Custom PC UK -julkaisun November 2015 -irtonumeron sisällysluettelo

can’t remember the last time we gave a product a score of 99 per cent, if it’s ever even happened. The nature of an itemised scoring system makes getting a perfect balance in every single score hard work, yet this month Corsair has managed it (see p55). But what’s significant in this month’s PSU Labs isn’t so much Corsair’s 99 per cent score, but just how close it is to every other PSU’s score. I’ve never seen a Custom PC Labs test with so many percentages in the 90s before. The power supply industry has transformed, and while it’s fair to say that the likes of Corsair make amazing power supplies, the real reason for all those high scores is 80 Plus. We’ve been conducting PC power supply Labs tests…

SUPPLIER www.ebuyer.com MSI’s Z170A Gaming M5 is the cheapest motherboard on test this month, and it’s noticeably less aesthetically bolstered than either the Asus Maximus VIII Hero or Gigabyte Z170X-Gaming 7. It lacks the I/O panel shrouds of the other two boards and its power circuitry heatsinks aren’t connected via a heatpipe either. However, MSI has seen fit to include PCI-E slot shrouds, and MSI’s red and black colour scheme still looks good. There are two M.2 ports – one more than the Hero although, like the Gaming 7, they’re both limited to 80mm SSDs. The lower slot is better placed than that on the Gaming 7, though, so it’s still accessible with two-way graphics card setups. Both USB 3.1 Type-A and Type-C ports are present on the I/O…

SUPPLIER www.amazon.co.uk Cooler Master’s V550 might not be fully modular, but you’re liable to use all the cables that are permanently attached anyway, and you can attach four more to your liking if needed too. With six SATA and three Molex connectors, it has most drive configurations covered, and the two 6/8-pin PCI-E plugs are par for the course as well. Meanwhile, cable lengths are all more than satisfactory, and the comparatively shallow depth of 150mm depth means the V550 will easily fit into most cases. All the cables are also fully sleeved, which will make your PC’s interior look neater. Most importantly, though, this single-rail contender has an 80 Plus Gold rating and can deliver 45A on its 12V rail. Performance of this PSU is extremely solid, with…

SUPPLIER www.dabs.com The EVGA SuperNova GS 550W is the cheapest 80 Plus Gold-rated PSU on test, with a surprisingly low price of just £52 inc VAT, but that doesn’t mean EVGA has made any compromises. This fully modular PSU delivers 45A on its single 12V rail and includes plenty of connectors on attractive, long flat cables – including four 6/8-pin PCI-E graphics connectors. With a length of 150mm, it’s also compact enough to fit into loads of cases, and EVGA even includes a useful tester to see if the PSU is working without attaching it to a system. The SuperNova GS’ low power efficiency is above average too, while the average efficiency of 89.91 per cent is in line with many pricier units on test. A minor complaint is…

SUPPLIER www.overclockers.co.uk The second fully passively cooled PSU in this test comes courtesy of SilverStone. The Nightjar SST-NJ520 has a slightly lower power rating than Enermax’s Digifanless 550W, but it also has a much more budget-friendly price tag. Still, £110 inc VAT is still a fair wad of cash, making the Nightjar significantly more expensive than actively cooled models, many of which are still exceptionally quiet. As such, the Nightjar is only worth considering if eliminating fan noise is your priority, perhaps for audio production. If that’s you, though, the Nightjar is definitely the model to get, as our noise level meter didn’t move at all during testing, even under high loads. Looking beyond the pleasant silence that defines this PSU, SilverStone has also equipped it with enough connectors…

SUPPLIER www.novatech.co.uk Be Quiet!’s new Dark Power Pro 11 850W is a veritable powerhouse. Designed in Germany and manufactured to exacting specifications by FSP, it’s one of the most expensive models on test, so it needs to deliver the goods. Fortunately, it delivers in spades. The unit is very large, and its length of 195mm means it’s not going to fit into smaller cases, and it weighs a hefty 2.4kg too. However, it’s what’s inside that counts with a premium PSU. In this case, you get a design with four 12V rails, which can be changed to a single rail function using the included ‘OC Key’. Another noteworthy feature is the collection of four fan controllers on the PSU itself; hook up your case fans to these connectors and…

