Table of contents for October 2022 in Custom PC UK

Every PC builder has to start somewhere, and I know from past experience that many people will be starting their computer construction journey with this ‘PC building masterclass’ issue of Custom PC. If this is the first issue of Custom PC you’ve ever picked up off the shelf, then I’d like to welcome you to the world of custom computers, where you get the exact spec of PC you want, and the satisfaction of knowing you’ve built it all yourself. It’s for this reason that our lead feature this month (see p72) goes back to the basics of PC building. Don’t worry, that doesn’t mean it’s going to be several pages of patronising drivel with no substance. Rather, it’s going to be taking you through every step of the build…

Nvidia has started offering a £280 rebate on purchases of its top-end GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition card. While that might seem pretty generous on the face of it, the card already costs £1,879 inc VAT, so that’s still £1,599 for a card that isn’t massively quicker than the £1,049 GeForce RTX 3080 Ti in games (see Issue 226, p19). We’d also advise against spending so much money on a high-end graphics card when the next generation of GPUs is on the horizon, but if you want the current fastest GPU available, you can get your card and rebate from store.nvidia.com now.…

EXTREME ULTRA Some products are gloriously over the top. They don’t always offer amazing value, but they’re outstanding if you have money to spend. PREMIUM GRADE Premium Grade products are utterly desirable, offering a superb balance of performance and features without an over-the-top price. PROFESSIONAL These products might not be appropriate for a gaming rig, but they’ll do an ace job at workstation tasks. APPROVED Approved products do a great job for the money; they’re the canny purchase for a great PC setup. CUSTOM KIT For those gadgets and gizmos that really impress us, or that we can’t live without, there’s the Custom Kit award.…

SUPPLIER scan.co.uk Supplied as a triple pack in the UK, the FC120s feature fantastic digital RGB lighting, which does a good job of diffusing across the semi-transparent blades. The fans each have inputs and outputs, allowing you to daisy-chain them together, so you only need one 4-pin fan header and one 3-pin RGB header to control their speed and lighting. Each fan has chunky anti-vibration mounts too, but the best bit is the price. At just £35 for three fans, you’re paying a little more than a tenner a fan. They’re powered by a SATA connector, so they only need the PWM signal from your motherboard’s CPU fan header to work. However, our Asus test motherboard’s AI Suite software wasn’t keen on talking to the fans. Manually setting the EFI…

SUPPLIER quietpc.com The £12 Gelid Radiant-D boasts a reasonable peak speed of 2,000rpm and also has RGB lighting. There are no accessories in the box, and it has a basic fan frame and design, but thankfully Gelid hasn’t cut the 4-pin PWM connector. Despite having a 4-pin RGB connector, though, it only supports 5V 3-pin headers, and using the former can actually kill the lighting circuitry. There’s nothing in the box mentioning this, which is a serious problem. At full speed, there was a mild whine but significant airflow noise. The noise did at least translate into airflow and static pressure, with the Gelid landing the third best airflow speed on test of 2.2m/sec, only beaten by the Phanteks T30 and be quiet! Silent Wings 4 High Speed. Its airflow-to-noise…

SUPPLIER quietpc.com Scythe’s Kaze Flex 120 RGB has a 4-pin header, so lighting controls impact all LEDs, resulting in one colour at a time. The lighting looks good, though, with the semi-translucent blades allowing the illuminated hub to dish out colour all the way along them. There’s also only 3-pin speed control, rather than 4-pin PWM, but most motherboards can still control 3-pin speed effectively. You get a Molex cable in the box too. There are several variations available, with our sample hitting a peak speed of 1,800rpm. Its peak noise of 66dBA here was average, with a noticeable whine, but many other fans exhibited the same issue. Airflow was excellent, though, at 2.16m/sec. This puts it just behind the slightly louder Gelid Radiant-D, but comfortably ahead of the Noctua…

