Pro XT is a compact, simple and light mouse that weighs just 75g. That’s actually on the heavier side compared with truly ultra-light models, but any weight under 80g puts it in the right ballpark for these FPSfocused gaming tools. Corsair has also embraced the fact that a simple, lightweight mouse means fewer components and less material, making for lower manufacturing costs and, as a result, a low price – we’re looking at you, Logitech G Pro…

A reboot of the 2004 management sim named simply ‘Startopia’, Spacebase Startopia dedicates itself to recreating the look, feel and mechanics of the original game. Unfortunately, this means it fails to evolve the concept of managing your own space station meaningfully, while also retaining and exacerbating the problems that prevented Startopia from becoming a classic. While managing your own space station is Startopia’s premise, in practice you only ever manage part of it. The giant metal doughnut that forms the game map is split into multiple segments, and you start inside only one of them. From here, you must design the perfect intergalactic motorway services, constructing an array of practical and recreational establishments catering for an array of alien species. What separates Startopia from other management sims is the structure…

If you have sensitive ears, or you don’t want fan noise to interrupt important audio work, there’s plenty you can do to make sure noise levels are kept to a minimum without making cooling suffer. USE YOUR MOTHERBOARD’S EFI Modern motherboard EFI systems can control both 3-pin and 4-pin fans, and most offer elaborate fan control suites that allow detailed control over your fan speeds. Fan control curves allow you to set the speed at specific temperatures and can even shut down fans completely under low loads, which is ideal if you just want to kick back and watch Netflix in peace and quiet. OTHER WAYS TO CONTROL YOUR FANS There’s a few other ways to control your fans, such as fan controllers and resistor cables. The former allows you…

Officially, the Commodore Amiga died in 1996, 11 years after Commodore brought the innovative machines to market with the Amiga 1000. In reality, there are people out there from whom you will never take their Amigas – even if the legal rights surrounding the trademarks, technology, hardware, software and so on are increasingly muddied in the face of competing legal claims. It’s this band of enthusiasts that’s keeping the Amiga alive with new hardware, typically designed to bridge the gap between classic and modern computing. The most popular of these are accelerators, designed to increase a stock Amiga 1000 or 500 from its aging 7MHz Motorola 68000 to a system that’s a little faster. The PiStorm, designed by Amiga fan Claude Schwarz, is just one of them, but one that…

Should there be more water-cooling bundles? This month I’ve been playing with a hardware bundle that MSI and EK sent me, which includes MSI’s MPG Z590 Carbon WiFi board plus a waterblock that cools the CPU as well as the VRMs. You also get EK’s leak tester thrown into the package, plus a voucher worth €50 to spend in EK’s online store. The two companies partnered up for the Z490 version of the board as well, but that board was decidedly midrange and water-cooling it seemed a little pointless in the first place. The new board, though, is much beefier, both in terms of its 16-phase power delivery and its price. At £300 inc VAT, it’s firmly in premium territory even if the MPG range sits below the MEG range…

It may have taken a while for PC memory manufacturers to work out how to send enough power, as well as the lighting signals, for RGB memory over the bus, but there’s now no shortage of RGB memory kits available from all the big players. What’s more, we’re regularly seeing the designs getting refreshed with attractive module designs and improved lighting. Gigabyte’s last foray into this competitive arena proved quite successful, with the company offering dummy kits that enabled you to fill all your memory slots for a lot less cash than buying a full quad-channel kit. The new Aorus RGB Memory does the same, with kits limited to dual-channel setups and available in a range of speeds, with or without so-called Demo Kits, which essentially give you a pair…

Chillblast’s Fusion Diablo packs an impressive amount of hardware inside a compact and goodlooking enclosure. Indeed, the NZXT H210 is one of the star components in this all-AMD rig. The H210 measures just 349mm tall and 273mm deep, so it’s far smaller than any mid-tower ATX case, including the Lian Li used by this month’s CyberPower (see p36). The tiny dimensions make it ideal for compact spaces and frequent travel, and its matt black metal finish and red accents look superb. The tempered glass side panel reveals that the graphics card and cable cover maintain the attractive colour scheme, and the waterblock unit on the NZXT Kraken X53 cooler combines an RGB LED ring with a mirror for an extra eye-catching light effect. The H210 combines good looks with robust…