SUPPLIER www.pixmania.com With a price of £149 inc VAT, the Platimax 850W is the second most expensive PSU on test. Interestingly, Enermax uses a quad-rail design, with each 12V rail capable of delivering 30A to components – the total can’t exceed 70A, but that’s still a very respectable amount of current. With a length of 175mm, it isn’t small, though, so you’ll need to make sure your case can accommodate it. Although it’s a modular CPU, the motherboard and PCI-E graphics cables are attached by default. You can add three more PCI-E graphics cables for a total of six, as well as cables with eight Molex and eight SATA connectors. All cables are sleeved and just a little shorter than average, with the exception of the Molex and SATA…

SUPPLIER www.scan.co.uk Seasonic’s Platinum series has a reputation for excellent quality, so it’s no surprise Seasonic charges a premium for the Platinum 860W XP2 at £153 inc VAT. All the cables, bar the 24-pin ATX cable, are flat, and they all have a decent length too – they aren’t the longest on test, but they’re long enough. There are plenty of connectors too, including six PCI-E graphics plugs. Average efficiency is extremely good, with the result of 91.63 per cent being just a smidgen behind the class-leading Be Quiet! Dark Power Pro 11. However, unlike the Be Quiet! unit, the Seasonic’s voltages on the 12V line do drop below 12V, starting at loads of 500W. Even though the drop is well within tolerances, we expect better from a premium…

Build a mini APU PC The parts you’ll need to build an affordable, general-purpose mini PC that’s ideal for putting in the lounge, based on an AMD APU. This machine will handle general computing and media tasks with no trouble, as well as basic gaming, although you’ll have to lower the detail settings. Build a budget gaming PC The parts you’ll need to build a budget machine capable of playing the latest games at maximum settings on a 1080p monitor. The machine has a discrete graphics card, a highly overclockable dual-core CPU and high-speed memory. Meanwhile, the Z97 motherboard gives you headroom to upgrade to a faster CPU later. Build a mid-range PC Work PC The parts you’ll need to build a solid quad-core PC with plenty of upgrade potential.…

While the majority of engines are designed to cater for a broad range of game types, Adventure Game Studio is entirely focused on a single genre – 2D adventures in the vein of those developed by LucasArts in its heyday. Yet unlike SCUMM, which was evolved to be used by a very specific set of people, AGS is a one-stop design shop intended for everyone regardless of skill level. ‘There’s something very powerful about working with the tool that knows exactly what you’re trying to do,’ says Dave Gilbert, CEO of Wadjet Eye Games, a New York studio that’s created 15 titles using AGS over the past decade. ‘You want to create a character; it knows what a character is. It knows that a character walks and interacts with things;…

Gimp We use Gimp to open and edit large images. Unlike our previous Gimp test, this one uses more than one CPU core, although it’s still more sensitive to clock speed increases than to more CPU cores. Handbrake H.264 video encoding Our heavily multi-threaded Handbrake video encoding takes full advantage of many CPU cores, pushing them to 100 per cent load. LuxMark OpenCL This GPU compute test is the only synthetic part of our suite, although the renderer is based on the real LuxRender physically based rendering software. As 3D rendering is a specific workload that not everyone will use, and because OpenCL support isn’t standard in most software, this section is given just a quarter of the weighting of the other tests in the final score. Heavy multi-tasking Our…

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 on the www.bit-tech.net forums.…

Steam OS and the first batch of Steam Machines were first unveiled at CES in January 2014. While I didn’t make it to the show, I was lucky enough to be involved in the design of the UK’s first Steam Machine, the Scan 3XS NC10. Since then, however, Steam OS has lived under a cloud, with the release date being pushed back again and again. Although the wait has been painful, looking back at where we were then and where we are now, Valve undoubtedly made the right decision to hold back the launch. For instance, the first few beta releases of Steam OS were little more than a crudely skinned Debian distribution, complete with its own foibles, such as a horrendous installation process that had a nasty habit of…