SUPPLIER overclockers.co.uk With a relatively high price, the MSI MAG274QRF-QD comes with high expectations. It’s good, then, that this display comes with features such as quantum dot technology in its LCD panel, and a USB Type-C connection round the back. Another addition is a slash of RGB lighting across the back. Along with some aggressive angles in the plastic of the base and back of the panel, this makes for one of the more obviously gamer-centric designs of the monitors on test. Thankfully the design isn’t too wacky, and this display is also impressively slim. Otherwise, it’s largely on par with the other monitors on test, with the same core panel specs and a refresh rate that tops out at 165Hz. The monitor’s stand offers a full complement of ergonomic…

PC and mobile gaming have historically been treated as separate entities, on the face of it, with good reason. The PC is the home of premium gaming, of the best-looking mainstream experiences and the most complex strategy games. On the flip side, mobile’s most popular experiences have tended to be casual puzzlers, such as Angry Birds and Candy Crush Saga. However, PC and mobile gaming aren’t as different as they might first appear. The gap between the two has shrunk markedly over the past few years, and the amount of crossover is growing. This opens up some intriguing new opportunities regarding how we play games together, but it also comes with significant risks in terms of how the biggest games are made. Today’s smartphones are markedly more powerful than they…

Half-Life: Alyx’s modding scene is surprisingly vibrant, with available mods ranging from alternate stories in the Half-Life universe to an attempt to recreate BioShock’s Rapture in VR. But by far the most exciting mod project in the works is Half-Life: Alyx: Levitation, which could easily be mistaken for an official expansion to Valve’s VR masterpiece. Developed by a pair of veteran Source modders, Levitation is a four or five-hour campaign that continues Alyx’s solo adventure. Specifically, it sees her investigating a distress signal from two Resistance members about a mysterious floating building in an area of City 17’s Quarantine Zone named Sector X. Levitation is so impressive that it was shown off at this year’s PC Gaming show. The seven-minute demo centred around a chapter called Dig Deep, in which…

The AIO here stands for ‘all-in-one’, and these coolers essentially offer a sealed loop comprising a pump and waterblock that sit on your CPU, plus a radiator with fans mounted to it, which work in a similar way to an air cooler. With two key components making up the setup, they’re slightly more complicated to install than air coolers, but the process is still straightforward. We’ll run through the whole process of installing one here, so you can refer back to it later when we cover the key PC building steps. Start by removing the plastic protective film off the underside of the pump’s contact plate 1, then source the parts from the box needed to fit the block to your motherboard’s specific CPU socket. As with most coolers, several…

Clockwork Pi’s retro-themed DevTerm portable PC (reviewed in Issue 222) has received another system-on-module accessory – an adaptor board for the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 (CM4). Designed to slot into the existing DevTerm motherboard, the CM4 carrier sits alongside the in-house A-06 and A-04 modules and the original CM3 support, plus the new and still experimental RISC-V SOM built around the Allwinner D1. The adaptor is available to buy as a standalone upgrade for $19 US or with the full DevTerm kit for $238 from clockworkpi.com (around £15.50 and £194 respectively, ex VAT).…

TOTAL PROJECT TIME / 2 HOURS If you’ve noticed your CPU running hotter on warm days, you might also have wondered if shoving cool air from outside your case directly into your CPU cooler would have the opposite effect. Doing so would shave a few degrees or more off the CPU temperature, thanks to cooler air flowing through your cooler’s heatsink, and the resulting larger temperature difference between the heatsink fins and air temperature. That’s not to say modern cases are flawed, as many have excellent airflow. However, your motherboard, CPU cooler and graphics card all dump significant amounts of heat into your case, meaning your chassis’ internal air temperature will be noticeably higher than the air in the room. However, you can use ducting to feed your CPU cooler…

