Table of contents for February 2021 in Custom PC UK

The past three months have been enormously exciting and deeply frustrating for PC hardware enthusiasts. On one hand, the covers of our last three issues have all been devoted to awesome new CPUs and GPUs. AMD has soundly beaten Intel on the desktop CPU front, and now Nvidia and AMD’s absurdly fast GPUs are duking it out (see p16). All the new chips represent big leaps over their predecessors. On the downside, all of this is practically meaningless when you can’t actually buy any of it. Well, you can, but only if you’re lucky enough to make your purchase at the split second that stock goes live, or hand over double the price to a scalper on eBay. Bots are undoubtedly part of the problem here, but it’s also very…

SUPPLIER overclockers.co.uk It’s been a long time since we’ve reviewed a high-end AMD GPU, but AMD clearly thinks its new Radeon RX 6800 XT is in with a chance of competing with Nvidia’s mighty GeForce RTX 3080, arming it with a premium price of £680 inc VAT from overclockers.co.uk. This was the cheapest UK retail price we could find at the time of launch, although this is largely academic, as all the shelves were cleared of stock a couple of minutes later. Accordingly, we’re reviewing the Radeon RX 6800 XT in the same way we’re reviewing all the other graphics cards in this issue, which is on the basis that at some point the stock problems will die down and you’ll be able to buy it at the standard retail…

SUPPLIER scan.co.uk AMD’s 6-core CPUs have been some of our favourites over the past few years, and the Ryzen 5 5600X looks set to continue that trend. However, at £280, it’s not cheap and has plenty of stiff competition. The Ryzen 7 3700X has two more cores and four more threads, albeit based on older Zen 2 technology, and costs the same price, while the Core i5-10600K now retails for around £40 less and is a stellar gaming CPU. The Ryzen 5 5600X might only have a 65W thermal design power (TDP), but it’s still extremely potent, thanks to AMD’s new Zen 3 microarchitecture. It’s able to boost to a peak frequency of 4.6GHz, which is good, but also a fair bit slower than the 4.9-5GHz we saw with the…

SUPPLIER overclockers.co.uk While we’re finally seeing companies such as Samsung offer controllers for PCI-E 4 SSDs, the Phison E16 controller was the only option until recently, and there are still manufacturers pushing M.2 SSDs with this popular controller into a crowded marketplace. As we saw in our recent PCI-E 4 NVMe M.2 group test, only Samsung’s 980 Pro begged to differ with its own in-house controller. One such Phison-based drive is Teamgroup’s T-Force Cardea Zero Z440, which is left with price, aesthetics, software and cooling to win us over. While stock shortages have reduced it to pre-order status for now, its price of £180 makes it £10 more expensive than the likes of the Sabrent Rocket, which came top in our group test thanks to its low price and inclusion…

SUPPLIER overclockers.co.uk Asus’ ROG Strix Scope RX is designed for FPS gamers who demand lightning-fast key actuation, and it features Asus’ first opto-mechanical switch. These RX switches use infrared beams rather than metal contact plates, and the buttons have a linear design with a 1.5mm actuation point and a 40g actuation force. As a point of comparison, the last Asus Scope device we reviewed was the TKL Deluxe, which used Cherry MX Red switches with a 2mm actuation point and a 45g actuation force. Other common Cherry MX switches tend to be taller and need more force, and even Cherry MX Speed switches require more weight, despite their shorter actuation distance. Meanwhile, the latest optical keyboard we reviewed was the Corsair K100, which balanced a 45g actuation force with a…

SUPPLIER laptopsdirect.co.uk AOC C32G2ZE’s is an outlier in this test in a number of ways. Most obviously, it uses a VA panel, which isn’t common for 240Hz screens, as they tend not to have the same responsive feel of IPS or TN screens. It also measures a whopping 32in from corner to corner, despite sporting the same 1,920 x 1,080 resolution as the other panels on test. The upshot of that relatively low resolution on such a large panel is a very noticeably blocky image. This doesn’t make much difference in terms of usability, but the picture is far from sharp. AOC hasn’t equipped the C32G2ZE with a height-adjustable stand either. You can tip the panel forwards and back a little but that’s it for ergonomic adjustment. You’ll have to…

DEVELOPER id Software/ PUBLISHER Bethesda The Ancient Gods is an expansion pack to Doom Eternal in the same way that heavy metal is an expansion pack to rock music. It eschews the typical expansion territory of adding a bunch of new mechanics to the base game. There are no new weapons and only a couple of new enemies. Instead, it continues the story directly from the end of Eternal, adding three new levels that test your ripping and tearing skills to the limit. Within a minute of starting the first level – a sprawling UAC oceanic research platform – it’s clear The Ancient Gods isn’t messing about. Where it would normally warm you up with a bit of imp and soldier bashing, the opening battle throws multiple Revenants and Mancubuses…