The TsunNee Armrests are a pair of soft memory foam pads designed to attach onto the armrests of chairs, either because the original rests aren’t comfortable or because they’ve worn out, been picked at by children, pets or anxious players, or disintegrated by experimental lasers – the fates that typically befall a gaming chair. Each armrest has two Velcro straps and there’s no particular puzzle about their installation. Depending on the shape of the existing armrest, you place the TsunNee on top and attach it as best as possible with the straps. The pads are very comfortable, and thick enough that you might want to lower the arms on your chair to accommodate them. If you want to make a lumpy chair a comfy chair or extend the life of…

Offering 2TB of speedy storage for under £250 inc VAT, and 1TB for under £120, the ADATA XPG GAMMIX S50 Lite is certainly an SSD that should be on your radar if you’re looking to jump on the PCI-E 4 bandwagon for as little money as possible. However, it doesn’t offer much of a performance benefit over the fastest PCI-E 3 SSDs, such as WD’s SN750, which cost around the same amount of money. It’s significantly cheaper than the latest PCI-E 4 SSDs, though, most of which retail for around £180 inc VAT for a 1TB module, compared to just £119 here. That said, you’ll save even more cash if you’re happy to stick with a slower PCI-E 3 drive, as the WD Blue SN550 we’ve also tested this month…

Gigabyte’s Aorus Gen4 7000s is the second of two PCI-E 4 SSDs based on Phison’s E18 controller on test this month. It’s the successor to the original Aorus NVMe Gen4 SSD, and Gigabyte has ditched the large copper heatsink of the original with an aluminium one. The heatsink also cools the base of the drive, although the whole contraption is a little smaller than Corsair’s MP600 Pro. While both SSDs handled our stress test without throttling, the Gigabyte Aorus Gen4 7000s got quite a bit warmer The two SSDs are mostly identical otherwise, using TLC flash memory and a 1GB portion of DDR4 for caching. That’s in addition to repurposing spare TLC memory in faster SLC mode for an extended speedy cache, which is only a few hundred gigabytes in…

WD hasn’t been around as long as some manufacturers in the SSD world, but it’s catching up quickly with a host of good models already. The SN850 is the pinnacle of its mainstream SSD achievements so far, and certainly boasts some impressive specifications. This high-end drive clearly aims to topple the Samsung 980 Pro and any Phison-based SSDs from their perches, thanks to the company’s in-house WD Black G2 controller. The SN850, like other SSDs this month, uses TLC memory, a portion of which is siphoned off to create an SLC-like cache that’s fast at writing data. In this case, there’s around 300GB on offer, which betters the 114GB of the Samsung 980 Pro, but is similar to other PCI-E 4 SSDs. Once you get beyond that point, the write…

We looked at the Razer Viper 8K in a standalone review just a few months ago (see Issue 213, p23) and found it to be an excellent offering. Has our impression changed in the intervening few months? Nope, not at all. This is still a fantastic mouse. The reasons to be cheerful start with it having a truly ambidextrous design, so lefties and righties can take advantage of its stellar design and features. Back and forward buttons can be found on both sides of the symmetrical design, and they perfectly balance being easy to hit with your thumb while remaining out of the way of your ring and little fingers. Of course, your mileage can vary here, depending on hand size and shape, as well as grip style, but this…

Oddworld Soulstorm isn’t bad, but it is a bad remake. This ‘reimagining’ of Oddworld: Abe’s Exoddus removes much of what made the original game unique and interesting, replacing it with flashy visuals and needless gimmickry. Soulstorm rebuilds Exoddus from the ground up, completely changing the levels, mechanics and story. Starting with the latter, the tale still revolves around the Soulstorm brew and how it poisons Abe’s fellow Mudokons. However, the story’s structure has been reshuffled, with Hollywood-budget cutscenes and action-driven setpieces added. Indeed, the game commences with a frantic evacuation of the Mudokon homeland as it’s assaulted by Glukkon forces, with Abe’s tribe running for the hills as their camp is bombarded from above. Visually, Soulstorm is undeniably impressive. The elaborate level design is excellent, playing with perspective and distance…