Intel’s 13th-gen CPUs, AMD’s Ryzen 7000-series CPUs and possibly Nvidia’s RTX 4000-series GPUs are a month or two away, but if you’re looking for a cost-conscious build that maximises price-performance, you’ve most likely been holding out for the past few years while GPU prices have been extortionate. However, I think current-gen hardware is definitely worth a closer look, despite all the new hardware on the horizon. As one example, MSI has just launched its MAG B660M Mortar Max WIFI DDR4 motherboard, which includes an external clock generator. This enables you to overclock 12th-gen non-K-series CPUs, giving the venerable Core-i5 12400F a shot at hitting 5GHz. Some other boards could do this already, but they were expensive and used DDR5 memory, whereas the new Mortar Max promises to be much more…

Lian Li has updated its award-winning line-up of Lancool cases with a full-tower model. The Lancool III has three 140mm PWM intake fans in the front as standard, as well as a 140mm PWM exhaust fan. Making room for fans and cooling gear is clearly Lian Li’s main goal with the new case, with room for a 360mm radiator in the top, front and bottom of the chassis. The spacious interior also has room for an E-ATX motherboard up to 280mm wide, and a graphics card up to 420mm long. There’s plenty of room for storage too, with the ability to accommodate four 3.5in hard drives and eight 2.5in SSDs simultaneously. Meanwhile, hinged side panels make for easy access, and they’re split, with separate hinged panels for the PSU area…

ADATA has lifted the lid on its first PCI-E 5 SSD, quoting a colossal sequential read speed of up to 14GB/sec. The XPG PCIe GEN 5 uses a Silicon Motion SM2508 controller, and comes in capacities up to 8TB. The drive uses four PCI-E 5 lanes to hit its top speed, and supports the new NVMe 2 protocol. ADATA has also quoted a sequential write speed of up to 12GB/sec for the drive, while 4K random read and write speeds are quoted at 1.8 million IOPS and 1.6 million IOPS respectively.…

SUPPLIER corsair.com We were impressed by the modest styling and wonderfully soft plush fabric of the first Corsair gaming chair we reviewed, the T3 Rush. However, it was quite basic, with a hard, narrow seat cushion and aggressively high sides. It made for a slightly more authentic racing seat feel than some chairs, but it wasn’t that comfortable or suited to large sitters. The TC200 is an altogether more generous chair, with a wider seat and back, more padding and a few extra features. Available in light grey or black, the TC200 has a muted, simplistic styling, but it doesn’t quite have the same sleekness of the T3 Rush. It’s available in either leatherette or plush fabric finishes. The former gives you a wipe-clean surface but some areas are perforated…

SUPPLIER custompc.co.uk/PrismNova PC Specialist’s new Prism Nova pairs an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 GPU with an Intel Core i5-12400F CPU – a combination that’s proving popular inside affordable gaming rigs. The Nova’s Zotac graphics card has an overclocked boost speed of 1777MHz, 12GB of memory and includes 3,584 CUDA cores. Meanwhile, the Core i5-12400F is our budget gaming CPU of choice, including six Hyper-Threaded P-Cores and a boost clock of 4.4GHz. The Nova also includes 16GB of DDR4 memory running at 3200MHz, and a 1TB Intel 670p PCI-E 3 SSD with read and write speeds of 2,436MB/sec and 2,142MB/sec. All the gear is powered by a Corsair TX650M PSU, which has 80 Plus Gold certification and a semi-modular design – a fine inclusion at this price. Those components attach to…

SUPPLIER amazon.co.uk The RedThunder Mini Gaming Keyboard tries to take the left half of a keyboard and turn it into a different device – it feels almost exactly like half a keyboard. There’s no ergonomic refinement – it’s like somebody lopped a chunk off a regular keyboard and wired it back up. This immediate familiarity makes it surprisingly easy to get used to the RedThunder if you’re coming from a full-sized keyboard. The lighting is good enough, and easy to control using a function button that replaces the Windows key – you can pick static colours, wave patterns, or just turn it off. It’s not mechanical, but it feels fine in use. The RedThunder is unambitious but competently assembled, and as a space-saving, sawed-off alternative to a full-length keyboard, it’s…

