Custom PC UK February 2021

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 clear…

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 indicating…

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 can…

FRACTAL UNVEILS MESHIFY 2 Fractal Design has updated the design of its Meshify case range, which now includes some of the design tweaks from the company’s acclaimed new Define chassis. The cases’ new features include a fully removable top panel to make PC building easier, as well as a front nylon filter that can be removed if you want to increase airflow. In addition, Fractal is introducing a new line-up of Meshify 2 XL cases, which scale up the design to give you a roomier interior. Meanwhile, the new front panel design has a hinged removable mesh filter, and you get a USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C port on the front panel as standard. The cases offer plenty of room for water-cooling gear as well. According to Fractal, the standard Meshify 2…

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 two of them…

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, which may…