Table of contents for April 2017 in Custom PC UK

 After upgrading to a lovely new 4K TV in last year’s Black Friday sales, I’m currently contemplating upgrading my media PC, and resenting it at the same time. It either needs a new graphics card to output to HDMI 2, which means adding more fans (it’s an APU machine with no discrete GPU), or I need to upgrade it to Kaby Lake to run 4K Netflix. I’m usually happy to upgrade my PC gear, but in this case, I’m starting to resent the fact that I need to use a PC at all for such a simple job. It would need to support every format, whether it’s MP3, Ogg, AC3, FLAC, WAV or Apple Lossless The problem is standards, or rather a lack of standards. I have a NAS box…

The extra cooling also enabled the GPU frequency to boost further SUPPLIER www.aquatuning.co.uk SPECIFICATIONS Compatibility Compatible Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 or 1080 card Radiator size with fans (mm) 132x95x160(WxDxH) Fans 2 x 120mm Stated noise Not Stated While Corsair and NZXT’s all-in-one (AIO) liquid cooler GPU adaptors work quite well, they aren’t particularly easy to install, they’re not as good at cooling as a proper waterblock and they aren't particularly attractive either. However, Alphacool’s Eiswolf GPX-Pro aims to combine the best of both worlds. What’s more, it can even water-cool just your graphics card out of the box, without needing to be attached to an existing cooling setup. It uses a standard 120mm-fan radiator, with two 120mm 1,700rpm PWM fans included. This radiator is attached to a full-cover GPU…

The rear panel offers Type-A and Type -C USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports SUPPLIER www.scan.co.uk /SPECIFICATIONS Chipset Intel X99 CPU socket Intel LGA2011-v3 Memory support 8 slots: max 128GB DDR3 (up to 3333MHz) Expansion slots Three 16x PCI-E 3, two 1x PCI-E 2 Audio 8-channel Realtek ALC1150 Networking Intel I218LM and Intel I210AT Gigabit Ethernet Overclocking Base clock 91–300MHz, CPU multiplier 12-80x; max voltages, CPU 2.1V, RAM 2V Ports 1 x M.2 PCI-E x4/SATA 6Gbps (up to 110mm), 1 x U.2 32Gbps, 1 x SATA Express 10Gbps, 10 x SATA 6Gbps, 1 x USB 3.1 (Gen2) Type-A, 1 x USB 3.1 (Gen2) Type-C, 8 x USB 3 (4 via header), 8 x USB 2 (4 via header), 2 x LAN, audio out, line in, mic, optical S/PDIF out Dimensions…

How we test We test each motherboard with a Core i7-7700K CPU, 16GB of Corsair Vengeance LED 3200MHz DDR4 RAM and an XFX Radeon R9 390X graphics card. We use a 512GB 960 Evo M.2 SSD and a Samsung 850 Pro SSD, along with CrystalDiskMark’s 32-queue-depth storage test to record sequential speeds. To measure on-board audio performance, we run RightMark’s Audio Analyzer software using 24-bit/192KHz settings, with the line-out connected to the line in-jack to obtain noise and dynamic range levels. We load optimised default settings and set the XMP profile in the EFI for stock-speed tests, but touch no other settings, which sets the correct memory speed and timings, and ensures the board is set up for the best stock-speed performance. When overclocking, we find the maximum stable CPU…

You get a superb EFI, which makes overclocking and tuning your system very easy SUPPLIER www.overclockers.co.uk /SPECIFICATIONS Chipset Intel Z270 CPU socket Intel LGA1151 Memory support 4 slots: max 64GB DDR3 (up to 3600MHz) Expansion slots Two 16x PCI-E 3, four 1x PCI-E 2 Sound Realtek ALC887 Networking Realtek Gigabit LAN Overclocking Base clock 40-600MHz, CPU Multiplier 8-83x; max voltages, CPU 2V, RAM 2V Ports 4 x SATA 6Gbps (Z270), 2 x M.2, 8 x USB 3, 6 x USB 2, 1 x LAN, 3 x surround audio out, line in, mic, DVI-D, HDMI Dimensions (mm) 305 x 221 With a seemingly bargain price of just £114, the Asus Prime Z270-P is the cheapest motherboard on test, costing considerably less money than most of the Z270 motherboards we’ve seen…

How we test Speak to anyone who has never tried gaming with a surround headset and they’ll probably be sceptical. After all, most of us cut our gaming teeth using plain old stereo speakers or headphones and have coped fine. The reality, though, is that surround sound – whether from a headset or speakers – significantly increases your awareness of the virtual world around you. What in stereo sounds vaguely like a footstep somewhere in the 180 degrees of space to your left or right can be pinpointed to an astonishingly accurate degree in surround. Of course, back in the day, surround headsets meant expensive multi-driver models that sounded good but weren’t particularly versatile. Now, however, you can get surprisingly effective virtual surround headsets that can convert back to conventional…

