Custom PC UK

hobbyism@home

With the UK still under lockdown in order to limit the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, we wanted to make this issue little bit different from usual. You’ll still find all the regular reviews, Labs tests and columns, of course, but our features this month are dedicated to ideas for using your existing PC setup at home. For starters, if your PC already has a half-decent CPU-cooling setup, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to overclock your CPU. Our main feature on p72 is all about squeezing every last drop of performance from your processor, without having to upgrade to a new one (although a cooling upgrade may well help, naturally). If you’ve ever considered overclocking your CPU, but don’t know where to start (or you just don’t want to end…

wi-fi 6, but only maybe

If you’re shopping for a new Wi-Fi 6 router, you’ll be surprised to learn that, despite certifications, not all products offer the same features. ‘Wi-Fi 6’ is the marketing name administered by the Wi-Fi Alliance, and it’s supposed to make it easy to understand that a product, such as a router, smartphone or motherboard, offers a guaranteed set of features. You’d think that two Wi-Fi 6 devices would work together at the best speeds with all the bells and whistles enabled, s case some are only optional in the certification list. The certification list is separate from the IEEE 802.11ax specification This certification list is separate from the IEEE 802.11ax specification governed by the IEEE. The 802.11ax specification is public for anyone to view, but the same isn’t true for the Wi-Fi…

the who endorses gaming

Tables are turning. While gaming has been a mainstream hobby for decades, it’s never been officially endorsed by the World Health Organisation before. Quite the opposite, in fact. I’ve had more than one rant about ‘gaming disorder’ and the WHO’s role in overmedicalising and stigmatising games in this column, so this new move is quite a shock. In 2018, the World Health Organisation declared ‘gaming disorder’ to be a real, diagnosable condition, despite plenty of evidence against it, and the pleas of academics for (at the very least) more data before medicalising a hobby. As I wrote at the time,‘if someone is obsessed with Doctor Who, for example, they are not given a special diagnosis of Television Disorder. If they lock themselves away to paint miniatures or collect Elvis memorabilia or work…

incoming

NOBLECHAIRS TEAMS UP WITH BETHESDA Premium gaming chair maker noblechairs has announced a new collaboration with Bethesda Software, with plans to produce themed chairs based on Bethesda’s game imagery. The first game series to get the chair treatment will be Doom and Fallout, in the second quarter of this year, with more chairs based on other game series due to come later. The company has shared some concept art of the Fallout chair, featuring the iconic blue and yellow colour scheme, as well as Vault Boy and the Vault-Tec logos. Meanwhile, the Doom chair will be based on military green, and feature the Doom logo stitched on the headrest, among other design features. Keep an eye on noblechairs.com for more details in the future. In the meantime, we’ve reviewed the noblechairs ICON…

letters

What a mesh For the first time in years I’m looking at routers (as OpenReach has announced that FTTP will be in my area soon), and your article on the Netgear Orbi (see Issue 201, p30) raised a few questions. Firstly, how much?! Secondly, mesh seems to be the norm these days. My current 802.11n setup uses range extenders, but would you recommend mesh routers over separate range extenders? Thirdly, do all these modern mesh routers support FTTP and have the connections needed for fibre, or would I need some sort of fibre modem that’s networked to a mesh router to get Wi-Fi? ANDREW LEVICK Ben: I would absolutely recommend a mesh setup over using range extenders, if that’s your current setup. Having a mesh system means you don’t have to keep connecting to…

ekwb ek-aio 360 d-rgb / £140 inc vat

There’s an interesting battle between EKWB’s new EK-AIO 360 D-RGB and Corsair’s H115i RGB Pro XT (see p18) this month, and both approach premium all-in-one (AIO) liquid cooling differently. EKWB has gone for a 360mm radiator instead of the 280mm model used by Corsair, but the EK-AIO 360 D-RGB sticks to the realms of standard AIO liquid coolers with a slim radiator that’s 28mm thick and just under 40cm long. This is a far cry from the company’s monstrous expandable Predator and Phoenix coolers, but it will make it compatible with many more cases. Rather than relying on software to control its fan and pump speeds, the EK-AIO 360 D-RGB has separate 4-pin PWM connectors for both the pump and fans, allowing you to use your motherboard to control them. This…