I’m rarely prone to such hyperbole, but Intel and Micron’s new 3D XPoint (pronounced ‘cross point’) memory is about to completely transform data storage as we know it. The specs are simply incredible. It’s 1,000 times faster than the NAND flash memory used in SSDs, it has 1,000 times the endurance of NAND and its durability isn’t affected by making it smaller. It’s also 10 times denser than DRAM, yet it will still hold your data when power is removed, so it doesn’t need to be constantly refreshed. What’s more, it can read and write single bits of data, so there’s no need for TRIM and garbage collection tweaks, and there’s no performance drop over time. Essentially, it’s closer to DRAM performance, SSDlike attributes. NAND has been with us since…

Afavourite quote, said by Richard Dawkins about some aspects of pseudoscience, is ‘the best thing about an opinion like that is we can safely ignore it’. The quote works because the person spouting the uninformed opinion is invariably a random Tweeter with three followers and a theory about how jet fuel can’t melt steel beams. But when the person espousing a silly idea has the three Ps – power, privilege and platform – we can’t safely ignore it, as the silly idea will invariably spread and potentially do . holding three Ps (usually the media) to account, and examining the veracity of their claims. Noel Edmonds, for example, has the three Ps and sometimes uses them to promote and profligate piffle. His original piffle is in the form of a…

SUPPLIER www.novatech.co.uk While Asus’ new Hero lacks the metal PCI-E slot shrouds included with both the Gigabyte Z170X-Gaming 7 and MSI Z170A Gaming M5, Asus has finally changed the red and black colour scheme of its ROG offerings. The Hero’s heatsinks sport an elegant dark grey coating, while the board has red details and a black PCB. The large plastic shroud that covers the I/O panel also extends down to the audio circuitry and gives the Hero a racy look that’s a little subtler than the Gigabyte board. In addition to the new colour scheme is RGB lighting control, which enables you to alter the colour and lighting mode of the chipset heatsink’s LED using a downloadable software program. Layout is very similar to the other two boards on…

Intel has reportedly made a lot of progress with its CPUs’ integrated graphics and, let’s face it, this wouldn’t take much, but can Intel really take on AMD at its own game? To find out, we’re testing the gaming performance of the GPU in AMD’s A10-7870K against the one in Intel’s new Core i5-6600K. In addition, we’re also testing the Core i5-4690K to see how Intel’s integrated graphics have improved during the transition from Haswell to Skylake. But let’s start with a little background information. The Core i5-4690K sports Intel’s HD Graphics 4600 system, which is used in many Haswell CPUs, with the base and Turbo GPU core frequencies varying between them. The Core i5-4690K’s GPU can boost up to 1,200MHz, while the Core i7-4790K stretches out an extra 50MHz.…

SUPPLIER www.hex-gear.com / MODEL NUMBER R40-WHT-001 /SPECIFICATIONS Dimensions (mm) 241 x 483 x 415 (W x D x H) Material Acrylic, aluminium, steel Available colours Black or white with red, blue, green, orange, purple or pink plate options Front panel Power Drive bays 3 x 2.5in or 2 x 3.5in Form factor(s) Mini-ITX, micro-ATX Cooling 1 x rear 120mm fan (fan not included), 2 x 120mm base fan mounts (fans not included), 3 x 120mm roof fan mounts (fans not included) CPU cooler clearance Approx 165mm Maximum graphics card length 370mm The custom case scene is a growing one and, with the likes of Parvum Systems carving a small but popular niche for unusual enthusiast-orientated cases, UK-based Hex Gear has now joined the fray too with its new R40.…

SUPPLIER www.currys.co.uk /SPECIFICATIONS Connection Wired, USB Sensor Laser Resolution 12,000dpi Cable Braided Material Plastic Extras None With its extremely customisable shape and feature set, even including the ability to 3D-print your own parts using your own designs, or templates available online, Roccat’s Nyth isn’t your average gaming mouse. Included in the box are two hot-swappable sides to change the shape. The first is a slimmer one that’s well suited to claw and finger grips, while the second is a fuller, hand-filling one that’s comfortable with a palm grip. Switching from one to the other takes seconds as well, thanks to the magnetic design. However, they could do with a rubber grip applied to the sides to help combat the low friction on the mouse’s main body. A modular thumb…

