Maximum PC的November 2021目录

YEP… LOOK, OK, we had two choices when writing the headline for the cover this issue. Either I went with Cool Runnings, or Silence of the Fans. Now, I know, I know, this is a family-friendly magazine, but given that it goes on sale on October 12th, well, I had no choice! What would you do? We rarely get these opportunities, so myself and the team decided to have a little bit of fun with the cover and of course, my Editor’s Intro here as well. It’s just a one-off. You won’t see it again next issue, so don’t worry (what I will say, though, is that if an opportunity comes up in the future to use Cool Runnings, and I get to dress up like the legendary John Candy,…

LIKE OTHER high-tech giants, Google is working on its own custom system-on-chips (SoCs) that will power PCs and tablets running Chrome OS. These SoCs are projected to offer capabilities not available on chips used by today’s Chromebooks and are likely to make such machines more competitive. Google’s SoCs for Chromebooks and tablets will be based on ARM architecture, Nikkei reports. It’s unclear whether the search giant will develop its own microarchitecture, or use ARM’s off-the-shelf Cortex cores. The company intends to roll out its first SoCs for PCs in 2023, but it’s not clear which custom features Google intends to add to its SoCs to differentiate them from those developed by companies such as MediaTek or Qualcomm. Apple was among the first tech firms to build SoCs for smartphones and…

8 $300 BUILD CHALLENGE This might be a surprising favorite. Why? Well, it’s $341 for an Intel system, in stock and affordable. Budget rig, complete with dual-core Pentium G440 processor, 8GB DDR4 @2400 and 275GB of SSD. 7 COUCH POTATOES Another console killer, the Raijintek Ophion Evo housed an AMD Ryzen 3 3100, and a Sapphire RX 5500 XT. Super clean and beautiful too—and, at just over $1000, pretty affordable. 6 COMPACT COMPUTING Built inside the NZXT H1 chassis, this tiny bundle of fun packed a Ryzen 9 3950X, 64GB of DDR4, 2TB of PCIe 4.0 SSD, and an RTX 2080 Super. And it didn’t set on fire (although some did). 5 MONOCHROMATIC PERFECTION The ultimate black and white build. Complete with Noctua Chromax fans, white Asus GeForce GTX 1060,…

MOTHERBOARD Asus TUF Gaming B560M-Plus RRP: $150 / street price: $150 A straightforward B560 motherboard with an mATX form factor for easy installation. The militaristic TUF branding might not be to everyone’s taste, but we like these chunky heat sinks. It has got both DisplayPort and HDMI ports to support our integrated graphics, too. asus.com PROCESSOR Intel Core i5-11600K RRP: $272 / street price: $286 One of the best midrange CPUs on the market right now, the Core i5-11600K has mercifully been holding steady close to its RRP. It has everything we need for this build; PCIe 4.0 support, integrated graphics, and a speedy 4.9GHz boost frequency. intel.com CPU COOLER Noctua NH-P1 RRP: $110 / street price: $110 This is the part that makes it all possible. Noctua’s new passive…

LIVE STREAMING HAS taken off in the past decade, to the point where it’s now ubiquitous across many social media platforms. So what is it? Live streaming is when video or audio content is simultaneously recorded and broadcast in real-time via the internet. Twitch and YouTube remain the most popular sites, but you can also find live streaming on social media sites, such as Facebook and Snapchat. Live streaming is a great platform to watch your favorite content and experience the anticipation you get when watching live television. Gaming is one of its most popular forms, but it isn’t the only reason to get into streaming. There are all types of media you can stream: lifestyle, sports, podcasts, craft, work, vlogs, travel, music, and much more—as long as it’s legal…

Sound too complicated? Thankfully, there is also an easy-to-use alternative to OBS. As part of Nvidia’s GeForce experience game launcher app, ShadowPlay is software that allows you to stream to Facebook, Twitch, and YouTube. It has fewer settings than OBS, and though that means less control over customization, it is still a great recording program. ShadowPlay uses an in-game overlay to record gameplay footage, whether this is live streaming or creating your own content from the footage. There are three simple options: instant replay, record, or broadcast live. When you click one of these, it brings up more settings to suit your needs. Like OBS, you have to link your streaming accounts to be able to broadcast live straight from the app. Once done, it is simple to go live, but…