SUPPLIER www.scan.co.uk /SPECIFICATIONS CPU 4.2GHz Intel Core i7-7700K overclocked to 4.8GHz Motherboard Asus ROG Strix Z270F Gaming Memory 16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000MHz DDR4 Graphics 2 x Asus GeForce GTX Strix 1070 8GB Gaming Storage 512GB Samsung SM961 M.2 SSD; 2TB Western Digital Blue hard disk Case Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ATX Glass Cooling CPU: OCUK Techlabs 240mm AIO Liquid Cooler with Noiseblocker fans; front: 2 x 140mm fans; rear: 1 x 140mm PSU Super Flower Leadex Gold 850W Ports Front: 2 x USB 3, 2 x audio; rear: 4 x USB 3, 1 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A, 1 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C, 1 x PS/2, 1 x Gigabit Ethernet, 1 x optical S/PDIF, 5 x audio Operating system Microsoft Windows 10 Home 64-bit Warranty Three…

Build a quiet performance PC The parts you’ll need to build a very quiet PC that doesn’t compromise on performance. Not only does this PC feature an Intel Kaby Lake CPU and an Nvidia Pascal GPU, but it also uses a massive CPU heatsink and a fanless PSU to eliminate fan noise, while the graphics card fans only spin up under heavy loads. You can see our full guide to building this PC in Issue 160, p84. Build a budget gaming PC The parts you’ll need to build a budget machine capable of playing the latest games at decent settings on a 1080p monitor. The machine has a discrete graphics card, a Kaby Lake dual-core CPU and DDR4 memory. The Core i3-7350K also has an unlocked multiplier, so it can…

Where’s all the RGB RAM? As you probably noticed in our recent Z270 motherboard Labs test (see Issue162, p46), RGB lighting, and even RGBW lighting (where LED strips sport a set of dedicated white LEDs to create superior white lighting), is a big trend with the latest motherboards. To some extent, I agree that customers should have the option of lighting on their motherboards, or at the very least, the offer of an LED header and not lighting to rival a Christmas tree on the board itself. However, some of the subtler and colour-accurate examples I’ve seen look really good. We have RGB memory, now, along with RGB illumination on cases, fans, graphics cards, CPU coolers, keyboards and mice. All of which prompts me to ask one question – where’s…

It results in a horrible mishmash of out-of-sync patterns and clashing colours Last year saw some truly unexpected political upheavals across the globe, which are only just beginning to take effect. However, this is Custom PC, not a newspaper, so I’m going to avoid expressing my opinions on these serious and far-reaching issues. Instead, I’m going to talk about the other unexpected event of 2016 – the return of the illuminated PC. PCs have, of course, always had status LEDs and so on, but it’s only in the past 15 years, when the ‘enthusiast PC’ first emerged, that heavily illuminated PCs made their appearance. The peak was around ten years ago, when it was almost impossible to find a PC without cold cathode tubes and LED fans. Also, every light…

OLED requires little power, enables you to build super-thin displays and requires no backlight CES has flooded us neck deep in announcements, including Intel’s Kaby Lake kit and AMD’s Socket AM4motherboards,butitwas TVs and monitors that stole the show. TV display tech shares common ground with PC monitors, so we often see the same advancements in our monitors soon enough, and vice versa. The new LG and Sony 77in 4K OLED TVs (both with LG panels) looked sublime and innovative. Just eight years ago, Sony’s cutting-edge organic light emitting diode (OLED) display only had an 11in viewable diagonal and a puny 960 x 540 resolution, but now Sony is producing massive 4K OLED displays that measure only 2.57mm thick. It can only be a matter of time before this technology breaks…

Games should have kids modes I’ve been thinking for a while that developers of games aren’t making the most of the games they make, nor are they serving us as best they might. I think they could put so much more into their games for not much more effort and, importantly, open up their games to a far wider audience! Let’s take a typical first-person game series, such as Far Cry – it’s fairly open-plan, it’s beautifully landscaped and it follows a storyline. Typically these games are rated 16+, so it certainly excludes my nine-year-old daughter from playing them. The usual scenario is that, while grabbing a quick half-hour session, my daughter walks in mid-battle, and I have to quickly hit the Esc key, blocking the content. This is usually…

