Table of contents for October 2018 in Maximum PC

GAMING NOSTALGIA is big business. New “mini” versions of old-school Nintendo gear have been huge sellers, and now the Commodore C64 is to receive the same treatment. The C64 Mini is due this October, and is expected to sell for around $80. The dinky machine is roughly half the size of the original, and comes with 64 built-in games. There’s a joystick, two USB ports, and a 720p HDMI output. The keyboard is just for show; you’ll need to hook-up your own USB one if you actually want to type anything. The games include classics such as Boulder Dash, Summer and Winter Games, Armalyte, Speedball II, and Impossible Mission. However, many favorites, like Lemmings, Bard’s Tale, Elite, Manic Mansion, Pirates!, and the Ultima series, are missing. The Nintendo gear was…

PRICES WERE CORRECT AT TIME OF PRINTING: UPDATED PRICES AVAILABLE AT HTTPS://PCPARTPICKER.COM/LIST/3YQFFT FOR THE EXPERIENCED, building a PC is an easy, often therapeutic experience. Each part fits into its designated slot, each cable is carefully woven around the frame, and each power-on is successful. However, for a vast swath of folk, it’s nothing of the sort. PC building can be a daunting task, especially if it’s your first time. After all, you’re messing around with delicate parts that can cost upward of half a month’s paycheck. One little slip, one jolt of static, one cable in the wrong place, and boom—you’re out of pocket and out of luck. So, why bother? You can pick up a pre-built PC for a similar amount of cash as building your own—and let someone…

Machine learning is absolutely everywhere now; it’s the computing zeitgeist. Digital assistants use it to translate speech. Facebook uses it to automatically tag images (DeepFace has a claimed accuracy of 97.25 percent). Uber uses it to calculate arrive times and pickup locations. Amazon, Spotify, and Netflix use it to select the recommendations they serve to you. Google introduced RankBrain to its search engine in 2015, to untangle query semantics, Gmail has its Smart Reply service, and last year, Google Maps started using machine learning to extract street names and house numbers from images. These are just the tip of the iceberg. Behind the scenes, big business has taken machine learning to heart. Financial institutions use it to track market trends, calculate risks, and delve into the streams of financial data.…

You can run machine learning applications on pretty much any processor. However, it thrives best on a chip that can churn out huge numbers of simple calculations with a low power consumption, a similar task to cryptocurrency mining. Traditional x86 processors aren’t particularly efficient at this. A popular choice has been Nvidia’s Tesla GPU, hardware that lends itself very nicely to the task. This has grabbed a decent slice of the emerging market for servers running neural networks. However, things are changing rapidly. Google has decided to go all-in and develop its own hardware. In 2016, we learned of the Tensor Processing Unit, designed specifically for neural networks, and initially a fairly crude 8-bit chip. The next year, it divulged the second-generation version, with much improved capabilities, managing 45 Tflops. In May…

BACKGROUND Microsoft just revealed a 2-in-1 for those on the move—those wanting a Surface with a little less pro, and a little more go. This Surface might have a lot going for it, but there’s only one thing we care about: Can you service it on the go, or will it be stopped in its tracks by tired batteries and shattered screens? Only one way to find out—ready, set, teardown! MAJOR TECH SPECS 10-inch IPS 1800x1200 (217 ppi) multi-touch display Dual-core 1.6GHz Intel Pentium Gold 4415Y processor with integrated Intel HD Graphics 615 4GB RAM (8GB optional) 64GB eMMC storage (128GB NVMe SSD optional), additional storage via microSDXC 8MP primary camera with 1080p video; 1080p selfie camera Windows 10 in S mode KEY FINDINGS Compared to the Pro, the Go…

WE ALL DO IT: We open one web browser tab, then another, then a whole bunch more. Before we know it, our computer is wheezing under the strain of so many open browser tabs, we can’t find the website we were looking at 10 seconds ago, and the tab bar has become totally incomprehensible. And if the browser crashes…. Thank goodness for Toby. Toby is a browser extension for Chrome, Opera, or Firefox that you can use to tame your browser tabs in two ways. First, you can use it to organize groups of tabs into “collections,” which you can then open with a single click later. For example, you might have a collection for news sites, or for entertainment, or for work stuff. And second, you can use the…

The “Layer Styles” box includes a whole lot of effects that come into their own with a clipped shape, like our skateboarder. “Stroke” puts a line around its edge; you can choose whether it’s inside or outside, how big it is, what color, how it blends, and more. You can use “Pattern Overlay” to fill it with a pattern from the included set, rather than going to the trouble of finding one as an image file—with solid color and gradient options as well—or you can add a “Drop Shadow” to make it look more like the skateboarder is leaving the ground. “Satin,” “Inner Shadow,” and the two “Glow” options add shading to the layer that can give it a 3D appearance, while “Bevel” and “Emboss” can make it appear to…