THE RELEASE OF ANY NEW VERSION of Ubuntu is bound to attract potential switchers from other operating systems. These days, installing most types of Linux in general, and Ubuntu in particular, is no harder than installing Windows, and in many ways, it’s much easier. Crucially, it’s also free and, unlike Windows, there are several ways in which you can give Ubuntu a test drive without committing to a full-blown install. The Ubuntu installation media doubles up as a live disc, which loads a fully functioning version of Ubuntu without touching your hard drive, giving you the chance to try out its user interface and key programs in minutes. If you want to take it further, we recommend running it in a virtual machine, enabling you to install and try out…

THE HEADLINE NEW FEATURE in Ubuntu 21.04 is that Wayland has been restored as the default windowing system. After one previous failed attempt to replace the aging, if trusty, Xorg server back in Ubuntu 17.10, the folk at Canonical hope that second time’s a charm and have given themselves a year to make this attempt stick before the next LTS is released. So, what exactly does a display server do? It provides your PC with the means to run graphical environments powered by desktops like GNOME, enabling you to point and click rather than spend all your life at the command line. Think of it as a connecting layer that sits between the kernel and your chosen desktop environment. For decades, Linux has relied on the X Windows display server,…

WAYLAND MAY BE DOMINATING the headlines, but it’s by no means the only new feature that’s arrived in Ubuntu 21.04. Several other features are linked to Wayland, of course—the PipeWire project for one, with its aim of “greatly improving handling of audio and video under Linux”. It’s basically a replacement for pulseaudio and JACK, designed to work with containerized Flatpak applications, but also tying in neatly with Wayland’s tighter security requirements. In practical terms, its primary function is to restore the ability to both screen-share and record your desktop with compatible applications such as OBS Studio and Discord. It will also improve audio support in sandboxed applications, such as those installed through Flatpak. One interesting choice made in Ubuntu 21.04 is the one to stick with GNOME 3.38 (or more…

About iFixit iFixit is a global community of tinkerers dedicated to helping people fix things through free online repair manuals and teardowns. iFixit believes that everyone has the right to maintain and repair their own products. To learn more, visit www.ifixit.com. BACKGROUND Panic, the company behind this quirky not-a-Game-Boy, says it made this device “just for fun,” and it shows. From the 1-bit screen to its distinctive crank, the Playdate radiates novelty. We just hope it’s as much fun to tear down as it is to play. Full disclosure: Our unit came from Panic, who sent a Playdate for free. Unfortunately, it didn’t come with any games, so a teardown was all it was good for. Little did they know, that’s our favorite game. (Okay, they probably did know that).…

DCMOTO http://dcmoto.free.fr Minimum Pentium II 300 MHz and Windows 98. THIS MONTH, WE HEAD to France to explore a much-overlooked machine that can provide new experiences for hungry retro gamers. The Thomson MO5 is often referred to as “France’s BBC Micro”, and was the machine upon which many French schoolkids experienced their first taste of computing. The MO5 uses unique hardware combinations with innovations well worth exploring, so let us take you on a brief tour of MO5 history, before showing you how to emulate this quirky machine. 1 BACKGROUND Thomson is a French sister company to General Electric, which began experimenting with computing in the 1970s. In the 1980s, Thomson started producing French microcomputers to capitalize on high import taxes, beginning with the T07 (1982) and TO7/70 (1984). >>…

1. STATUS A few stats about the host machine, its temperature and memory usage. 2. MENU Everything you could need lives here on the left, including the ad whitelisting and help. 3. STATS Headline figures and graphs for what the Pi-Hole has been up to. 4. PI-HOLE MENU Click here for a link to the developers, or to donate. 5. QUERY TYPES See the percentage of requests being blocked, and what type they were. 6. PERMITTED AND BLOCKED DOMAINS Dig down deeper into the details of what’s being blocked, and which devices are phoning home.…

SOME SSD MANUFACTURERS go into forensic detail when it comes to the speeds and feeds for their latest and greatest M.2 drive. But not PNY. The new PNY XLR8 CS3140, reviewed here in 1TB trim and also available with a tasty 2TB of storage, is a case in point. No question, we know it’s a high-end model, with the quad-lane PCIe Gen 4 interface, claimed read speeds up to 7,500MB/s, proper TLC flash memory rather than cheap QLC chips, and that big, fat heat sink. Indeed, it’s faster on paper than both Sabrent’s Rocket 4 Plus and the Samsung 980 Pro, both of which are pegged at 7,000MB/s. It’s even a whisker ahead of the Adata XPG Gammix S70, which tops out at 7,400MB/s. That kind of raw pace is…