Being 50 per cent smaller and 40 per cent lighter than GoPro’s popular HERO4 Black and Silver cameras, the new Session is so dinky it’s positively cute. Square, rather than rectangular, it’s designed to be less obtrusive to wear than the other models, whose shape can cause drag. Sacrifices have been made in the name of slimming, however. Changing settings requires a paired smartphone and the battery isn’t replaceable, for example. Image quality also suffers – video from a full-sized HERO4 was noticeably sharper, with greater dynamic range, and the Session also lacks some of the high-fps settings of its older siblings. These sacrifices make the Session look more like an entry-level product than its larger sibling, but at £330 inc VAT, it’s the same price as the HERO4 Silver.…

SUPPLIER www.wiggle.co.uk 1 Fugoo Speaker Standing out in the Bluetooth speaker market is a tall ask, but Fugoo has done so with its interesting modular approach. Each of the three models (Sport, Style and Tough) is based around the same Core X speaker unit, with the different look and feel of each model provided by the removable cases that are also available to buy separately. The speaker itself is excellent. Compact and rugged, it’s water and dustproof even without a case. Audio is punchy and loud, and while the mix is noticeably biased towards the treble registers, there’s still enough bass to prevent output from sounding reedy or unsatisfying. Audio coverage is good too, as the speaker has drivers on every side. The claimed 40 hours battery life is…

SUPPLIER www.scan.co.uk Antec introduced the Edge series last year, when we concluded that it was a capable power supply but too expensive for the quality on offer. This year, however, the Edge’s price has dropped by a tenner, offering much better value for money. All the Edge models include a pair of coloured rubber bands that are designed to prevent noise through vibration, as well as provide some visual flair. The cables are fully modular, and although they’re not all sleeved, they’re all more than long enough. However, owners of smaller or older cases should note the Edge’s above average size, with a length of 170mm. Interestingly, the Edge 550W is also one of the few multi-rail designs on test, a concept Antec tenaciously promotes as superior to single-rail…

SUPPLIER www.scan.co.uk Corsair’s RM Series is immensely popular and with good reason, as this 550W model demonstrates. It has a single-rail design, with its 12V rail rated at 46A, and it’s also an 80 Plus Gold model. It has a large, quiet fan, plenty of connectors and lengthy, flat cables too. Its length of 160mm puts it in the larger bracket among the other PSUs on test, but it should still fit into plenty of cases. Where the RM550 really shows its might, though, is in efficiency, with its average of 89.94 per cent being within a whisker of 90 per cent. The Corsair doesn’t manage the efficiency of the Cooler Master V550 at extremely low voltages, but from 100W upwards, the difference is negligible, while ripple values across…

SUPPLIER www.cclonline.com Gold is seemingly the new Bronze when it comes to PSUs, meaning that the sole Bronze-rated PSU in this test is slightly outclassed by the competition. Fractal’s Integra M 550W is also cheaper than every other model on test, though, and the difference in efficiency between Bronze and Gold-rated models isn’t as high as the classification names imply. The budget-orientated character of the Integra M is more visible in the number of connectors, which is slightly lower than that of other PSUs on test. Plus, while the Integra M sports flat cables, they’re slightly shorter than the wires supplied with the other units on test. All the cables are long enough for any standard-sized system, though, and the 140mm depth makes the Integra M easy to install…

SUPPLIER www.overclockers.co.uk Super Flower has been quietly making a name for itself in the past few years, and the 80 Plus Platinum-rated Leadex Platinum 550W makes it easy to see why. This PSU is only marginally more expensive than the 80 Plus Gold competition, and it delivers excellent performance too. Before we get to performance, though, let’s look at the physical aspects. This 160mm long enclosure is fully modular, and also uses clever universal connectors, so every cable hooks up to the PSU with the same type of plug. The included cables are all flat, and have plenty of connectors too – the total of ten SATA connectors stands out in particular. All the cables are also more than long enough for most people’s needs, although the ATX cable…

