Table of contents for February 2017 in Maximum PC

Applications—programs you run on your PC—are a constant. They’re always there. We all use them, and our machines would be dusty husks without them. But they do have a tendency to get a bit out of control, particularly if a system has existed for a long time. An application almost always consists of a bunch of files; the more apps and games you have installed, the more files exist on your hard drive. This isn’t, in itself, a problem, until your drive is filled with ten thousand chunks of goodness-knows-what, and a single search operation takes half an hour because Windows has decided it must meticulously inspect every single thing. And here’s a quiz for you: What was the last program you installed, and where is it on your hard…

WINDOWS TIP OF THE MONTH TEMPERATURE TANTRUMS? Quickly diagnosing problems can be a lifesaver. If you’re worried you’re having temperature issues, or your processor is throttling under load, try HWMonitor. One of the most useful programs ever, it measures everything from temperature to clock speeds, to voltages, and utilization, making it easy to see whether there’s a problem anywhere in your system. Head to www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html and try it for free. MAKE – USE – CREATE ZAK STOREY Reviews editor UPGRADING MY PERSONAL RIG Ever since we made our mini watercooled Dream Machine back in July, I’ve been fortunate enough to look after it. But, alas, I found a massive leak emanating from the GPU waterblock fittings, so I decided to strip the system, swap out the Fury X for a…

YOU’LL NEED THIS AFFINITY PHOTO PUBLIC BETA Download the software from http://affinity.serif.com. A RAW IMAGE FILE Your smartphone might oblige. If you have a Digital SLR camera or advanced compact, you might have wondered what the “raw” image quality setting is about. Or you may know all about it, and are squinting your eyes at this patronizing opening paragraph. A raw capture is a simple dump of the information gathered by your camera sensor, with no processing applied, other than that needed to turn it into a PC-readable file. No noise reduction, no additional sharpening, and no compression. This can be a big advantage. Shooting in raw shifts the burden of processing your images from your camera to your PC, where you can manually affect the process with software such…

THEY SAY GOOD THINGS come in s mall packages. That certainly is the case when it comes to the Chronos from Origin PC, a supremely powerful system in a very small chassis. Measuring just 11.75 x 13.75 x 4 inches, the Chronos is one of the most compact systems we’ve ever tested. And considering that size, and the power it packs inside, it just might be worth its super-premium price tag. Of course, a big price tag should mean top-end performance, and the Chronos does not disappoint. The system we tested was outfitted with the enthusiast-class Intel Core i7-6950X sitting in an ASRock X99 ITX motherboard. The 6950X’s 10 cores clocked at 4.1GHz helped the Chronos blow away our zero-point in Cinebench R15 and TechARP’s x264 benchmarks. For storage, our…

FROM A CERTAIN DISTANCE, mechanical keyboards all start to look the same. They’re generally matte black, have the same number of keys that are about the same size, and sit on the same switches. Everything has anti-ghosting and N-key rollover, so you can press more than one key at once, and not worry about keystrokes not registering. This means that you start to look at features, such as programmability, additional macro keys, and a board’s more general levels of usability—as well as its looks—to decide what to buy. There’s brand loyalty to consider, too, with a desk packed with Corsair products more likely to attract another. Where does that leave a brand such as HyperX? A division of Kingston Technology, known for its memory products, HyperX has been around since…

For a while now, the campaigns in Call of Duty games have felt a little like training for the multiplayer. And with many players having decamped to Battlefield One, the developer needed to produce something distinct enough to tempt them back. It has sort of succeeded. The outer space setting is certainly a contrast to Battlefield’s European fields, but it’s in single-player that Infinity Ward shows it has been paying attention to developments in other games. Infinite Warfare shares a few ideas with previous mainline COD games. The story sees a commander wrestling with the dichotomy of winning his battles for the greater good versus saving the lives of his men. In a universe that would find Black Ops’ robot limbs useful, we’re fully human, with just a suit and…