DEVELOPER Frictional Games/ PUBLISHER Frictional Games Amnesia: The Dark Descent was an influential horror game, eschewing survival horror’s penchant for guns and combat in favour of storytelling, puzzles and being trapped in dark rooms with monsters. Set 100 years after The Dark Descent, Amnesia: Rebirth tells the story of Tasi Trianon, a French archaeologist whose plane crashes in the Algerian desert while en route to a dig site. Scrambling out of the wreckage, Tasi finds herself alone with no memory of what happened, and sets out into the sands to find her companions missing from the plane. Rebirth’s narrative is basically two stories rolled into one. The first largely concerns itself with Tasi, her past and what happened to the rest of her team. The second harks back to The…

STOCKING FILLERS These presents will put smiles on faces without devastating your bank balance SCREWDRIVER It may not be glamorous, but one of the most eternally useful additions to any PC tinkerer’s toolkit is a good screwdriver. Forget your multi-bit, ratchet fanciness. Just a solid No.2 Philips-head screwdriver with a long shaft will cover 90 per cent of your screwing needs when building a PC. The Stanley FatMax 65-224 (£7 from toolstop.co.uk) is a great option, as its 250mm shaft allows you to reach even the deepest recessed screws and its comfortable rubber handle provides good purchase. THERMAL PASTE Next on the essentials list is thermal interface material (TIM), or thermal paste to you and us. A tiny tube of quality TIM will not only last you many CPU and…

TOTAL PROJECT TIME / 2 HOURS Water-cooling enthusiasts used to covet chipset and VRM waterblocks that enabled you to cool these motherboard hot spots and open up extra overclocking potential. However, plumbing several waterblocks into your loop in close proximity was tricky, unsightly and expensive. Enter the monoblock, a single-piece waterblock that spans large areas of your motherboard and cools several hot spots, including the CPU. Their main attraction is that just a single inlet and outlet is needed to cool all these areas, making the job easier and better looking. Modern monoblocks even have RGB lighting and thermal sensor displays built into them. In this guide, we’ll look at how to prepare your motherboard for monoblock installation, and how to fit the block itself. TOOLS YOU’LL NEED 1 /…

Product launches from major brands such as AMD, Intel and Nvidia are always intense, with a huge amount of work behind the scenes in logistics, production, marketing and PR. The usual pattern is to see a spike in demand over the course of several weeks following the launch, as customers learn about the new products and build up confidence to buy. There have always been a few early adopters who buy on day one, but even these typically will read a few reviews before buying. The last few months saw that launch rulebook torn up and thrown out the window. The PC gaming market has seen a surge in demand since the start of the first lockdown earlier this year, with sales of gaming PCs, components and games up by…

There’s been a lot of fanfare about AMD’s Zen 3 CPUs, which top out at the Ryzen 9 5950X (see p31) with 16 cores and 32 threads – the same number of cores and threads as its predecessor. At this time, there’s no mention of a Threadripper 5000-series line-up, and I think it’s deliberate – AMD is focused on releasing new laptop and server platforms instead. This year AMD has made big gains in both these markets, and it needs to continue that momentum. Threadripper was always a halo product, and AMD now no longer needs that edge. I expect AMD either won’t release a 5000-series Threadripper range, or it will opt to work exclusively with systems builders rather than releasing them into retail. In fact, there are several trends…

Where’s the Ryzen 5 5600X? I was reading Issue 208 of Custom PC and I couldn’t help but notice that there was no in-depth article about the new Ryzen 5 5600X CPU. Is there a reason for this, or did I just not read that you were only testing some of the new Zen 3 CPUs? Either way, I also want to mention how much I love reading your magazine, so just keep up the good work! LANE WILKINSON Ben: Thanks for your kind comments, Lane. We worked together with AMD to make sure Custom PC was on sale on the same day as the Zen 3 launch, which was a great achievement for us, but also meant we had to compromise. There were four CPUs at launch, but only…

SUPPLIER nvidia.com I’ll admit that it feels rather silly reviewing this when we already know the stock levels are so miniscule. As such, we’re going to review this card on the basis that you’ll be able to buy it at this price at some point in the future when all the stock silliness dies down, but we’re well aware that it’s impossible to buy at the moment. With that out of the way, let’s take a look at what Nvidia’s practically non-existent mid-range GPU has to offer. Unlike the RTX 3080 and 3090, which are based on Nvidia’s top-end GA102 Ampere desktop GPU, the RTX 3070 uses the much smaller GA104 chip. It has a 392mm² die containing 17.4 billion transistors, compared with the GA102’s 628mm² die with 28.3 billion…