PICTURE A PC MONITOR. One with high refresh rates, low response times, snazzy styling, and RGB mood lighting. Looks a lot like a new ROG gaming monitor from Asus, right? Indeed it does, but it also describes MSI’s new Optix MPG27CQ. Already a rival for Asus in other parts of the PC gaming arena, MSI is now sizing up a smackdown in the premium gaming monitor market. The MPG27CQ arrives slap bang into the sweet spot in PC gaming monitors. It’s a 27-inch panel with 1440p pixel grid. That makes for a very nice compromise between visual detail and smooth gaming. 4K gaming, after all, is a nice idea, but even the very latest and greatest graphics cards can’t drive all those pixels at the triple-digit frame rates required for…

THERE’S A FUNNY THING about reviewing hardware: Sometimes you have to look at a device not as it is, but as it would be if it wasn’t. Particularly when scrutinizing something that seems to put a lot of focus on its outward appearance, you need to imagine that thing without those features that make it what it is. Cooler Master’s mouse definitely falls into that bracket, which is very handy, given the number of words we’ve dedicated to prattling on about such a nebulous concept. The CM310 is an utterly gorgeous ambidextrous feast of RGB lighting—but what would it be without the fireworks? For a start, it would feel—and does in fact feel—light and a little flimsy. Yes, Cooler Master has apparently calibrated that weight to hit the 3.5oz mark,…

AN OPEN-WORLD RACER that takes in the whole of the lower 48, The Crew 2 is in no doubt about its size. Everything about it is tuned to be huge, to be extreme, to make you want to call people “bro.” It’s not actually that huge—a drive from coast to coast takes less than an hour—but it is filled with stuff to do. Your nascent racer, looking for fame, fortune, and the opportunity to get paid for misbehaving in motor vehicles, attracts the attention of benefactors by, let’s face it, coming last in the opening race, from where you head out on the hunt for more followers. Followers are used as currency, enabling progression, as well as making you feel better about coming second by watching a number increase. It…

INTEL HAS YET to officially announce its 9000-series chips (as we write), but motherboard manufacturers and others have been leaking details left, right, and center. MSI, Asus, and Gigabyte have all let slip their support for 9000-series chips, including the welcome news that you won’t need a Z390 chipset, just a BIOS-updated eighth-generation one. The 9000-series is branded as ninth-generation chips, but is actually little more than a set of slightly faster eighth-gen ones. Essentially, Intel is squeezing as much as it can out of its existing 14nm Coffee Lake architecture, now on its third generation, principally because it hasn’t got much else ready yet. AMD will remain the value choice, but Intel can at least hold the crown as the fastest. Last month, details of the i3 and i5…

A big-screen PC is a blast. In days of yore, hooking up a PC to a TV via a low-res analog interface was fun, but it was also blurry, borky, and sub-optimal. Today, everything is crisp, clean, and digital. TVs offer high-res 4K panels that match or exceed most PC monitors for pixel count, and in the case of HDTVs with HDR support, color depth and contrast, too. Even projectors now support proper PC-size pixel grids. So what makes for the best big-screen experience? ROUND 1 Price In this age of dirt-cheap HDTVs, you might think there can be only one winner. After all, how do you argue with something like a cheapo 40-inch 4K TV on sale for something ridiculous like $300? In terms of absolute wallop for your…

If there seems to be an arms race in using machine learning in the civilian world, then you know there’s one taking place in the military one as well. The US military has been using remote-controlled machines and semi-autonomous hardware for years, but we’re now on the cusp of death by fully autonomous machines, known as LAWS, Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems. Current systems only require human input for the final order to fire, although certain defensive systems are exempt—missile defense systems, such as the Phalanx, for example. Many programers and researchers involved in machine learning have boycotted institutions and projects with military connections. Google has pledged not to work on any military projects, as has Elon Musk, but this won’t really dent the research by much. Russia is deploying automated gun and…

TIP OF THE MONTH UPDATE YOUR MOTHERBOARD SOFTWARE When it comes to having a healthy, secure, and speedy rig, getting the latest updates is vital. To do this, we recommend checking your motherboard model’s web page every two to three months for any new software, chipsets, or BIOS updates you can find. It’s a small detail, and sometimes a frustrating one (especially updating the BIOS), but it can provide you with more stability and even a quieter system. $Free ↘ submit your How To project idea to: comments@maximumpc.com…