HP Spectre We adore powerful gear here at Maximum PC. But we’re also suckers for sweet aesthetics. We want it all: power and looks. And for those of us not willing to go down the Apple route, the options have always been somewhat limited. Which is where HP’s latest offering slides smoothly into view, showing off its tasty styling, while not being too shy about the gorgeous tech hidden within. Measuring a faintly ridiculous 10.4mm and weighing just under 2.5lb, this is the ideal machine to throw in your bag and take out on the road with you. Of course, when we say “throw,” we really mean slide lovingly into that leather briefcase you’ve bought to carry this gorgeous sliver of computing around with you. And with up to nine…

THIS MONTH WE DISSECT... About iFixit iFixit is a g lobal community of tinkerers dedicated to helping people f ix things through free online repair manuals and teardowns. iFixit believes that everyone has the r ight to maintain and repair their own products. To learn more, visit www.ifixit.com. BACKGROUND Google wants to bring the robot assistants of the future to the world today. Equipped with Google Assistant, the Google Home is raring to work with smart home devices, support Google services, and answer questions. Does it have what it takes to fulfill your futuristic fantasies? Time to tear down the Home! MAJOR TECH SPECS • High-excursion speaker with two-inch driver and dual two-inch passive radiators • Far-field microphones • Customizable base • 802.11ac (2.4GHz/5GHz) Wi-Fi • Touch surface controls KEY…

YOU’LL NEED THIS HARD WARE Suitable low-end PC, NAS, or Raspberry Pi 2 or 3. PLE X MEDIA SER VER See www.plex.tv. If you’re looking for a media server that doesn’t just enable you to organize and play your media, but shows it off in the best possible way, you need Plex. It works across just about any device you own, and enables you to watch across multiple platforms, both at home and over the Internet, picking up where you left off watching on another device. The biggest issue with Plex is choosing the server to run it on. A PC is an obvious choice, but it needs to be left on 24/7 for unlimited access. You’re better off installing it on a dedicated low-power device, such as a high-end…

KABY LAKE is eighth processor iteration since the introduction of the Intel Core series that started with Nehalem. For eight years, the company has pressed to push the advantage in its processor lineup, and each and every time it’s managed a marginal 10–15 percent performance increase. This process has been, for the longest time, based around the concept of Tick-Tock. In short, a new architecture would be designed based on the latest transistor size, then that transistor size would be shrunk the following year. For instance, Sandy Bridge (or the Core i5-2500K) held the new architecture, while Ivy Bridge (Core i5-3570K), released a year later, was the die shrink, and so on. However, this hasn’t always been the case, and Intel has, time and time again, come up against issues.…

HYPERX HAS BEEN doing some brilliant things in the enthusiast sector. Its RAM is super-fast, its storage solutions pretty much perfect, its keyboards clacky and colorful, and its headsets—particularly the Cloud II—market-leading examples of comfortable audio pleasure. The Cloud Stinger isn’t meant to sit in the same niche, though, coming in at literally half the price of its big brother. But you wouldn’t know it, at least initially, because this is a neat set of cans, well shaped, and sporting HyperX’s signature memory foam earcups. The headband is roomy and well cushioned, the metal adjustment arms stiff and unmoving, unless properly teased, and from them dangle 90-degree rotating earpieces, useful (we presume) if you happen to have a head designed by Pablo Picasso. Or if you want to place the…

WE TACKLE TOUGH READER QUESTIONS ON... >Battlefield Frame Rates > Ad Blocking > Temperature Tests Overclocking Options I have an Asus ROG Maximus VIII Hero Alpha running a Core i7-6700K chip with XMP settings, and I’m trying to follow your overclocking article [Dec 2016 issue]. It says, “Input a slightly higher number multiplier.” I’ve looked all over AI Tweaker under “Advanced Mode,” and can’t see this “42” number, or where I can increase it to “44.” –Kerry Gifford REVIEWS EDITOR ZAK STOREY RESPONDS: In AI Tweaker, look for the section that says “CPU Core Ratio,” and change it to “Sync All Cores.” Once selected, four more options appear below, three grayed out. The first says “1-Core Ratio Limit,” and in the box next to it, it should say “Auto.” This…