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SUPPLIER overclockers.co.uk On paper, the Silent Wings 4 High Speed boasts some hefty specs. Hitting a peak of 2,500rpm, this model offers a massive claimed 3.96mm H2O static pressure, in part thanks to small blade-tip clearances, while a six-pole motor and fluid dynamic bearing reduces vibration and noise. The fans come with easy-to-use push-pin corner clips for mounting in cases, with separate clips for use with coolers and radiators. However, there’s no RGB lighting here. Sound quality was exceptional, and at full speed, the be quiet! managed the second lowest noise level on test, despite also hitting a massive 2.6m/sec in airflow, which was second only to the monstrous and deafening Phanteks T30. This gave it the third best efficiency. It managed the lowest noise at 1,000rpm, but it did…

SUPPLIER overclockers.co.uk Picking up our Premium Grade award in our last fan Labs, the Noctua NF-P12 redux offered great performance for the price. There’s some stiff competition now, though, with alternatives that can ramp up further than the NF-P12 redux’s paltry 1,700rpm. That’s likely all you need for a case fan, but you might need more if you need to deal with significant amounts of heat on rare occasions. It also lacks RGB lighting, unlike several similarly priced fans. However, in the flesh, it looks fantastic, shedding Noctua’s usual brown colouring in favour of gunmetal grey. The NF-P12 redux still holds its own, although it slips down the table in a few tests. It has decent efficiency at full speed, outstripping the XSPC RGB Series 2, Scythe Kaze Flex 120…

SUPPLIER scan.co.uk Thermaltake’s Toughfan 12 looks premium, feels premium and has a relatively premium price, at £18 each or £32 for a pair. It can cope with any situation too, with its peak speed of 2,000rpm sitting higher than that of the Noctua NF-P12 redux and Deepcool FC120. It also has a hydraulic bearing and steel-reinforced motor hub, plus large anti-vibration mounts and liquid crystal polymer fan blades, which Thermaltake claims reduces vibration. It lacks RGB lighting, but it does come in a variety of colours, allowing a modicum of colour matching to the rest of your hardware. At full speed, it matched the Deepcool FC120’s lowest noise level on test of 55dBA, but wasn’t quite able to match the Deepcool’s airflow and efficiency, despite having a higher RPM. Dropping…

SUPPLIER box.co.uk AOC’s AGON AG273QXP hosts the same core specs of the other displays on test, with a 27in IPS panel and 2,560 x 1,440 resolution, but the AG273QXP adds a few extra goodies to the formula. The most prominent one is the quality stand. It’s made from solid metal, from its curved pointy feet all the way up to the useful carry handle at its top. It looks great, feels secure and its range of ergonomic adjustments – height, rotation, pivot and tilt – all feel smooth. Around the back you also get a ring of RGB lighting. It’s not bright enough to provide an eye-strain-reducing glow behind the panel, but it’s a fun decorative extra. Other premium touches include the use of USB 3.2 ports for the 2-port…

SUPPLIER iiyama-monitors.co.uk The GB2770QSU is the cheapest display on test this month, though not by a huge margin. Nonetheless, its low price makes for a strong start, and while there are a few signs of cost cutting, it largely keeps up with its pricier peers. Where that low cost is somewhat in evidence is the basic design. While several of the monitors in this Labs test have quite plain styling, the iiyama is perhaps the most lacking in any flair. The centre of the V-shaped stand is about the only curve used on the whole display, and it’s a similar story with the ergonomic adjustment of the stand. It offers height, pivot and tilt adjustment, but rotation (turning the display left and right) has been left out. It’s a small…