THE U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has released a document exploring the potential implications for national security following the arrival of a “brave new world” beyond the classical computing sphere. Entitled “Quantum Computing and Post-Quantum Cryptography FAQs”, the document looks at the potential security concerns arising from the creation of a “Cryptographically Relevant Quantum Computer” (CRQC), a quantum-based supercomputer powerful enough to break current encryption schemes. While these schemes are virtually impossible to crack with current supercomputers, a quantum computer poses a greater threat, due to the superposition states available to its computing unit, the qubit. It’s not just the expected $26 billion value of the quantum computing sphere by 2030 that worries security experts, but the possibility of quantum systems falling into the hands of rogue entities. The adversarial…

> Reuse components> Win11 sleep issues> Convert to GPT Cannibalizing old components I’ve been a subscriber since 1998 and have some components lying around I’d like to reuse. I would like to consider utilizing some or all of the following components: a Rocketfish RF-FULLTWR Aluminum Full-Tower Case (huge, great reviews and modable), a barely used 700-watt OCZGXS700 PSU, and a new A8-7670k CPU I bought as an impulse buy four years ago (along with a mobo I can no longer find). Alternatively, I have a new ASRock 775Dual-Vista 775 MB mobo I could build a system around, but my first thought is to use the A8 CPU, case, and PSU for a server build. I also have an ASUS U3S6 PCIe4 x4 card that offers USB 3.0 ports. I found…

So, you’ve decided to try your hand at live streaming? A great place to start getting to grips with Twitch is through the site’s Creator Camp program. From the basics of setting up to advanced tips and tricks, this informative hub has it all. Getting your content online can be a daunting step for many novice content creators, so why not check out the Creator Camp page for some ideas on how to start and hints and tips on how to get the most from Twitch. One of the most valuable building blocks of live streaming is to have a purpose. Twitch welcomes new viewers daily, so if you know what type of content they are looking for, it can help you build a specific stream. Generally, four themes make a…

Before software recording reached the sophisticated heights of today, video recording was predominantly done using capture cards. These are typically USB devices or PCIe express devices that can capture content from external hardware, such as a console or a camera. These are the most commonly used cards and both need to be connected to a PC for it to handle the processing of the data. In the consumer market, most of these devices have an HDMI input for connecting to a games console. The market is quite diverse, and there are plenty of different options available for different resolutions and different streaming needs. If you are constantly on the go or recording from several different devices, a USB capture card is the more sensible option as this runs on most laptops…

1 ELGATO RING LIGHT As anyone who’s spent any time doing photography and videography knows, good lighting is key, and the Ring Light aims to give you just that. With a diffused set of OSRAM LEDs surrounding the ring, you can easily mount your camera to the middle, and light yourself perfectly every time. 2 ELGATO GREEN SCREEN Elgato’s collapsible green screen is a well-designed and solid piece of kit. Using this and a software suite, such as OBS Studio, means it’s easy to remove your background from the shot entirely. This gives your stream a cleaner look and keeps your surroundings a little more private too. 3 ELGATO FACECAM It’s far easier to build a bond with your audience if they can see your face, so good video quality…

If you’d like to give Ubuntu a thorough test drive without committing an entire PC to it, the next step is to run it inside a virtual machine (VM). The best tool for the job is VirtualBox (www.virtualbox.org). You’ll also need a copy of the Ubuntu 21.04 install media in ISO format from www.ubuntu.com/download. In VirtualBox, choose Machine>New. Type Ubuntu 21.04 into the Name field and you’ll see it automatically assigns its type (Linux) and version (Ubuntu 64-bit). Check the default Machine Folder and change the drive if necessary, to one that has at least 32GB spare. Click Next and allocate it a minimum of 2,048MB (2GB) RAM, though preferably more. Leave ‘Create a virtual hard disk now’ and click Create followed by Next twice, then set the size to…