A NEW HOPE AMD’s new Zen CPU takes aim at the Intel empire Not to put too fine a point it, but expectations are nothing if not high for AMD’s upcoming Zen CPU architecture. We’ve previously branded it as being everything from a new hope to AMD’s absolute last chance for survival. And as we look forward to 2017, the year Zen will finally arrive, it feels every bit as portentous as all that—Zen is a really big deal. That’s chiefly because competition improves the breed, and ever since AMD launched its failed Bulldozer architecture back in 2011, Intel hasn’t really had any competition in the PC processor market. The consequence of that has been a state of general stagnation in terms of mainstream CPU performance on the desktop. Intel’s…

Let’s begin with a note of clarity and candor. There is much about Intel’s new seventh-generation Core processor family, codenamed Kaby Lake, that makes us want to do bodily harm to the leading maker of PC processors with a boxed copy of Windows 98. Because Kaby Lake is yet another incremental step that tops out with four cores in desktop trim, and is overwhelmingly optimized for mobile PCs. There are no radical new architectural changes, no promises of revolutionized performance. It feels as though Intel has been rolling out updates like Kaby Lake for years and years now, safe in the knowledge that its only rival, AMD, simply cannot compete with it. And yet Kaby Lake actually looks kind of cool. It’s not cool in the old-school sense of shaking…

YOU’LL NEED THIS RASPBERRY Pi The brilliant mini-computer costs under $45. See www.raspberrypi.org. One staple in futuristic films is that everyone has a handy panel on the wall showing their appointments for the day. While we have calendars on our smartphones and tablets, now, thanks to the Raspberry Pi, it’s possible to have an economic wall-mounted calendar in your home or office. Given that we have just admitted that we could, for instance, use a calendar app on our phones instead, is this just a novelty, or are there any advantages to doing this? Well, mounting your calendar on a wall is certainly more aesthetically pleasing than many smartphones, but the main advantage is that it enables you to share a calendar with others, by putting it in a public…

YOU’LL NEED THIS TEAMVIEWER Grab the app from www.teamviewer.com. TeamViewer is an application that enables you to view—and remotely control—another computer. Not just any old computer, however; the machine you’re connecting to must have the client software installed, and approve your connection—this isn’t an app for hackers. The link between the two computers is also encrypted, so no one can spy on what you’re doing. There are mobile apps, too, so you can complete a task on your home PC—left running and logged in—from a hotel room half the world away. All you need is your smartphone and some Wi-Fi. TeamViewer is useful for training—you can allow your students to view your PC as you carry out the task you’re teaching them. Or you can broadcast a presentation to a…

WITH ANY NEW CHIP, comes a new chipset. And with each generation, that chipset improves in a variety of ways. The improvements usually revolve around connectivity and expansion support. But there are often other notable tweaks as well, such as aesthetic design, cooling support, and updates and enhancements to the bundled software, so that it works with the latest and greatest hardware. Asus’s TUF Z270 Mark 1, is the first of this new generation of boards that we’ve been fortunate enough to review. Replacing the Sabertooth pseudonym in favor of the far simpler Mark 1, this is a mobo that should, in every way, follow in its father’s footsteps—a reliable workhorse, compatible with all, and capable of keeping up with even the best overclocking boards out there. Unfortunately, we had…

WE’RE IN AGREEMENT with Mionix when it comes to the mouse market: It’s stagnating. It's nothing more than a gently flowing stream, producing slightly different iterations of the same product each and every year. There’s no innovation. Nothing new, nothing truly interesting. Perhaps the mouse has reached its end goal. Perhaps there is nothing more to do but reiterate on the design. Mionix doesn’t think so. The Naos QG is the first mouse we’ve seen since the introduction of the laser sensor—which shifted away from the unwieldy ball—to truly rethink what you can do with the wily peripheral. Indeed, a heart rate sensor and GSR (galvanic skin response) sensor hardly seem like obvious additions, but the more you think about it, the more they make sense. Consider being able to…

A GAME WITH a distinctive art style is a rarity in these days of potato-faced motion capture, and Dishonored has a lways been so very distinctive. Snarling frowns and raddled complexions stare out at you from every NPC, while the architecture you scurry across is as much a part of the game as the thin faces of the main characters. For this sequel, Arkane is offering a choice. You can have more of the same, in a game full of references to things that have gone before in the first title and its DLC. Choosing to play as returning royal protector Corvo opens this up, his suite of powers familiar, but now able to be upgraded beyond anything the previous game offered. A different way of playing is offered by…