SUPPLIER currys.co.uk Acer’s Predator Triton 300 is one of the most affordable RTX laptops we’ve used, and this machine uses the Max-Q edition of the RTX 2070. It has 2,304 stream processors and 8GB of memory alongside base and boost speeds of 885MHz and 1185MHz. However, the full-fat RTX 2070 is quicker in our tests. Still, it should handle mainstream gaming without problems, and it’s paired with decent mid-range components elsewhere. The popular Core i7-10750H CPU has six Hyper-Threaded cores alongside base and boost speeds of 2.5GHz and 5GHz, and it’s paired with 16GB of dual-channel DDR4 memory and a 1TB WD SN730 SSD. You also get dual-band Wi-Fi 6 and Gigabit Ethernet. Aesthetically, the Predator Triton 300 doesn’t really push the envelope – there are big blue logos, outlandish…

Scan’s 3XS Absorbere makes use of two custom parts that modify its NZXT H710 case – the PSU shroud and the motherboard backplate. Both of these sections have been designed, manufactured and finished with automotive-grade paint by Scan to provide better cable management for complex systems, and the PSU shroud also has laser-cut logos. This sort of customisation is part of a new service that Scan is offering with its broad range of 3XS PCs. It’s now possible to have your name, gamertag or logo etched on any panel on your system. Plus, if you have a high-end water-cooling loop then Scan can also design a custom distribution plate that’s specific to your requirements, including different measurements, inputs, outputs and logos. Elsewhere, any 3XS machine can be enhanced with custom…

MR KIPLING /£1.50 for six Mr Kipling’s 2020 festive effort is a sweet, crumbly pie with a partially open-top star design. It has the sort of agreeable flavour you would expect from a pie setting out its stall in the comfortable area between pies that are trying to be avant-garde, and pies that are phoning it in. We’ve encountered plenty of pies over the years that don’t clear the hurdle of being pie-shaped and tasty, but this Mr Kipling mince pie makes it over the line. It’s not amazing, but it’s not awful either. CO-OP MINCE PIES /£1 for six A boldly zesty effort with a good texture to the pastry and the filling, despite the very basic design with just a star on top. The case has…

SUPPLIER argos.co.uk While it can’t claim the same headline-grabbing 360Hz refresh rate of its flagship sibling, the Asus PG259QN, the Asus VG279QM still packs an astonishing amount of gear into its package, while still costing well under £400. Perhaps the least meaningful of this display’s many high-end gaming features is its 280Hz maximum overclocked refresh rate. The monitor certainly had no problem achieving that overclock in our tests, and neither did the overclock detrimentally affect image quality. However, the extra 40Hz didn’t noticeably affect our gaming experience either. There’s a reason the next big leap is seen as being 360Hz, as you simply need that large an increase over 240Hz for it to be perceptible. Otherwise, the gaming experience is excellent. Boasting a 1ms response time, this display feels very…

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. 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 coolers, for example, or tall…

DEVELOPER Nolla Games / PUBLISHER Nolla Games Today it’s rare for a game to genuinely blow you away with its tech, given how good the majority of modern games look. It’s even rarer when that game looks more like one you’d play in 1990 than 2020. But don’t be fooled by Noita’s retro-styled pixel art. Wizardry lies beneath it, and we’re not referring to the magic wands that form your primary weapons in the game. Noita is a roguelike that, at first glance, looks cast firmly in the Spelunky mould. You play as a witch, who, for unknown reasons, must descend through a series of mines, caverns and other subterranean locations, picking up gold and attempting to survive the game’s enormously hostile environments. If you die, and you will, you’re…

NEWS I SPY A research team at Stanford University has devised a system that can identify individuals after just a five-minute session in a VR setup. According to the published research paper, the study (which involved 511 participants) saw the system identify 95 per cent of users correctly under ‘typical VR viewing circumstances, with no specially designed identifying task’. The experiment involved users wearing an HTC Vive headset with touch controllers as they watched 360-degree VR videos and answered questionnaires in VR, although the latter task was designed for a different research project. The researchers then took the tracking data from the head and hands of the participants and fed them into machine learning algorithms, creating a profile of the participants based on information that included height, posture, head rotation…