Orbi distinguishes itself by using two powerful routers for its hubs SUPPLIER www.maplin.co.uk Most high-end routers take a brute-force approach to improving Wi-Fi speed and range, adding more antennae, more frequency bands and the latest Wi-Fi standards. That approach works up to a point, but eventually even powerful routers run out or range. Of course, you can buy Wi-Fi extenders, extra Ethernet cable and access points, or use powerline networking, but Netgear has taken a novel approach with the Orbi that pretty much solves the problem. Instead of one powerful router, the Netgear Orbi system has one router and one hub, which work together to stretch your Wi-Fi signal. The hub acts as a glorified Wi-Fi extender, but rather than offering a measly single-band, single-antennae unit, it’s a fully…

The SteelSeries Qck+ Limited exists in a unique Zen state where you can completely forget it’s there, yet at the same time, it makes the experience of gaming with a mouse feel much smoother and more comfortable than a lesser pad or desk surface. Measuring 450 x 400mm, it provides a wide enough area to ensure you don’t stray over the edges, unless you fall out of your chair, and at only 3mm thick, it doesn’t feel like it’s in the way either. The top surface is made from very smooth fabric, which is ideal for precise or sweeping movements, and the underside has enough grip to ensure this big pad stays in place, but you can also move it easily enough if necessary. The demands of a mouse pad…

The idea of a screen cleaner with a lack of harsh toxic chemicals seems a little wrongheaded at first. After all, if you sneeze on my monitor, you’d generally want to obliterate all traces of it as ruthlessly as possible. However, this level of chemical warfare isn’t necessary, as the Ecomoist spray does a good job without needing to be particularly toxic or unpleasant (although you still wouldn’t want to get it in your eyes or mix drinks with it). The bottle is supplied with a small but thick absorbent cloth, which works very well for dust or spots, and refills are available if you want to go the extra planet-saving mile. SUPPLIER www.amazon.co.uk…

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. INTEL LGA1151 INTEL LGA2011-V3 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. GRAPHICS CARDS Graphics cards are mainly evaluated on how fast they are for their price. However, we also consider the efficacy…

It’s the only board on test to offer RGB lighting in the form of a backlit PCH heatsink SUPPLIER www.scan.co.uk /SPECIFICATIONS Chipset Intel Z270 CPU socket Intel LGA1151 Memory support 4 slots: max 64GB DDR3 (up to 3773MHz) Expansion slots Two 16x PCI-E 3, four 1x PCI-E 2 Sound Realtek ALC892 Networking Intel Gigabit LAN Overclocking Base clock 100-538MHz, CPU multiplier 8- 20x; max voltages, CPU 1.52V, RAM 1.55V Ports 6 x SATA 6Gbps (Z270), 2 x M.2, 1 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A, 1 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C, 6 x USB 3, 5 x USB 2, 1 x LAN, 3 x surround audio out, line in, mic, DVI-D, HDMI Dimensions (mm) 305 x 221 We’ve seen some fantastic budget boards from ASRock over the years,…

Audio performance was excellent, with a clear lead over all the other boards on test SUPPLIER www.scan.co.uk /SPECIFICATIONS Chipset Intel Z270 CPU socket Intel LGA1151 Memory support 4 slots: max 64GB DDR3 (up to 3,866MHz) Expansion slots Three 16x PCI-E 3, three 1x PCI-E 2 Sound Realtek ALC1120 Networking Realtek Killer Gigabit LAN Overclocking Base clock 80-500MHz, CPU multiplier 8-120x; max voltages, CPU 1.8V, RAM 2V Ports 6xSATA6Gbps(Z270),1xM.2,1xUSB3.1 Gen 2 Type-A, 1 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C, 8 x USB 3, 6 x USB 2, 1 x LAN, 3 x surround audio out, line in, mic, DVI-D, HDMI Dimensions (mm) 305 x 244 Gigabyte does have some cheaper Z270 offerings than the Z270-Gaming K3, but this is the board it chose to compete in our budget Kaby Lake…

The Western RPG and Japanese RPG are entirely different genres It’s tempting to think of gaming as a homogenised culture, that the Internet and digital distribution have transcended regional boundaries. On Steam you can purchase games made in hundreds of different countries. Enter any online shooter and you’ll play against people from America, France, Finland, Saudi Arabia and Korea, while World of Warcraft is played by individuals located from Cornwall to Chile. However, while some aspects of gaming are close to universal, others are not. Even if you consider gaming culture as broadly as Western (USA, UK and Europe) and Eastern (Japan, Korea and China), there are clear distinctions in the popularity and types of various games played, as well as the attitudes expressed within them. The Western RPG and…

