Custom PC UK July 2021

I could draw up a mile-long list of things that are overly complicated. TV model names; bin collection schedules; changing the time on the oven; board games based on the lore of H.P. Lovecraft. You could now reasonably add CPU overclocking to that list, which is why we’ve dedicated our main cover feature to it in this issue (see p78). My beard is speckled with enough grey hairs for me to remember when CPU overclocking involved changing the jumpers on your motherboard using a pair of tweezers, with a few limited options for your bus speed and multiplier. You might think that moving all this to the BIOS or EFI would make it easier, and for a while it arguably did. However, AMD’s introduction of huge core counts to mainstream desktop CPUs,…

From his now famous kitchen, Jensen Huang recently showed the world what he was cooking up for the future of Nvidia. Despite the name, sadly gaming graphics is no longer what the Graphics Technology Conference (GTC) is about. Instead, there was a lot of focus on AI, data centres, ‘accelerated computing’ and ‘intelligent networking’, with graphics served as a side dish. However, in discussion of Nvidia’s next-gen server chips, Jensen detailed a roadmap of CPU, GPU and DPU (essentially network processors) architectures, which showed a two-year cadence of each, with alternating years of CPU and GPUs. Last September, Nvidia’s Ampere GPUs launched, and this year, its Arm v9 architecture hits the streets. The next generation of GPUs is likely to land in the third quarter of 2022 That means the next generation of…

Non-fungible tokens are here! But a token for what? An arcade machine? An Overwatch loot crate? The jetwash at the BP garage? Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, will already be familiar to many of you, but for anyone who hasn’t yet wandered into the latest ‘under-construction’ intersection of art and technology, they’re tokens on a blockchain. You could buy an NFT hat and wear it both in-game and in-chair Where bitcoin is fungible, like paper money (if I lend you a tenner you don’t give me the exact same tenner back), nonfungibles are … well you get it. They’re unique. So in theory, when they’re applied to a piece of digital content (let’s say, an artwork, or a tweet), they create a way of securing ownership. Digital artists in particular are now selling…

AOC LAUNCHES NEW GAMING PERIPHERALS Monitor maker AOC is expanding its gaming product line-up to include keyboards, mice, monitor arms and mouse mats with its new range of accessories. The flagship is the new AGON AGK700 keyboard (pictured), which has a choice of Cherry MX Blue or Red switches, a metal alloy top, per-key RGB lighting and a detachable magnetic wrist rest. The design also sports a column of macro keys on the left, and a large volume control wheel in the middle. The keyboard line-up is further filled out with the GK200, which the company claims has ‘mechanical feeling’ membrane switches, and the mechanical GK500 in the middle, which uses Outemu Blue or Red switches. Meanwhile, the mouse line-up tops out at the AGM700, which has a 16,000dpi Pixart PWM3389 sensor and…

Radeon revival? While I understand why you’re listing eBay prices for GPUs on the Elite list now, I don’t understand where you’ve managed to find prices so low. In Issue 213, you list the GeForce RTX 3080 at a price of £1,200, but where on earth did you find it for that price?! Whenever I search ‘RTX 3080’ on eBay, they nearly all cost around £1,800, usually more. If I am going to be reduced to paying scalper prices (and let’s face it, that’s the situation if I want a new GPU right now), I wonder if I might be better off buying a Radeon RX 6800 XT instead – they seem to be going much cheaper than RTX 3080 cards, even if they’re still way overpriced. What do you think? NICK HOPKINS Ben:…

LGA1200 PROCESSORS INTEL ROCKET LAKE REVISITED Last month we just about managed to squeeze Intel’s 11th-gen Rocket Lake CPU coverage into Issue 213, reviewing the Core i9-11900K, Core i7-11700K and Core i5-11600K. The launch wasn’t easy for us to navigate under our time constraints, though, with our reviews using very early BIOS and software versions, which may have impacted on boosting, performance and overclocking. The most significant change, though, was that Intel announced its Adaptive Boost Technology just days before the launch, giving both us and motherboard manufacturers very little time to get to grips with it. We didn’t’ even have time to implement it in our testing, potentially painting the Core i9-11900K in a less positive light than it might have deserved. This month, now the dust has settled, Adaptive Boost Technology has…