Project ONDA began as my first attempt at 3D modelling and CNC machining, as I had just upgraded my workshop with a CNC machine and I could finally stop doing every single thing by hand. The design came from a brainstorming session, where I was just drawing lines and seeing what would happen. ‘Onda’ is the Italian word for wave. I’ve always been inspired by space and sci-fi when coming up with new designs, and ONDA was no exception, as the crescent moons are the central point of this concept. The way they wrap around the hardware gives off that wavy look I was looking for. Other than the moon, I was inspired by a range of different other elements while designing ONDA: Japanese art; The Great Wave Off Kanagawa;…

The Micro:bit Educational Foundation has launched an updated version of its eponymous learner-focused microcontroller development board, the BBC micro:bit, four years after the original board was reviewed back in Issue 154. The updated model is priced the same, but includes a microcontroller with twice as much flash storage and eight times the amount of RAM, plus a built-in microphone and speaker for voice and audio projects. The radio is also recertified to Bluetooth 5, and the logo above the LED matrix display doubles as a touch-sensitive input. See microbit.org for the full details on the new board.…

TOTAL PROJECT TIME / 1 HOURS Once your water-cooling loop is set up, it needs very little maintenance apart from cleaning dust from the fans and radiators once or twice a year. However, the filling and leak-testing stage is undoubtedly the most tedious and hazardous part of the setup process, and getting it wrong can result in your loop taking much longer to build. Plus, we all know what can happen if it leaks all over your live circuitboards. What’s more, if air remains in your loop after you fill it, the noise created by this air will make your PC noisier than a typical air-cooled PC, rendering all your hard work pointless. There are some tried and tested methods of dealing with leak testing, filling and bleeding your loop…

Algorithms are often blunt instruments. I have fairly niche shopping interests that can be well served by smart algorithms, but I often laugh at the results. It doesn’t bother me because it’s based on my shopping history and I’m daft enough to allow tracking. What’s more sinister are ‘targeted’ ads that know I’m a child-free woman of a certain age, and therefore I must want adverts for fertility treatments. This is intrusive profiling, not based on my actions but on other aspects of my online behaviour or personal life, and the stereotypes associated with them. I shouldn’t have to use ad blockers to preserve some privacy around my ‘real’ life, as opposed to my online shopping behaviour. It feels like crossing the ethical line. But hey, it’s just advertising. I…

SUPPLIER scan.co.uk AMD is playing to the crowd and PC gam loving it. Shortly after delivering a devastating blow to Intel with the Zen 3 launch, AMD CEO Lisa Su lifted the lid on its RDNA2 GPUs in an online presentation, showing faster frame rates than the Nvidia competition. Is AMD’s GPU wing, formerly ATi, back? The truth is that it’s complicated. The launch kicks off with two GPUs, the Radeon RX 6800 and the 6800 XT (see p18). The Radeon RX 6800 has 60 enabled compute units, each of which contain 64 stream processors and one Ray Accelerator, AMD’s equivalent of Nvidia’s RT core. There isn’t an equivalent of Nvidia’s Tensor cores, but AMD tells us that it’s working on a new anti-aliasing mode for its Fidelity FX suite,…

Graphics cards have often been attractive targets for water-cooling systems, as their coolers can be noisy when gaming, and modern boosting algorithms actively take temperature into consideration too, meaning you can boost performance. Tie your graphics card to a water-cooling loop with a decent cooling capacity, and you can cut noise and temperatures by huge margins, allowing you to game in peace and quiet, while also having an awesome-looking PC. INSTALLING THE RX 6800 XT WATERBLOCK We’re happy to have one of EKWB’s first samples of its Radeon RX 6800 XT full-cover waterblock, so we can see if replacing the card’s triple-fan cooler is worth it in terms of boosting cooling and cutting noise. We’ll also show you how to install a waterblock on the RX 6800 XT in the…

SUPPLIER overclockers.co.uk If we could make one complaint to Phanteks about its cases over the years, it would be that the airflow and cooling haven’t always been top-notch. Thankfully, these cases’ cooling results have rarely been poor enough to be dealbreakers, especially when Phanteks usually includes excellent features and forward-thinking, unique designs. However, the company is now changing tack and offering cases with mesh panels and improved cooling, with the Eclipse P400A DRGB adding a top-to-bottom front mesh with RGB fans, plus some useful features. It’s an attractive case, and it comes equipped with a single glass side panel and three digital RGB 120mm fans (included and installed) in the front, pointing at a generous dose of positive air pressure – we would advise adding a rear fan to this…