Backward compatibility is always a good thing when migrating away from a fundamental part of your operating system, which is where XWayland comes in. Legacy programs will only support the X windowing system, and XWayland provides Wayland with an X Server to facilitate them. The good news is that XWayland is installed alongside Wayland by default, so it’s just there, ready to provide you with X Server support when you need it, which covers most games. Better still, you only need know that XWayland exists, and there’s no configuration involved. You needn’t worry about performance, either. Benchmarks indicate that performance in Wayland is virtually identical (except with Nvidia drivers, hence the block). To find out if an open window is using Wayland or XWayland, launch xeyes from the Terminal. Roll…

If you’re running Ubuntu 20.10 on your PC, then keep an eye out for the prompt to update to Ubuntu 21.04. If you miss it, just open Software Updater and it should be offered to you. At the time of writing, the upgrade option was being held back because of a potential issue that prevents PCs running older EFIs from booting. This problem should be resolved by the time you read this, but if not, open Terminal and then issue the following command: $ dmesg|grep “EFI v” So long as the version number is greater than 1.10 you shouldn’t be affected by the bug. If you’re impatient to upgrade, force the upgrade with the following command: $ sudo do-release-upgrade -d If you’re running Ubuntu 20.04 LTS on the desktop, then…

ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR CC 2020 https://www.adobe.com YOUR STYLE AND THEMES are a huge part of your work and can eventually become your design language. However, you may not want to limit yourself to one specific style and, besides, it’s fun to find a new look and theme and play around with it. Illustrator is a great platform to design new ideas and to practice working on different styles. One of the most popular art styles you can create in Illustrator is flat vector artwork, which is something we touched on in our previous tutorials. This time, we focus on turning portrait pictures into flat vector artwork. There are plenty of ways to use this technique. You can create images for yourself, such as a quirky profile picture for your design work…

LINUX Some sort of Linux computer. A Pi Zero is a perfect choice at just $10. AN ACTUAL HONEST-TO-GOODNESS letter (well, an email) from a reader arrived in the busy Maximum PC newsroom recently. Once we’d read it, we were even more shocked to discover it was filled with sensible questions and ideas, rather than the usual offer of manhood-enhancing medication. So thanks to Shawn, without whom we might have written about something completely different this month. Shawn’s suggestion relates to Internet of things (IoT) devices, specifically smart lightbulbs, which he wants to connect to a segmented guest network to deny them full access to the wider internet while keeping their useful functionality. He found he could do this with his guest network, but the presence of a Pi-Hole network…

I’m getting Fiber! All of the internet, all of the time IT’S HAPPENING. It’s finally happening. I’m getting fiber to the property. Hopefully, soon, if I’m lucky. They’re digging up the road in my area and installing the good stuff in my town. Contractors are in, and the work is underway, or so I’ve been told. I’m currently paying around $62 a month for 145Mb/s down and 17Mb/s up, which isn’t too bad. However, once the optical is installed, I should be able to get 900Mb/s up and down for just $68 a month. The only problem is, I’m still stuck in an 18-month contract, so I may have to wait a bit unless I pay to get out early. It got me thinking though, that is the top package…

MSI MAKES SEVERAL decent-performing laptops that offer plenty of bang for your buck, especially at the budget end of the market. Other elements of the company’s laptops let them down though and often hold MSI back from getting rave reviews. We understand that you can’t expect perfection at this price range, but with the MSI Katana GF66 laptop sitting squarely in the budget bracket, can this model cut through these preconceptions? It looks pretty similar to other MSI products in this range, especially the Bravo 15 laptop we reviewed earlier this year. Its slightly angular all-black design creates some sharp chassis lines that make the laptop stand out from the crowd. Straight out the box, it looks utilitarian and feels pretty rugged and sturdy. It’s not the sleekest looking thing,…

WE’VE GOT SOMETHING a little bit different for you—a router. For the first time in a while, we’re starting up our router reviews again. Now, you’ll have to bear with us, as this format and its associated benchmark testing is likely to change quite dramatically over the next year or so, but it’s an area that we want to iron out properly and get more into the mag. So, what have we got here? This is Asus’s latest ROG GS-AX5400 WiFi 6 router, a somewhat premium offering, clocking in at just shy of $250. Being part of the ROG Strix lineup, it’s definitely a more ‘gaming-centric’ device and the design very much screams that. There’s a bold holographic ROG logo on the top (thankfully not RGB), followed by some (sadly…