SUPPLIER www.dabs.com As with Cooler Master’s V550 (see p54), the V750 comes from the company’s V Series semi-modular line-up, which means the CPU, PCI-E graphics and motherboard cables are all fixed to the unit. However, you can add or leave out Molex and SATA cables to your heart’s content. Unlike the smaller model, though, the V750 sports two pairs of PCI-E graphics cables, and you may not need the extra one. On the plus side, you get six Molex and eight SATA connectors, and all the cables are long enough, and are either sleeved or flat. Meanwhile, the single-rail design can deliver 62A on the 12V rail. Interestingly, the enclosure also measures just 140mm in depth, which is quite compact for a PSU of this power rating, and will…

SUPPLIER www.dabs.com EVGA’s entrant in this segment is the SuperNova G2 750W, and like EVGA’s 550W PSU on test, it comes in at a very tempting price. What’s more, the low price of £87 inc VAT doesn’t seem to have had any impact on the feature set. It has a fully modular design and a lot of attractive, long, sleeved cables. The cable set includes four PCI-E graphics plugs, which is plenty for a PSU in this class and, remarkably, the SuperNova G2 measures only 140mm long, meaning you can fit it into just about any case. What’s more, the SuperNova G2 750W performs admirably, with an average efficiency of 89.41 per cent and solid 12V stability even at maximum load. The efficiency under low loads is less stellar,…

SUPPLIER www.scan.co.uk SilverStone’s Strider Gold S is reasonably priced at £96 inc VAT, and offers pretty much everything you could want in the features department, including four PCI-E graphics connectors and plenty of SATA and Molex plugs, as well as long, flat cables and a fully modular design. The enclosure is surprisingly small too, measuring just 141mm long, so it will fit in plenty of cases. All the cables are sufficiently long, and the SATA and Molex cables are very long indeed, with the former measuring over a metre. Meanwhile, the Strider’s single 12V rail can deliver 62.5A and it does so with excellent stability and efficiency, averaging 89.77 per cent. Ripple values are also good, with a highest measured value of 23mVtt at maximum load. What’s more, even…

I recently researched Lionhead’s fascinating 2001 god game Black & White, and in the process, stumbled upon a development analysis by Peter Molyneux written after its release. In the article, Molyneux details development of the game’s visuals, artificial intelligence, story and so on. But there was one paragraph that stood out to me: ‘The last few months of the project were the hardest any of us has ever had to work, but thanks to the people, they were also some of the most fun months we ever had. If nothing else, we’ll always remember the time we spent closeted together making Black & White.’ From an enthusiastic auteur such as Molyneux, these words evoke a passionate team coming together at the final hurdle to create something special. Step back, however,…

DEVELOPER Flying Cafe for SemiAnimals/ PUBLISHER Flying Cafe for SemiAnimals/ WEBSITE http://flying-cafe.com Cradle is a sci-fi adventure that places you in the body of convenient amnesiac Enebish, who wakes up in a yurt on the Mongolian steppe with no idea of his identity or why he’s there. The only clue to the former is a series of instructions for making breakfast for someone named Ongots. Through performing this everyday task, Cradle introduces you to its strange alternate future and what you’ll be doing. The small space you inhabit is focused mainly on the yurt and its desolate surroundings. But what Cradle lacks in scope, it makes up for in detail. Almost every object in the yurt can be picked up and examined, while posters, notes and newspaper clippings provide an…

In part three, we created a shotgun that fires wasp-stings, but failed to create a grenade-type weapon, so this was the first priority upon return. The idea was to create a ball of sticky web that would inflate like a balloon when triggered (to simulate the spider ‘spinning’ the web-ball) before being fired a certain distance and exploding. Unfortunately, getting the code right for inflating the web-grenade proved tricky, resulting in horrible deformations of the grenade-sprite. In the end, we ditched the inflation idea, and focused on getting the weapon working as a grenade. We wanted an object that fired away from the player, had a timed delay and then exploded into several fragments that affected the enemies. We needed to create three individual objects – each with its own…