SUPPLIER overclockers.co.uk The K60 RGB Pro is Corsair’s first keyboard (and one of the first in the world) to feature Cherry’s new lower-cost mechanical switch, the Viola. With a much simpler internal design that only uses four parts, compared with the eight parts used in Cherry MX switches, these true mechanical switches are designed to take on other budget switch designs, such as membrane or ‘membranichal’ switches. One of the obvious presumed benefits of a mechanical switch that uses metal springs and contacts over any rubber dome-based switch is a longer, more reliable lifespan, but Cherry hasn’t stated the lifespan of these switches, which is a bit disappointing. Nonetheless, we would expect these to last considerably longer. For now, the Violas are only available in a linear switch style, without…

REDSTORM PC GAME PAD/ £32.99 inc VAT SUPPLIER amazon.co.uk The Redstorm is that rarest of birds, a game controller designed purely for the PC, although it does share most of its layout with Xbox-pattern pads. The Redstorm uses a 2m long cable, so there are no concerns about batteries, connection, latency or other issues that might arise from using a wireless pad, with the obvious trade-off that you need to be sitting within reach of a USB port. Without the need for batteries, wireless hardware or extra sensors, the Redstorm is much lighter than your average a wireless pad, which is fine, but it takes a while to get used to such a lightweight pad when you’re used to today’s hefty controllers. This difference is particularly noticeable when the…

For decades, gaming has looked up to cinema as a bigger, smarter sibling. Even today, when the game industry has outgrown the medium of celluloid by some margin, film often remains the industry’s main inspiration when it comes to storytelling and structure. Whenever a rousing or dramatic event occurs in a game, that moment is generally described as being ‘cinematic’, a consequence of how games from Call of Duty to Red Dead Redemption ape the conventions of Hollywood. There are more great Star Wars games than great Star Wars films Ironically, though, games are often better at telling stories with some of cinema’s biggest franchises than cinema itself. If you want an example, look no further than Star Wars. There are considerably more great Star Wars games than great Star…

DEVELOPER Mossmouth/ PUBLISHER Mossmouth The original Spelunky was a key influence on modern roguelike games, ushering in a new era of titles that rely on random generation, logic-driven systems and being harder than Tyson Fury’s dietician. The sequel transports the first game’s randomly generated platforming to the moon, where the daughter of  the original game’s protagonist (Spelunky Guy), must descend through another endlessly shifting maze of hazards and horrors, being killed more frequently than Kenny from South Park. Spelunky gives you simple controls in a world that can produce complex interactions. Your basic abilities include running, jumping, a basic whip attack, and the ability to pick up and throw objects. Meanwhile, the game world is built according to a logical set of rules, where every part can interact with every…

AMD’s new RDNA 2 graphics architecture has been a long time coming, the driving force behind the long-awaited and much anticipated ‘Big Navi’ discrete GPUs. Already deemed worthy by Sony and Microsoft for use in both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, the launch of  the RX 6000-series graphics cards now presents RDNA 2 to the most discerning client of all: the PC gamer. RDNA originally launched last year, following a full eight years of iterative updates to Graphics Core Next (GCN) – the AMD architecture launched for PC in 2011 via the Radeon HD 7970. As a truly new architecture, then, RDNA was a welcome change in 2019, making its PC debut in the 251mm² Navi 10 GPU. In its full implementation comprising 40 Compute Units (CUs), this…

REVIEW Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 After the success of the original Raspberry Pi, launched back in 2012, the Raspberry Pi Foundation made a surprise discovery – while many of the low-cost single-board computers were going to their intended homes in education, others were popping up in industrial uses. The result was the launch of the Raspberry Pi Compute Module, a system-on-module (SOM) designed to be integrated into all sorts of devices, from consumer products to industrial robots. The Compute Module appeared to have been forgotten when the Raspberry Pi 2 launched, but the Raspberry Pi 3 brought a matching Compute Module 3, and the Raspberry Pi 3+ was followed by the Compute Module 3+. Now, the same technology at the heart of the Raspberry Pi 4 is available in…

I’m switching to AMD While my column is usually about modding and water cooling, I couldn’t help add my personal opinion about the launch of AMD’s Ryzen 5000-series CPUs. I’m honestly staggered at what AMD has achieved with the Zen 3 architecture, and find it incredible that the company is probably in a stronger position against Intel than it was with its  Athlon CPUs back in the early 2000s. AMD is now on par with Intel in games (faster in some of them), and its CPUs sport incredible performance in content creation too. I’m not a massive fan of Cinebench’s single-threaded test as an indicator of general performance, as it only takes a mundane background task niggling at your CPU to cut lightly threaded boost frequencies, but AMD’s scores in…