ACCORDING TO ITS WEBSITE, “HandBrake is a tool for converting video from nearly any format to a selection of modern, widely supported codecs.” Although it’s certainly worth exploring, we should state that HandBrake is not easy to understand if you’re a novice—the program is clearly designed with the power user in mind. Nevertheless, with some tutorial scenarios, we can hopefully break it down into something more easily digestible, and make the interface less intimidating. HandBrake’s interface is slightly unconventional and can be confusing at first, but stick with it, as some parts function beautifully and really make HandBrake stand out from the pack. We don’t have space to cover the entire program, but hopefully we can take you through enough of the interface for you to be able to start…

EVER SINCE WINDOWS 8, Windows Defender has been provided as a built-in component of the operating system, protecting against malware. However, there’s a lot to be said for getting addon third-party protection for your computer. This doesn’t necessarily have to be paid for, because there are some good free options around. Naturally, the companies involved hope you’ll like the product so much that you’ll upgrade to the paid-for version. One of the top free packages is by Bitdefender, and it’s this that we’re looking at right here. While the free edition of Bitdefender is more than adequate with antivirus scanning, anti-phishing technology, and ransomware protection, the paid-for version of Bitdefender—called Antivirus Plus—also includes a VPN, a password manager, and different modes for different purposes, such as reducing the number of…

GMAIL USERS ENJOY A GENEROUS INBOX quota of over 15GB. While space is unlikely to be a concern, it can be tricky to sift through a mounting pile of messages. Google has tried to address this problem by automatically marking certain messages as “important,” and sorting your mail into five broad categories: Primary, Social, Promotions, Updates, and Forums. There’s also an advanced junk mail filter. These measures may not be enough for a Gmail account that’s truly bulging at the seams, however, so in this guide, you’ll learn how to sort messages using smart labels, as well as how to mass delete and filter unwanted content. We’ll also show you how to mark all emails as read, and archive older content. Plus, you’ll learn advanced search techniques, such as looking…

WHEN WE FIRST TESTED thin-and-light Max-Q gaming laptops last year, we had a clear favorite: Gigabyte’s Aero 15X-BK4. All the Max-Q laptops we’ve tested scored within a few percentage points of each other, benchmarks-wise, but the Aero 15X stood apart thanks to its 5mm bezel, which allowed a 15.6-inch screen to fit in a 14-inch chassis. This made a world of difference when it came to the quality that thin-and-light laptops value most: portability. This year, Gigabyte has updated and upgraded the Aero 15X, officially called the Aero 15X v8-BK4, with several key features—most notably Intel’s new mobile Coffee Lake CPU, the Core i7-8750H. This new CPU, which will be the backbone of most gaming laptops this year, marks a huge CPU performance increase over the previous generation, mainly due…

THE WARHAMMER 40,000 UNIVERSE seems like a good fit for a 4X game. There’s lots of traveling across dangerous distances in enormous ships, plenty of deploying troops, loads of diplomacy…. Actually, there’s no diplomacy. 40K is all about the war, and filling the alien menace full of holes, so the four Xs in this game are explore, expand, exterminate, and exterminate some more. The planet on which our four factions (Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Orks, and Necrons) find themselves is a hostile place, divided into hexagonal parcels of land. Dangerous creatures roam the landscape, which has dangerous plants, Necron tombs, and the artifacts of previous colonization attempts scattered about. Everything is out to kill you, so you hit back in the only way the setting knows: massed ranks and laser…

TRIUMPHS COMPUTER IN DUST MOTE Researchers at the University of Michigan have built a “computer” that’s 0.3mm per side. The Michigan Micro Mote measures temperature. VIRGIN GALACTIC IN “SPACE” A test flight achieved 1,832mph and an altitude of 170,800 feet, reaching into the mesosphere, or near space. WINDOWS SMART REBOOTS Machine learning will be used in the next Win 10 update to control when your machine updates and reboots; it’ll learn when you use it the least. TRAGEDIES HACKER STEALS $5M A student hijacked 40 phones using a SIM swapping scam to steal cryptocurrencies and sell social media accounts. GOOGLE BOWS TO CHINESE Google is developing a search engine for China that can be censored by the state. VIRUS STOPS PRODUCTION TSMC had to halt production for more than a…

Checkerboard Screen Hey, Doc. I’ve started getting a checkerboard pattern on my laptop’s display, either across the whole screen or limited to certain dialog boxes. I have a 15.3-inch Sager notebook with a Core i7-6820HK processor at 2.70GHz, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M graphics module, a 64-bit operating system, and 16GB of system memory. Is my graphics card in its death throes? –John Digilio THE DOCTOR RESPONDS: The issue you’re describing can be caused by software or hardware. Some of the potential problems are easy to troubleshoot and solve; others may be harder to diagnose. A simple first step is to verify that you’re running the latest drivers for your graphics adapters. Uninstall the existing packages for Intel’s HD Graphics 530 engine and Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 980M using Windows’ Control…