SUPPLIER cclonline.com ViewSonic’s flagship Elite range of gaming monitors pack premium features aplenty, leaving the likes of the Elite XG270QG demanding a high price, despite having nearly the same core spec as many monitors in this test. It’s good, then, that ViewSonic has a more value-orientated non-Elite range of displays, such as the XG2705-2K. This is a 144Hz model, rather than the 165Hz of the XG270QG, but otherwise it sports all the core features you’d expect at this price, including a stated 1ms response time. Physically, the XG2705-2K is more mundane than its Elite sibling, with none of that model's RGB lighting or anti-glare side wings. For this calibre of monitor, though, it’s very much in line with expectations, with three slim bezels around the top and sides, and an…

We’ll start with a warning, which is that the pins in Intel’s CPU sockets and the backs of AMD’s CPUs are extremely fragile. The socket pins are particularly damage-prone and the slightest knock can kill your motherboard. Be extremely careful when you install the CPU into the socket as it’s by far the most hazardous step when you’re building a PC. With Intel CPUs, leave the black socket cap in place 1. It will pop out itself when you install the CPU. It’s designed to protect the socket pins until you actually install the CPU. Start by prising out the CPU socket latch to the right and lifting it up to open the socket. Next, lower the CPU down next to the socket, so there’s no chance of you dropping…

There are two types of cooler you’ll typically want to use in your first PC. The first is an air cooler comprising a heatsink and fan, and we’ll look at how to install one now. With Intel motherboards, there are simply four mounting holes around the CPU socket that enable coolers to secure to the motherboard and clamp down onto the CPU heatspreader. Some Intel coolers use push pins 1, where you push the usually white outside plastic parts of the pins into the holes around the CPU socket, then push down the usually black inner parts of the pins and turn them to secure them. However, air coolers that retail for more than £20 usually have more elaborate mounting kits that use backplates and thumbscrews. Start by removing the…

If you’re building a PC for the first time, or upgrading from an old system, you might not have seen M.2 SSDs before. Unlike hard disks or 2.5in SSDs, they don’t require cables and instead connect directly to one of several M.2 ports on your motherboard, and you’ll need to use the right one. If you’ve bought an M.2 SSD recently, it probably uses your motherboard’s PCI-E interface to send and receive data. If it’s the older PCI-E 3 standard then it should work in any M.2 port. If it’s the new PCI-E 4 standard, though, then check your motherboard’s manual to see which M.2 ports support PCI-E 4. It will still work in a PCI-E 3 M.2 slot, but it will run slower. Your motherboard will also very probably…

PLAN YOUR PC BUILD We now know what goes where, that our hardware works and we’re ready to install it into our case. However, there are still some factors to consider before you reach for your screwdriver. Start by having a good look at your case and cables, and working out where your wires need to go 1. Once you know which components go where, you need to work out how to get the cables to and from all the right places while minimising clutter. You case will have cable routing holes conveniently placed around the motherboard tray and elsewhere, enabling you to route cables cleanly from your PSU to your components without trailing them all across your motherboard. FIT THE POWER SUPPLY Most cases have just one PSU mount,…

Microsoft has thrown its hat into the ring of competing solderless microcontroller-peripheral connections, with Jacdac, a free and open standard based around threepin edge connectors and low-cost cabling. Launching as an accessory for the BBC micro:bit V2, with software support in MakeCode, Jacdac gives microcontroller ‘brains’ quick plug-and-play connections to external hardware, including buttons, sensors and LEDs. To encourage adoption, the company has released both the hardware specifications and the software under permissive licenses. See custompc.co.uk/jacdac for more information.…

TOTAL PROJECT TIME / 2 HOURS There often isn’t much room to add extra airflow to mini-ITX cases, and low-profile CPU air coolers are often left to draw air that has been sitting in the case, which has been warmed by exhaust air from graphics cards and the CPU cooler itself. Getting cool air from outside the case to your low-profile CPU cooler as quickly as possible is important, and there’s a way to do it easily using Noctua’s NA-FD1 fan duct kit. This kit is designed specifically for the company’s NH-L9 low-profile coolers and 92mm fans, enabling you to easily direct cool air to the fan as quickly and easily as possible. We’ll show you how to install the kit, measure the impact on temperatures and give you the…