Presented as a virtual storybook, cracking the spine of Trials of Fire will see you select three brave adventurers and one of several quests on which to send them. Travelling across a procedurally generated map, your heroic trio must complete a sequence of objectives scattered across the game’s blighted landscape. As you travel, you’ll need to regularly search secondary locations for food and equipment to upgrade your abilities. Arriving at any location will trigger an encounter (a story vignette picked randomly and presented through text). Each encounter must be resolved with a series of choices. Some will require a skill check, while others will result in a battle. If the latter occurs, the game switches to a hex-based battlefield map with both heroes and enemies represented as board game-style counters.…

RGB lighting isn’t for everyone, but some degree of illumination can make your PC look decidedly cool. However, with LED strips being quite expensive and coming with various connector types, you’ll need to know which ones work with your own hardware and where to place them to avoid wasting money. Best strip locations For good illumination of your whole PC, the roof of your case close to a windowed side panel is the best place for LED strips. This setup will also mean you won’t be blinded by the LEDs if your PC is on your desk either. Another great place is at the rear of the case facing forwards. This can look great, with pinpoints of light pointing forwards in the case, but it can be a bit much…

If dust clogs your case, you’ll be undoing all of the great work you’ve done following our guide so far – dust can impact on cooling, causing your fans to spin faster and creating more noise. Clean the filters Use a household vacuum cleaner to remove dust from your case’s filters every three to six months. These filters are designed to trap dust and they usually work well. Remember to check them all, as some can be hidden out of sight. Using a brush attachment can help to dislodge any clumps and allow the hoover to pick it up. Install additional filters If some fan vents or other areas lack dust filters, extra filters can be purchased quite cheaply, allowing you to add them yourself to specific locations. It doesn’t…

Bulgarian open hardware specialist Olimex has announced a carrier board for the Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller (see Issue 212), along with its own Pico-style RP2040 development board dubbed the RP2040-Py. The RP2040-PICO-PC turns a Raspberry Pi Pico into a personal computer, with DVI-over-HDMI video output, analogue audio, micro-SD storage and more. The RP2040-Py, meanwhile, is a pin-compatible drop-in Pico replacement, boasting a UEXT connector, reset button, 2A 3V3 DC-DC converter, an optional second micro-USB power input and JTAG debug support. See custompc.co.uk/OlimexPico for more information.…

Create, Share, and Save Money Using Open-Source Projects, which we’re calling Using Open-Source Projects, so it doesn’t take over this page, by Dr Joshua M Pearce, aims to look at a range of open-source hardware and software projects. However, it’s as wide as an ocean and as deep as a puddle. Aimed at ‘beginning hobbyists and makers’, the book highlights projects across as many fields as possible. In order, the book covers: recipes, ‘life hacks’ and household tips; digital photography and open-source cameras; art; music, music software and instruments; book digitisation, book sharing, and paper and audio book creation; videos; maps and geographic information system (GIS) data; clothing; woodworking ‘and other old-school skills’; electronics; 3D printing and milling; scientific equipment; citizen journalism; recycling; ‘big free stuff’ such as cars, buildings…

Dell’s S2721HGF is one of the cheapest 27in displays we’ve seen for some time, and that makes it a tempting option for anyone who wants a sizeable gaming display without spending silly amounts of cash. It’s kitted out with a 1080p VA panel that’s compatible with AMD FreeSync Premium and Nvidia G-Sync at 144Hz, and it has a 4ms response time. On paper, that means it’s good enough for tackling mainstream single-player games and esports titles without putting a huge amount of stress on your GPU to hit a sky-high refresh rate. The Dell has a 1500R curve, too, which improves immersion. That said, twitchy esports players will benefit from a non-VA 240Hz display with a 1ms response time, and a 2,560 x 1,440 resolution would make games look crisper…

Cooler Master is best known for making cases and coolers, but the GM34-CW is its first gaming monitor, which makes a big impression with a curved, widescreen design. The 34in panel has a resolution of 3,440 x 1,440 and an aspect ratio of 21:9, which means racing and shooting titles benefit from the broad field of view, and the 1500R curve proves immersive rather than overwhelming. The size and resolution match those of the LG UltraGear 34GN850, which is our current favourite 34in widescreen gaming panel. There are few surprises on the inside – the GM34-CW uses a 10-bit VA panel with a 144Hz refresh rate and 1ms response time. It also supports AMD FreeSync and offers compatibility with Nvidia G-Sync, eliminating tearing artefacts by synchronising the refresh rate with…