Corsair celebrated its “fan week” in August, by debuting one of the most ridiculous concepts ever put into production—an oversized 500mm LL RGB fan that’s 10 times the size of its industry counterpart, and with stats we can only surmise (expect static pressure and RPM to be low). The company released a parody video of it working, complete with RGB lighting with the tag line “Bigger fan = Bigger Cooling”. Although the actor misunderstood the direction in which the fan blows air, it’s nice to see the company not taking itself too seriously. Corsair has confirmed the 500mm LL RGB fan won’t be going into production, and that it was a very late April fools video.…

COMPUTERS CAN BE NOISY so and so’s, can’t they? Whether it’s the high-pitched whine of an AIO pump, the whirr of an HDD, or the roar of a gaming laptop’s fans, we’ve all heard the effects of systems trying their best to mitigate heat. Thermal design has come a long way in the past few years, with each new generation of components producing less waste heat for the level of performance on offer. Heat management is still an important business. If you’re into overclocking, or use your system for resource-intensive tasks that put components under duress, you’ll need a serious cooling solution. That means fans; usually lots of them. Case fans, radiator fans, CPU fans, GPU fans… even motherboards can now pack tiny fans for keeping your SSD cool. Of…

IT CERTAINLY FEELS a bit strange to hit the power button on a freshly assembled build and hear absolutely nothing. It’s actually not that strange, but the usual cause is that the system is failing to boot because we have a loose connection or a faulty part. Mercifully, our fanless PC booted on the first attempt, and we enjoyed the manifold pleasures of installing Windows without any fan noise to irritate us. Before we jump into the numbers with our benchmark testing results, we feel compelled to say that this system exceeded our expectations in numerous ways. Yes, it did get pretty warm, but we were prepared for that; in a well-ventilated room, the Core i5-11600K idled around 40°C, which is considerably above average, but completely within acceptable parameters. Running…

As anyone who’s ever tried to work out a restaurant bill, including drinks, taxes, and tip, already knows, some math is difficult. Expand that by several orders of magnitude, and suddenly you’re simulating the effects of a nuclear bomb, or protein folding, or calculating how many oil rigs to send up the Bering Strait before winter, and your needs go beyond mere computers. You need a supercomputer. Established in the 1960s, supercomputers initially relied on vector processors before changing into the massively parallel machines we see today in the form of Japan’s Fugaku (7,630,848 ARM processor cores producing 442 petaflops) and IBM’s Summit (202,752 POWER9 CPU cores, plus 27,648 Nvidia Tesla V100 GPUs, producing 200 petaflops). But how did we get to these monsters? And what are we using them…

1. USE UBUNTU LIVE MEDIA The simplest way to partition your drive is using the Ubuntu live media. After clicking Try Ubuntu, click the icon at the top of the Launcher on the left to open the Dash—this is the tool used to search Ubuntu. You should see GParted in the list (type gparted to bring it up if not), click it to launch the tool. 2. SELECT TARGET DRIVE GParted will open with the current boot drive (typically dev/sda, or dev/nvme0n1 in the case of NVMe drives) selected in the top right corner. This should be the drive Windows is installed on if you wish to share it with Ubuntu. Use its size and the partition list beneath to verify it is the correct one. 3. FREE UP SPACE…

1. CONFIGURE NVIDIA-GRAPHICSDRIVERS. CONF Type sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-graphics-drivers.conf and hit Enter. A blank file or existing config file may open. Simply add the following line, save and then exit: options nvidia_drm modeset=1 2. CHECK /ETC/GDM3/CUSTOM.CONF Now type sudo nano /etc/gdm3/custom.conf and hit Enter. Verify the line WaylandEnable=False has been commented out like so: #WaylandEnable=False Save and exit again. 3. COMMENT OUT RULES Type sudo nano /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/61-gdm.rules and hit Enter. Make sure all lines are commented out using # as shown above. Save and exit, then reboot When you log in, you should see a settings cogwheel on the main screen. Verify that it is set to Gnome to boot into Wayland.…