To enter your rig for possible inclusion in Readers’ Drives, your build needs to be fully working and, ideally, based in the UK. Simply send us a couple of photos on Twitter (@CustomPCMag) or Facebook (CPCMagazine), or email low-res ones to ben.hardwidge@raspberrypi.com. Fame isn’t the only prize; you’ll also get your hands on some fabulous prizes, courtesy of Corsair. Corsair Hydro X Series XD3 RGB Pump/Reservoir C The Corsair Hydro X Series XD3 RGB Pump/Reservoir Combo features a high-performance DDC PWM pump, integrated RGB lighting and in-loop temperature sensor to drive even the most compact custom cooling systems. It has a high-performance Xylem DDC PWM pump controlled via PWM to deliver the perfect flow balance for your loop. There are also 16 individually addressable RGB LEDs, which light up the…

So, you’ve finally managed to get hold of the GPU of your dreams, and no doubt stocked up on a tonne of new games in the recent Steam and GOG sales, but now it’s time for the next challenge – summer. When I first got into PCs decades ago, British summers were a bit of a joke – you did get a few warm days here and there, but by and large, the climate didn’t have any impact on your PC use apart from your parents pleading with you to spend more time outside. Not only was the weather cooler, but PCs also didn’t require enormous cooling systems. However, with ambient temperatures now going over 30°C on a regular basis in the UK, it’s starting to become an issue. A…

After two years of postponed or avoided gigs, I finally got back into live music a few months back. The band Meshuggah were playing on the Jubilee weekend at The Royal Albert Hall. If you haven’t been to the Royal Albert Hall, it’s renowned for its grandeur and acoustics. The interior is all gold leaf and red velvet, and the ceiling looks like a classy spaceship. It’s a great venue, but it was odd seeing an extreme metal band in a venue most famous for classical music. I had a laugh to myself imagining what some of the more uptight members of the Proms would think about it. I like classical music too, but some of the snobbery around it winds me up. I’m not a great fan of tradition…

Kingston has launched a new line-up of DDR5 RGB memory modules, with effective speeds of up 6400MHz. The new Kingston Fury Renegade DDR5 RGB modules also feature RGB lighting, and come with 32-39-39 latency timings. The modules require a voltage of 1.4V and also supports Intel’s new XMP 3 profile system. A 32GB kit of 6400MHz Fury Renegade DDR5 RGB memory will currently cost you £271 inc VAT from cclonline.com, with the equivalent 6000MHz kit going for £236 inc VAT.…

SUPPLIER overclockers.co.uk As we see in this month’s fan Labs test (see p40), it’s not always cheap to kit out your case with RGB lighting, but there are also plenty of cases available that offer a glowing treat for your eyes out of the box. The Kolink Citadel Mesh ATX ARGB is one example, including four digital RGB fans as standard, so not only will it look pretty, but it will hopefully keep your PC cool too. The fans are preinstalled and pre-wired to a remote-controlled hub that offers two additional 4-pin PWM ports for connecting extra fans. In addition, the fans’ 3-pin RGB cables are connected to the hub, again with a further two ports on offer. The hub uses a single 3-pin RGB cable and 4-pin PWM cable…

SUPPLIER buykingston.co.uk The Kingston Ironkey Vault Privacy 80ES is a solid-state USB storage device with password-protected XTS-AES 256-bit hardware encryption. So far, so relatively commonplace. However, what makes this device particularly interesting is that instead of requiring software to unlock the drive, it relies on a built-in touchscreen that lets you key in your PIN or password, making it completely standalone. The 2.8in, 240 x 320 pixel, full-colour, resistive touchscreen is sufficiently large and sharp to present instructions and other information in a clear fashion. Whether it’s tapping a number into the pinpad, navigating a full alphabet of characters for a longer password or reading the setup instructions, you really can rely just on the screen. Passwords can be 6-64 characters long, with the latter option making for a very…