The Endgame Gear MB1 is a mouse bungee that shows an appreciable dedication to the role. It’s not a USB hub with an arm on top, and it’s not the centre of a light show with a convenient groove along the back for a cable. It simply takes your mouse cable and lifts it out of the way, so you can play games unimpeded. The MB1 is a weighty lump on your desktop, which is exactly as it should be, with a springy metal arm on top. This arm can be retracted in order to provide what’s ostensibly an adjustable length, but it doesn’t hold the selected length well, and really works best simply to allow the MB1 to retract into a more mobile shape for transport. Despite this, the…

There’s a mix of super-fast PCI-E 4 SSDs in this month’ Labs test, and unlike the last time we looked at a bunch of them, we now have numerous different controllers being used, rather than the reliance on Phison controllers. ADATA’s GAMMIX XPG X70 Blade uses an InnoGrit IG5236 controller, along with TLC memory. As with most TLC-based SSDs, it also has a write cache. This is made up of 1GB of DRAM and around 333GB of pseudo-SLC cache, where the SSD repurposes TLC memory, but only writes one bit of data per memory cell (instead of the usual three with TLC), speeding up the writing process. If you fill up the SSD completely, there won’t be any memory left for the caching, so speeds can drop, and write speeds…

S ome of Samsung’s older PCI-E 3 SSDs have been among our favourites over the years and, rather unexpectedly, the company’s new vanilla 980 drive doesn’t offer PCI-E 4 performance on a budget. Instead, it sticks with the same PCI-E 3 interface as Samsung’s 970-series drives. Only its more expensive sibling, the Samsung 980 Pro, has made the move up to the speedier PCI-E 4 interface. Thankfully, with a cost of £117 inc VAT for 1TB of storage space, the 980 is certainly more wallet-friendly than the £183 inc VAT demanded by the 980 Pro, with its nearest competitor being the ADATA XPG GAMMIX S50 Lite. However, that ADATA drive has made the move to PCI-E 4, and it has a 2TB option as well. Comparatively, the Samsung 980 range…

The WD Blue SN550’s prices of just £83 for 1TB and £180 for a whole 2TB of storage show that owning an NVMe PCI-E 3 SSD is now cheaper than ever. Plus, as this month’s investigation into the real-world benefits of fast SSDs (see p90) has showed, there are diminishing returns as you approach the top and spend more money anyway. The SN550 isn’t a new drive, though, and this Labs test’s selection of SSDs include some other excellent alternatives that sport newer tech and faster speeds for not much more money. The question is, just how much slower is the SN550? The main issue, if you dig deeper into the specifications, isn’t only a lack of a DRAM cache, but also a miniscule SLC cache that’s typically just a…

The Glorious Model O made quite a splash when it first arrived a few years ago, thanks to its combination of fantastic shape, low weight and excellent performance, all for a relatively low price. With so many more companies joining in the lightweight mouse trend, though, does it still have what it takes to compete? Well, one factor we still can’t forgive is the company name and the logo on the side of the mouse. The joke had worn thin before the company even existed and it sits ever less well as time goes on. Back to the mouse, and although the competition has indeed ramped up, the Model O’s basic formula is still very much on point. It has a relatively large, symmetrical design with a very gently sloped…

SteelSeries’ Rival 600 has been at the top of our charts for the best FPS gaming mouse for a while now, and it remains a great option. However, the company’s latest addition to its gaming mouse line-up is a symmetrical, lightweight design. The Aerox 3 weighs just 57g, putting it firmly in ultra-light territory and making it the lightest on test. It achieves this thanks to the now common method of filling the outer case with holes. In this case, they’re square holes that cover the entire top and base of the mouse, as well as the rear of the left and right buttons. Inevitably, the holes do allow dust and grime to collect inside the mouse – and the circuitboard within the shell is particularly exposed – but all…

Outriders is a game at war with itself, a lootershooter where neither the looting nor the shooting are what make it worth playing. Developed by People Can Fly, creator of Bulletstorm, Outriders’ structure seems focus-tested to be as generically appealing as possible. However, it also has a rebellious streak, and a cover system that it doesn’t want you to use. It’s a weird, expensive mess that somehow comes together and just about works. It doesn’t look like it will swing that way at first though. Taking place after the destruction of Earth, Outriders begins with the arrival of the generation ship Flores at a nameless, biologically verdant planet selected as humanity’s new home. You play as one of the titular Outriders, the Flores’ special scout force tasked with paving the…