YOU’VE MADE IT. You’ve got a brand new rig, and you’re ready to kick some serious ass in those 1080p games. But how do you get there? How do you install an operating system on your new machine? You haven’t installed an optical disc drive in your chassis, and you don’t seem to have one laying around either, so where do you go from here? No need to worry—we’ve got your back. The last time we used one of those DVD readers was way back in 2016, and even then that was only to see whether the coverdisc of our friends over on the Linux titles would read properly. Spoiler: It did, then they trashed our DVD drive. Typical, right? But enough waffle. You’re here to install your OS of…

We are used to digital fakery, from Photoshopped fashion shoots to blockbuster CGI effects—we know all is not as it appears. The fakery may not be new, but the ease and accuracy with which it can be done using a machine learning system is alarming. Witness deepfake; this emerged in the fall of 2017, when a number of pornographic videos, apparently featuring celebrities, appeared. All artificial. Deepfake uses a neural network to superimpose faces on to figures in videos. It’s trained using multiple images of the target victim, and can operate in near real time. It was soon followed by FakeApp, a simple application version of which required little programing skill. Now it became possible to easily subvert the verisimilitude of videos shared online. Despite being banned on a number of social…

HERE WE ARE AGAIN, unpacking a hopelessly complex series of standards in the pursuit of knowledge. We like to call it fun. For this issue’s outing, we’re looking at wireless networking. Not the frilly protocol level—that’s way too neat—but the hardware and signaling levels, the nuts and bolts that enable routers and adapters to communicate with each other, and do so now at enormous speeds. While once you might have been thrilled to get 2,400 bits of data per second down your dial-up phone line—literally seeing the bytes of data appearing on the screen, taking agonizing seconds—now, single-digit megabytes per second speeds simply aren’t good enough for our wireless connections. So, we’re going to delve into the 802.11 wireless standard, explaining the basics of how digital data can be sent over…

IT’S VERY EASY TO FALL down an online rabbit hole: You start the day with the best intentions, but before you know it, you’ve spent three hours watching pop videos on YouTube. That’s great if you’re just messing around, but it’s a problem if you’re messing around when you really ought to be working. Cold Turkey Blocker makes it impossible to mess about for a specified time. Windows 10’s built-in parental controls cover similar ground, such as setting time limits, but Cold Turkey Blocker is even tougher: It works across web browsers and with virtual private networks, and if you decide to shell out for the paid-for Pro version, you get some really advanced blocking tools. But, as we’ll discover in this tutorial, the free version does an incredibly good…

THE SILHOUETTE—a blacked-out subject contrasting against a lighter background—has been used in art for centuries. Photographers work hard to create the effect, carefully exposing an image to get the perfect balance of darkness and light, although it’s as likely to be done accidentally by a bright background, such as a sky, fooling the camera’s light meter. Pliny the Elder, writing around 79AD, tells the story of Butades the potter, whose daughter was in love with a young man about to leave on a long journey. She used a lamp to throw a shadow of his profile on to a wall, and traced it so she could look at it and remember him. Butades filled in the outline with clay, creating a relief of the man’s shadow, before baking it hard…

ARE YOU CONSIDERING entering the cutthroat world of mechanical keyboard manufacture? Are you struggling to think of a good gimmick to set your new keyboard apart in a busy market? Follow HyperX’s lead, in that case, and don’t choose just one: Toss in literally every keyboard gimmick going. Make it out of heavyweight materials. Give it per-key RGB lighting, media keys, and a fancy volume roller. Chuck replaceable hot-zone key caps and a wrist rest in the box, and don’t forget a dash of USB pass-through. Probably the only things HyperX hasn’t included are macro keys and custom switches. About those, then: They’re standard Cherry MX switches (as much as we can call such things “standard”). Our review model came with the springy, stiff linear red variety—notchier brown and clickier…

BIOS Bother Your reply to “Buyer Beware” (August 2018) about buying all the components at one time does not fix real-life problems. I bought an Asus B350 motherboard and an AMD Ryzen 5-2400G within a week of each other. To make a very long story shorter, after building the system, I had no video. After calls to Asus support, I was told that the motherboard had an outdated BIOS and had to be shipped back to them for a BIOS flash update. Great. They wanted me to ship the board back at my expense, they would update their outdated BIOS, and ship back to me. I pay for the shipping to them, wait a week or more, and then might have a working system. They refused to pre-ship me an…