SUPPLIER custompc.co.uk/CrystalCougar The Crystal Cougar is the pricier of the two PCs reviewed in this issue, and it has the most graphics power too – its Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is a step up from the RTX 3060 used inside PC Specialist’s Prism Nova. The Asus RTX 3060 Ti card used in this machine also has its boost clock improved from 1665MHz to 1710MHz, and the GPU has a total of 4,864 CUDA cores. In most other areas, though, the Stormforce and PC Specialist systems are near identical. They share Intel’s Core i5-12400F CPU, which has six Hyper-Threaded P-Cores that peak at 4.4GHz, and they both have 16GB of DDR4 memory. They even use the same Corsair TX650M power supply. Both rigs also use the same motherboard, and the…

MOTHERBOARDS TEST PROCESSORS > Intel LGA1700 Intel Core i5-12600K > Intel LGA1700 mini-ITX Intel Core i7-12700K > AMD AM4 AMD Ryzen 9 5900X Common test hardware between our test rigs includes a WD Red SN750 SSD, plus a WD Black SN850 SSD to test the speed of M.2 ports, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070. We use 16GB (2 x 8GB) of Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 3466MHz DDR4 RAM, or 32GB (2 x 16GB) of Corsair 5200MHz Dominator Platinum DDR5 RAM. All CPUs are cooled by a Corsair Hydro-X water-cooling loop with two XR5 240mm radiators, an XD3 RGB reservoir and an XC7 RGB waterblock. We test with our RealBench suite and Far Cry 6 on Windows 11. We also test each board’s M.2 ports, and record the noise level…

SUPPLIER cclonline.com Corsair’s LL120 RGB is available in single and triple-pack form, but if you want to use the lighting, you’ll need to hook it up to a Lighting Node Pro and control the lighting using its iCUE software. Those components come with the triple pack, but not the single fan, so make sure you factor this into your budget. Once the lighting is running, it looks fantastic, with rich, vibrant colours spanning the hub and semi-translucent blades. Sadly, you’ll need to hook up each fan individually, as there’s no daisy-chain option. At full speed, the LL120RGB managed a decent airflow of 2.11m/sec, but it also produced a huge amount of noise to get there. It exhibited a high-pitch whine, while the be quiet! Silent Wings 4 High Speed managed…

SUPPLIER cclonline.com The Gamemax Velocity retails for a price of just £7, and it even comes with digital RGB lighting, allowing for individual LEDs to be controlled independently via a 3-pin cable. Only the outer ring on the fan illuminates, but you can’t have everything. More annoying is that there’s no 4-pin fan connector and only a 3-pin one, so you’ll need to make sure your motherboard can either recognise the Gamemax or set it to direct voltage mode. The peak fan speed is also very low at just 1,500rpm, making the Velocity primarily a case fan, rather than a radiator or heatsink fan. Thankfully, it was very quiet, at just 62dBA in close proximity, but the Velocity also had the worst airflow on test at full-speed, with a measurement…

SUPPLIER overclockers.co.uk The Phanteks T30 offers great build quality and built-in speed control, with its Advanced mode allowing it to peak at a monstrous 3,000rpm. You get a few accessories too, such as a 50cm PWM extension cable, radiator screws with 6-32 threads, plus an extended set of these screws to enable you to use Phanteks’ Halos RGB fan frames on top with a radiator. However, it lacks RGB lighting out of the box. Not surprisingly, noise at its peak speed was high, although the Corsair LL120 RGB was slightly louder. Thankfully, that noise buys you a gargantuan airflow of 3.79m/sec, which was over 1m/sec higher than the be quiet! Silent Wings 4 High Speed. Despite this, efficiency was also fairly good. At 1,000rpm, it also racked up the second…