Like Doom and Skyrim, Resident Evil 4 Crytek seems destined to exist on every platform. Even so, the announcement that this classic survival horror is coming to Oculus Quest 2 still came as a surprise. Developed by Armature Games with Capcom’s input, it’s by no means a straightforward port. The Quest 2 version of Resident Evil 4 is being significantly retooled into a proper VR game. Unlike all other versions of the game, the Quest 2 version will be played in first person with fully optimised touch controls. Weapons and ammo are being redesigned to function like other VR shooters, with manual aiming and reloading. Weapons will be holstered on the player’s virtual body, meaning you won’t have to rummage through your inventory to equip your shotgun. It even adds…

ANTONY LEATHER SHARES HIS TOP TIPS AND TRICKS FOR PERFECTING YOUR PC BUILDING SKILLS With PCs consisting of just a handful of components, you’d be forgiven for thinking that putting them all together in the right order and installing Windows is all you need to do to build a great PC. However, you’d also be very wrong. A huge part of being a proper PC enthusiast is about taking pride in your creation and understanding the basics of crucial factors such as cooling and airflow direction. Not doing so can make for an unpleasant PC building experience and future problems. Each step of the PC building process has been honed over decades by enthusiasts, from picking the right components and limiting cable clutter, to applying thermal paste and ensuring cooling…

Install your memory correctly If you’re not intending to fill all the memory slots on your motherboard, make sure you fill the right slots to enable specific memory channel modes. This will be detailed in your motherboard manual, but with motherboards equipped with four slots offering dual-channel memory support, which is most mainstream Intel and AMD boards, the second and fourth slots are the ones you’ll need to fill. Meanwhile, for quad-channel boards with eight slots, you usually need to use slots one, three, six and eight. Use the right M.2 slot We’ve looked at several PCI-E 4 SSDs in this month’ Labs test (see p42), but sadly not all M.2 ports support this standard. Check your motherboards specifications to identify the right port to get the most out of…

The revolution brought about by affordable solid-state storage has been a slow and steady one. When first introduced, solid state drives (SSDs) weren’t all that fast in practical terms, didn’t last long and were very expensive, making them the reserve of enthusiasts only. However, as the years have gone by, we’ve finally got to the stage where SSDs have almost completely taken over from hard drives, offering blisteringly fast performance, low cost and reliability. It’s now not uncommon for desktop PCs with several terabytes of storage to use only SSDs. Not all SSDs are created equal, though, and nor has progress on making SSDs ever faster and more capacious halted. So, while multiterabyte SSDs are now relatively affordable, you’ll still be looking at opting for slower SSDs to get such…

Remotec’s Remodo X is billed as ‘a designer remote for Raspberry Pi,’ which is only partially true – but, perhaps, true enough to cut the company a little slack. The low cost of the Raspberry Pi family of single-board computers, combined with their origins as devices based on a system-on-chip developed by Broadcom for multimedia set-top boxes, make them a popular presence in home theatre setups. Their easy extensibility and, in modern variants, built-in wireless and wired network capabilities mean they’re equally popular for smart home and automation tasks. Both these usages have one factor in common: it would be handy if you could control them without hooking up a keyboard and mouse. That’s where the Remodo X comes in – a compact, sleek and programmable Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)…

Endgame Gear is kindly offering some fantastic gaming mouse bundles to three lucky Custom PC readers. Each bundle not only contains one of the company’s £50 XM1r gaming mice in a classy translucent Dark Frost colour scheme, but also includes one of Endgame’s topline MPX390 mousepads worth £50. ENDGAME GEAR XM1R The XM1r is a refresh of the acclaimed Endgame Gear XM1 gaming mouse. With the inclusion of the new PixArt PAW3370 optical sensor and Kailh GM 8 switches, topped with two new transparent shell editions, the XM1r has been designed with precision and style in mind. The XM1r’s responsiveness is significantly improved by the sensor’s resolution of up to 19000 CPI, 1mm of lift-off-distance and its ability to track at up to 400 IPS. Every effort has been made…