Love for Windows Media Center I’m with you about Windows Media Center. I’ve used it to record all the TV we’ve watched for around the past five years, and we then use an Xbox 360 to play back the content from my desktop PC onto our rather ancient TV. The system works brilliantly and I love the way that Series Record works – if you have three programmes you want to record at the same time, it works out which one it can record later and does so. It also records series when a new season comes along, so last week I forgot to record The Great British Bake Off, which we got into last year, but WMC didn’t forget to record it for me. Brilliant! I know Microsoft hasn’t…

AMD unveils mini 4K graphics card After unveiling the small PCB of the Fury X, it was only a matter of time before AMD took full advantage of its High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) technology and produced a tiny graphics card for mini-ITX rigs. We’ve seen compact graphics cards for mini-ITX systems before, of course, but none of them has sported the specifications of AMD’s new R9 Nano card. Using AMD’s Fiji architecture, its 4GB of HBM memory is positioned on the GPU package in small chips, rather than in large chips on the PCB, so the whole card only measures only 6in across. Plus, unlike the Fury X, it has a cooling fan on the card and doesn’t require a liquid-cooling unit. Nevertheless, it still packs 4,096 stream processors, with…

SUPPLIER www.scan.co.uk Boards from Gigabyte’s Gaming range now sport a predominantly red and white colour scheme, giving the Z170X-Gaming 7 a great racy look, with a huge white plastic shroud covering much of the left side of the PCB. Hidden under this shroud you’ll also find a multi-colour lighting system that’s configurable in the EFI. There are PCI-E slot metal shrouds too, which also look fantastic, and Gigabyte has included silver SATA cables too – whether you like these touches depends on your taste, though, and some folks may find them a little garish. In terms of features, the Gigabyte is similar to the Asus, except the Z170X-Gaming 7 offers two M.2 and SATA Express connectors. Otherwise, both boards have three 16x PCI-E slots and three 1x PCI-E slots,…

Shopping list CPU Intel Core i5-6600K/ £200 inc VAT SUPPLIER www.box.co.uk The Core i5-6600K is the cheapest LGA1151 CPU around right now, so if you don’t intend to overclock your CPU, it will be worth waiting for a non K-edition CPU to turn up. However, as Skylake CPUs are very overclockable, the Core i5-6600K is a good choice if you don’t need the extra multi-threaded performance provided by the Core i7-6700K’s support for Hyper-Threading. MOTHERBOARD Asus Maximus VIII Hero/ £173 inc VAT SUPPLIER www.scan.co.uk The Asus Maximus VIII Hero is our favourite Z170 motherboard so far. It offers a tonne of features, it’s a great overclocker and it sports excellent on-board audio too. MEMORY 16GB 2666MHz Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4/£101 inc VAT SUPPLIER www.ebuyer.com For most tasks,…

SUPPLIER www.venomcomputers.com.au /SPECIFICATIONS CPU 2.5GHz Intel Core i7-4710HQ Memory 32GB 1866MHz DDR3 Graphics Nvidia GeForce GTX 970M 3GB Screen 15.6in 2,880 x 1,620 IPS Storage 512GB Samsung XP941 SSD, 1TB Hitachi hard disk Weight 2.5kg Ports 3 x USB 3, 1 x USB 3/ eSATA, 2 x mini-DisplayPort, 1 x HDMI, 3 x audio Dimensions (mm) 385 x 271 x 25 (W x D x H) Operating system Windows 10 Pro 64-bit Warranty One year parts and labour Venom hails from Melbourne, Australia, but the firm is making a global push by offering free worldwide shipping on its laptops, with a single price in US dollars. The BlackBook 15 is its flagship machine, and the U02507 model sports an Nvidia GeForce GTX 970M GPU. This chip has a 924MHz…