TIP OF THE MONTH NEARBY SHARING If you have multiple Windows devices or want to share files with another Windows device, then this tip may help you out—it’s pretty much Microsoft’s alternative to Apple’s AirDrop. Go to the shared experiences tab in Windows settings and turn on nearby sharing. Now, when you hit the share button on items such as photos or documents, you should be able to see any computers nearby with the same setting applied. Then you should be able to send the files over to them hassle-free. SETUP IMPROVEMENTS I’m lucky when it comes to tech and peripherals. The nature of writing product reviews and testing the kit for Maximum PC means that I often have a lot of cool gear I can use in my setup…

Creating minimal vector imagery may seem pretty simple in theory, but it’s easy to stumble across a few problems when creating your own images. One common issue is when you need to add detail into shapes, which often involves cutting shapes out of objects to create holes. Again, it sounds simple, but can get quite confusing—unfortunately, you can’t just use the eraser tool. After this mini-tutorial, hopefully this step will be made clear. In the first image (above, left), the shape in the center is white but after a little transformation and cutting out, it is transparent (above, right). One way of taking the front shape and cutting it through the back shape is by using the pathfinder. To do this, first highlight both shapes, then go to the pathfinder…

AFTER MONTHS OF SPECULATION and waiting, AMD’s not-really-budget Navi 23 GPU has arrived in the form of the RX 6600 XT. It brings all the advantages of AMD’s RDNA2 architecture, such as the Infinity Cache and ray accelerators, but cut down to manageable sizes. But after nearly a year of GPU shortages, the things we’d really like to see fixed remain a real problem: pricing and availability. The base model RX 6600 XT cards, including the Sapphire Pulse we’re using for this review, supposedly start at $380. There were even cards available at launch for that price, but to the surprise of absolutely no one, those sold out and now we’re seeing the RX 6600 XT listed on places such as eBay for $600 or more. Let’s be clear: This…

RAZER’S RAPTOR 27 was already one of the sleekest and most desirable gaming panels on the planet, certainly in the 27-inch class. Now Razer has given it a nip and tuck to keep it relevant in the fast-moving monitor market. The new model is a dead ringer for Razer’s Raptor 27 monitor, with the same all-black minimalist design and lush forged aluminum stand, complete with novel cable management. Included are a set of bright green proprietary cables, one each for the Raptor’s interfaces including power, video inputs, and USB connectivity. These flat cables are designed to slot into the channels on the rear of the tilt and height-adjustable stand, which are covered by removable slats. HDMI, DisplayPort, and USB-C are included, and the latter supports both device charging and the…

UNBOXING and handling HyperX’s latest 60 percent keyboard is an absolute joy. This feels like a premium product from the start, with a sturdy aluminum chassis and multi-level rubber feet that keep it completely stationary on any surface. The keycaps are doubleshot PBT, with a matte surface that feels comfortable and grippy under the fingertips. A simple but durable braided cable connects via a USB-C port on the rear of the keyboard to a USB-A port on your PC or laptop. Imagine how happy we were to find out that this dinky, but robust, keyboard only costs a hundred bucks! Sure, it’s still pretty far from the budget keyboard space, but looking at the competition from brands like Asus, Razer, and Ducky, it’s hard to argue with that price point.…

STRATEGY GAME YOU CAN’T WRITE about historical 4X games without mentioning Civilization, and yes, Humankind is, on the surface, a bit like Civilization. There’s a hex grid you can hide, you start in the stone age, and given half a chance, your neighbor will move its tanks into your capital even though you’ve been trading resources amicably for years. One major difference, though, is that there’s only one way to win a game of Humankind. Another is that it’s a race. Humankind differs from Civilization in that you don’t play as the same culture all the way through (unless you want to), but pick and choose from available societies depending on what your aims are in the next era. So a good solid foundation in food and population growth in…

VIDEO STREAMING can be split up into several different sectors: Most TV channels have an additional website for catch-up TV; there are subscription sites, such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney+, that charge a monthly fee to watch on-demand films and TV series: and then there are websites, such as YouTube and Twitch, that host unique content in the form of video clips or live streaming videos. These sites have helped the internet take over from traditional television as an entertainment medium. So, in this issue’s head-to-head, we’re going to focus on these two giants. Now one of the main players in the online video industry, YouTube had humble beginnings. In 2005, Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim had the idea of a platform where people could share ‘home…