After the brilliant first season of The Walking Dead, Telltale struggled to continue the momentum in Season 2. The story, which initially focused on the relationship between 11-year-old survivor Clementine and her adoptive father Lee, relied less on character building and more on shock value for its second season, and seemed to wander from one location to the next without knowing its destination. The third season’s subtitle, A New Frontier, infers a change in direction. It introduces a new main character, a more clearly defined enemy distinct from the shambling hordes, and an older, more capable Clementine. It starts promisingly. New protagonist Javier is kindhearted but unreliable, and he’s forced to come of age by the unfolding apocalypse, taking his nephew, niece and sister-in-law under his wing after the (presumed)…

If we’re being honest, virtual reality isn’t as new as headset manufacturers want us to think. The concept is as old as Plato’s cave and the hardware has been around for years too. I remember visiting the Eureka! children’s science museum as a kid and paying £5 to experience ten minutes in VR via the Forte VFX1, for example. Recently, I heard former Looking Glass Studios developers talk about experimenting with VR while making Thief: The Dark Project. This stuff has been around for ages. So, while manufacturers such as HTC may blow their marketing budgets trying to convince us VR is a new, exciting trend, what I want to know is whether or not the hardware will remain relevant once those budgets run out. VR has come and gone…

Nvidia might have inadvertently revealed its plans for a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti on LinkedIn before Christmas, but there’s still no sign of it in the official world, which means anyone who wants to run 4K games on a single GPU really needs a Titan X. Which would be all fine and dandy, of course, if a Titan X didn’t cost £1,099 inc VAT, which I think we can all agree is a silly price for a graphics card. There’s potentially another route to 4K gaming, though, using a pair of GTX 1070 cards in SLI configuration. GeForce GTX 1070 cards currently start at £396 inc VAT for a mini Zotac card from www.scan.co.uk, meaning you can potentially get proper 4K gaming performance for under £800, saving you over £300…

 Early access can be frustrating, with only 25 per cent of games reaching final release (EEDAR, 2014). However, Early Ninja is a new, as yet unlaunched, early access platform that claims to offer support for developers to ensure their games are delivered as promised. It has a website, https://earlyninja.com, a Kickstarter campaign and a staff photo of suspiciously good-looking hipsters. EarlyNinja put images of games on its site without permission EarlyNinja’s business model is to take 15 per cent of game revenue in return for assistance from a Sensei, which in martial arts-speak means ‘teacher’ but at EarlyNinja seems to mean some sort of project manager, producer and comms person who helps you to reach game development milestones. In January this year, EarlyNinja accused Thomas Was Alone developer Mike Bithell…

 SUPPLIER www.scan.co.uk Audio is better too, thanks to a beefed-up version of the ALC1220 codec SPECIFICATIONS Chipset Intel Z270 CPU socket Intel LGA1151 Memory support 4 slots: max 64GB DDR3 (up to 4000MHz) Expansion slots Two 16x PCI-E 3, two 1x PCI-E 2 Sound SupremeFX S1220A Networking Intel Gigabit LAN, 802.11ac Wi-Fi Overclocking Base clock 40-650MHz, CPU multiplier 8-83x; max voltages, CPU 2.1V, RAM 2V Ports 6x SATA 6Gbps (Z270), 2 x M.2, 4 x USB 3, 1 x USB 3.1 Type-A, 1 x USB 3.1 Type-C (additional ports via header), 2xUSB2,1xLAN,6x surround audio out, line in, mic, DisplayPort, HDMI Dimensions (mm) 244 x 244 While we’re still hopeful that Asus hasn’t killed off the mini-ITX Impact from its ROG range, it does look like one of our old favourites,…

There’s a nod to legacy hardware too, with the inclusion of an old-school PCI slot SUPPLIER www.scan.co.uk /SPECIFICATIONS Chipset Intel Z270 CPU socket Intel LGA1151 Memory support 4 slots: max 64GB DDR3 (up to 3773MHz) Expansion slots Two 16x PCI-E 3, three 1x PCI-E 2, one PCI Sound Realtek ALC892 Networking Intel Gigabit LAN Overclocking Base clock 100-538MHz, CPU Multiplier 8-120x; max voltages, CPU 1.52V, RAM 1.55V Ports 6xSATA6Gbps(Z270),2xM.2,1xUSB3.1 Gen 2 Type-A, 1 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C, 6 x USB 3, 5 x USB 2, 1 x LAN, 3 x surround audio out, line in, mic, DVI-D, HDMI Dimensions (mm) 305 x 221 The ASRock Z270 Pro4 goes head to head with the Asus Prime Z270-P (see opposite), and the stakes seem fairly evenly matched, as does…