PROCESSORS We judge CPUs on whether they offer sufficient speed for the price. Part of a CPU’s speed score comes from how overclockable it is. Every type of CPU is tested in the same PC, so all results are directly comparable. TESTS: We use Custom PC RealBench 2015, Cinebench R11.5 and a variety of games. We also test the power draw of the test PC with the CPU installed. These tests reveal a broad range of performance characteristics, from image editing to gaming and video encoding to 3D rendering. We run all tests at stock speed and again when overclocked to its highest frequency. *Please note: We test AMD FM2+ APUs using the on-board graphics, not the Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 3GB GRAPHICS CARDS Graphics cards are mainly evaluated on…

We put 20 top-brand power supplies through a rigorous series of tests to find the ideal partner for your budget and setup With continuous improvements over the years, not to mention the 80 Plus certification system weeding out the junk, it’s tough to find a truly bad branded PSU now. That said, it’s still important to stick with tried and tested brands with 80 Plus certification – never be tempted by that unbranded £15 ‘650W’ PSU that looks like a bargain in the shop window – we’ve consistently seen them die under load in our tests. Your PSU can also have a notable effect on stability if your components aren’t getting the required current, and it can affect your PC’s overall power consumption and noise levels too. Of course, overclockers…

SUPPLIER www.ebuyer.com The Be Quiet! Straight Power E10 is the only model on test rated at 500W, rather than 550W, but that doesn’t mean it’s cheaper than the 550W units, with the promise of low-noise operation adding up to an £80 inc VAT price tag. The 160mm long, 80 Plus Gold-rated model sports a large selection of connectors, which are attached to extremely long, fully-sleeved cables. As it’s a semi-modular PSU, cable management is also a walk in the park – the only cable that’s permanently attached is the 24-pin ATX one, and that makes sense, as you can hardly skip it. Along with the Antec Edge 550W (above), the Straight Power 10 is also one of the few multi-rail designs (with four 12V rails, no less) and Be…

SUPPLIER www.scan.co.uk At a monster price of £179 inc VAT, the Digifanless 550W is easily the most expensive PSU in this category on test, costing more than many models with a much higher power rating. The reason is twofold. Firstly, as its name implies, the Digifanless 550W has no fan; it’s completely passively cooled. This makes it a great choice for circumstances where silence is key, such as audio production, but it’s overkill for normal use. The second reason is the use of digital circuitry that enables you to adjust the PSU’s operation through software, ensuring you have exactly the right voltages and current available for your components. Enermax also bundles high-quality, individually sleeved cables, which would set you back quite a bit if you bought them separately, helping…

SUPPLIER www.scan.co.uk The Seasonic S12G 550W is the only non-modular PSU on test, but it’s an 80 Plus Gold-rated model. It has a single-rail design and plenty of connectors on attractive, long flat cables. Meanwhile, its depth of 140mm makes it easy to install in many cases, and it has a hefty 2kg weight to it, despite its small size. As that weight suggests, the unassuming size hides a prime internal design and components, as shown by the test results. The average efficiency measured is a decent 89.72 per cent, as is the efficiency under low loads, although the cheaper EVGA SuperNova GS 550W is even more efficient at 100W load. Voltage stability is excellent, with our 12V measurements never coming close to dipping below 12V. The ripple performance…

SUPPLIER www.scan.co.uk Like its little brother on p48, Antec’s 750W Edge model is 80 Plus Gold-rated and features a dual-rail design; it also sports the colourful rubber bands that help to dampen vibrations. Both rails are individually rated at 40A, but when both are stressed together, the Edge 750W can only deliver a maximum of 62A on the 12V rails in total. With a length of 170mm, the Edge isn’t particularly small, but it does have plenty of cables and connectors – the ATX motherboard cable is a little on the short side at 570mm, but the rest of the cables have a respectable length. The Edge’s average efficiency is fine at 89.73 per cent, and although the 88 per cent efficiency measured at very low loads isn’t amazing,…