SUPPLIER cclonline.com Asus’ TUF gaming monitors have firmly established themselves as excellent-value, no-frills options. With its latest 27in IPS panel this trend certainly seems to continue, with a near-£300 price tag and all the usual features. Plus, it includes Asus’ ace in the sleeve, its ELMB Sync technology, which combines adaptive sync (such as FreeSync and G-Sync) with backlight strobing blur reduction technology. Only Asus currently combines both technologies at once. Otherwise, the VG27AQL1A looks smart enough, using a simple black plastic stand with flat, V-shaped feet. The stand offers a full range of ergonomic adjustments – height, rotation, pivot and tilt – and they move smoothly enough. It’s not quite as snazzy-looking or stable as the AOC display but it’s entirely adequate. Unlike the AOC, you don’t get RGB…

SUPPLIER currys.co.uk LG’s nano IPS gaming monitors have topped the charts for pixel response time for some years now, which in turn has tended to make them some of the pricier panels available. However, the Ultragear 27GP850 is very competitively priced, plus it tops out at 180Hz when overclocked and wants for little in terms of other features too. This is a reasonably smart-looking display, but it’s also one of the few displays on test to add meaningful gamer-centric touches to its design. Red plastic highlights along the stand’s base, on the back of the panel and hidden in the recess of the cable-tidying slot on the back of the stand leave little doubt that this is a gaming panel. The stand offers height, pivot and tilt movements, but like…

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. 8-core system with integrated graphics 8-core CPU, basic gaming Needs a micro-ATX or ATX case. We recommend a 450W 80 Plus Bronze power supply. See Issue 218, p76 for an example build guide. 1,920 x 1,080 gaming 6-core CPU, 1080p gaming Needs…

It’s generally impossible to plug a cable into completely the wrong port when it comes to PC building these days, so if you’re afraid of something blowing up, you can rest assured this won’t happen. However, some connectors are more appropriate than others for certain jobs, and it can be useful to know what each connector looks like, and where you install them. Power supplies (PSUs) come with dozens of different connectors to cater for varying configurations of hardware. You don’t need to make sure every cable on your PSU is connected to a component – you’ll almost certainly have some left over. Below you’ll find a list of the common cables and connectors you’ll come across, on both your PSU and your other components. PCI-E POWER CONNECTOR This powers…

On very rare occasions, one component may arrive faulty. The chances of this happening are extremely slim, but it pays to test your components before you build your PC. You don’t want to have to go through the process of building your PC only to have to dismantle it again if it doesn’t work. There’s a simple way to check all your parts are working, which is to build your PC outside of the case. This involves connecting the core hardware, plugging in a keyboard, powering it on and ensuring there’s an output to your display from the graphics card. If you get a display, then you know the basic system works, and you can then get into the EFI to confirm the SSD is recognised and set the correct…

If you like your PC to not make a horrendous noise, here’s an awesome chance to get some quiet-running PC gear with RGB lighting. The lovely people at be quiet! are offering some great new prizes for three Custom PC readers, with a Pure Base 500 FX case, Pure Loop 2 FX 240mm AIO liquid cooler and a Pure Rock 2 FX high-end air cooler all up for grabs. BE QUIET! PURE BASE 500 FX The new Pure Base 500 FX is the RGB upgrade of the very popular Pure Base 500DX, with a total of four Light Wings PWM fans for high airflow and quiet operation. • ARGB lighting • Multiple lighting colours and modes • 4 x Light Wings PWM fans for high airflow and quiet operation •…

TOTAL PROJECT TIME / 1 HOUR Our reviews have already established that Intel’s 12th-gen CPUs are fantastic, offering awesome content creation and multi-threaded performance, as well as killer gaming pace. However, the elongated latch mechanism on the LGA1700 socket can put a lot of pressure onto the lengthened CPU packaging, causing it to bend, which can in turn increasing CPU temperatures Thankfully, a cheap and easy fix that solves the issue is available, by removing the latch completely. What’s more, it can be installed on any LGA1700 motherboard. Using a protection frame, the CPU is still held in place as normal, but without the usual latch mechanism, removing the pressure that’s focused on the middle of the CPU. If you suspect your CPU is running hotter than it should then…