Even the DIMM slots are coloured, and they’re fully enclosed in a chrome surround SUPPLIER www.scan.co.uk /SPECIFICATIONS Chipset Intel Z270 CPU socket Intel LGA1151 Memory support 4 slots: max 64GB DDR3 (up to 3800MHz) Expansion slots Three 16x PCI-E 3, three 1x PCI-E 2 Sound Realtek ALC892 Networking Realtek Killer Gigabit LAN Overclocking Base clock 98-538MHz, CPU multiplier 8-81x; max voltages, CPU 1.52V, RAM 2.2V Ports 6xSATA6Gbps(Z270),2xM.2,1xUSB3.1 Gen 2 Type-A, 1 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C, 8 x USB 3, 6 x USB 2, 1 x LAN, 3 x surround audio out, line in, mic, DVI-D, HDMI Dimensions (mm) 305 x 244 While Asus undeniably has some swanky looking motherboards in its current line-up, MSI has come out with unique and great-looking examples as well. The Z270 Tomahawk…

The padding varies in thickness to follow the contours of your head, for a secure feel SUPPLIER www.currys.co.uk By far the cheapest headset on test, the Corsair Void USB 7.1 is devoid of many extras but absolutely nails all the basics, making it a great option for the price. First and foremost, it’s a stereo headset with virtual surround, so there are immediate cost savings from only needing two drivers. You also miss out on the modular cabling of the SteelSeries and Razer headsets, as well as an external sound card or volume control. Instead, you get a fixed 1.8m USB cable, a fold-down, flexible (not bendable) microphone, a microphone mute button and a volume knob, the latter three of which are all housed on the left earcup. Lighting…

Type ‘butts’ during the game, and the fairytale façade peels away Glittermitten Grove is a sickeningly cute management game that harbours a deep, dark secret. You’re charged with building a village for a bunch of faeries in a sun-dappled wood. You must construct houses and storehouses on the branches of trees, while chopping down larger trees for their wood, and to let in sunlight so your trees can grow. Sunlight is also used to produce ‘sparkles’, which can be used to cast spells to grow your trees, or create fireworks that can be used to dig underground. It’s harmless, if simplistic, but Glittermitten Grove isn’t really Glittermitten Grove. If you dig deep enough, grow high enough, or simply type ‘butts’ during the game, the fairytale façade peels away like a…

It’s been some time since we last delved into the colourful code of GameMaker, in our attempt to make a game with no prior coding knowledge. We’ve so far learned that it’s possible, provided you have the right toolkit and tutorials available, and you’re willing to acknowledge that your first attempt probably won’t be very good. Now it’s time to bring this series full circle. We’ve covered many aspects of game making, including basic controls, implementing weapons, designing enemies and creating levels. In the process, we’ve discovered that game development requires both a fertile imagination and an eye for precision. Even with a basic understanding of coding, you can be surprisingly inventive. However, we still don’t have a game to show for it; Spider is really a single level that…

REVIEW Boldport Club Soldering kits have long provided a fantastic introduction to the world of electronics. From the pages of Popular Electronics and Elector to bundles purchased from Maplin and the like, most soldering kits have one facet in common: they’re designed to be accessible to the beginner and act as a training ground for soldering skills. The Boldport Club, though, offers a different spin on the introductory project kit. Positioned as the equivalent of a ‘wine-of-the-month’ club for electronics enthusiasts, subscribers to the Boldport Club get a new kit or other project through their letterbox on a regular basis. The only theme linking them is beauty. Each of the circuitboards in the kits is made by Boldport’s Saar Drimer, an expert at functional yet aesthetically pleasing designs, using the…

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 more CPU cores. Handbrake H.264 video encoding Our heavily multi-threaded Handbrake H.264 video encoding test 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…

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

Corsair K70 LUX RGB keyboard with your choice of switches TOTAL VALUE £160 inc VAT / MANUFACTURER www.corsair.com The K70 LUX RGB is a part of Corsair’s LUX flagship line of gaming keyboards, featuring Cherry MX key switches backed by a lightweight, durable aluminium frame and dynamic, multi-colour lighting. The USB pass-through port is positioned for uninterrupted gameplay and ready for your mouse or wireless headset adaptor. You can also harness the power of CUE for sophisticated macro programming and dramatic lighting effects and animations. Meanwhile, 100 per cent anti-ghosting with full key rollover on USB helps to ensure accuracy, so every keystroke translates directly into accurate gameplay. The contoured, textured FPS and MOBA keycap sets keep you in control, while the Cherry MX key switches give you a linear…