SUPPLIER www.scan.co.uk Corsair’s RM Series justifiably won a lot of praise when it entered the market, bringing 80 Plus Gold-rated PSUs to a new price point, and performing well in all departments. One aspect of the range kept haunting the company, though, at least with demanding users: its use of Taiwanese rather than Japanese capacitors, as the latter are perceived as being superior. Even though no test results or long-term use scenarios have demonstrated any basis for this criticism, this decision seemed to damage the reputation of the RM Series with the high-end crowd. Corsair, ever willing to listen to its users, introduced the RMi Series this year, though, replacing all the capacitors with Japanese-made ones, while introducing digital status monitoring. Of course, the merits of the former change…

SUPPLIER www.cclonline.com Swedish brand Fractal Design is represented in this segment by the Edison M 750W, an 80 Plus Gold unit with modular cabling, denoted by the ‘M’ in the model name. The unit distinguishes itself visually through Fractal’s signature white fan, which is visible underneath the grille. The motherboard, CPU and two PCI-E graphics cables are fixed to the main unit, which makes sense, as most people will always need them. Fractal Design also packs four more PCI-E connectors in the box for a total of six, which is overkill for a 750W PSU, but at least you won’t run out of connectors. With the exception of the 24-pin ATX cable, all the cables are flat and have a decent length, although the length isn’t as excessive as…

SUPPLIER www.overclockers.co.uk The Leadex Platinum 850W boasts 80 Plus Platinum certification for just £123 inc VAT. This PSU has a single-rail design, delivering 70.8A on the 12V rail. It can also run in semi-passive mode by switching the ‘Eco’-button on the back. Meanwhile, the many connectors are mounted on flat cables that are more than long enough for any system. Unlike the other 850W models on test, the Super Flower ‘only’ has four PCI-E graphics connectors, but realistically, you’re very unlikely to need more from an 850W PSU anyway. The Super Flower really shines when it comes to performance though. It manages to deliver some of the best results on test, including the lowest ripple of any 850W class model - a mere 9.8mVtt. Efficiency averages out at 90.08…

DEVELOPER Bithell Games / PUBLISHER Bithell Games / WEBSITE www.volumegame.net This vibrant sneak ’em up retells the legend of Robin Hood through the vocal talents of Andy Serkis and Danny Wallace. Combined with mechanics heavily inspired by Metal Gear Solid, on paper, Mike Bithell’s Volume sounds fantastic. Yet in practice, although Volume clearly loves stealth, its own approach merely echoes better titles. The game takes place in an alternate-future Britain ruled by a sinister arms manufacturer named Gisbourne. You play Robert Locksley, a rebellious hacker with a plan to take back the country’s wealth hoarded by Gisbourne and his greedy cronies. With the aid of a reprogrammed military AI, Locksley runs simulated heists based on Britain’s most lucrative targets, then broadcasts the simulations across the Internet as tutorials so that…

ANALYSIS Thermal vision for the hobbyist I’ve always wanted a thermal vision camera, even if I’ve never really been able to articulate exactly why I want one. Frankly, I blame seeing the classic Arnie flick Predator at an impressionable age. Sadly, while thermal vision may well be real, until recently it was also really, really expensive. A low-resolution thermal camera would have cost tens of thousands of pounds at the time of Predator, and even a few years ago, the cost would still have been in the low thousands. Now, though, the market has shifted. The launch of low-cost thermal imaging sensors has flooded the market with sub-£1,000 thermal camera systems, bringing the technology into the reach of the hobbyist for the first time. From the Seek Thermal, a crowd-funded…

Water-cooling Skylake The Skylake CPU samples we’ve tested appear to have just as much overclocking potential as their Haswell counterparts. In fact, they’re able to handle higher voltages and, although it’s early days, I’ve seen encouraging signs that 5GHz will be an easier target for Skylake than Haswell too. As usual, though, heat was the limiting factor in my test rig, so I set up a water-cooling system with a Core i7-6700K, Laing D5 pump, Phobya UC1-LT waterblock and full-height triple 120mm-fan radiator to assess the impact of water-cooling Skylake. At 4.8GHz using 1.35V, the water-cooled CPU was 10°C cooler than with a Corsair H80i GT on its maximum setting, reaching a delta T of 57°C. Pushing the clock speed above 4.8GHz was the point where the required voltage rose…