Table of contents for August 2020 in Custom PC UK

There are many criticisms you could level at Intel lately. Supply problems; the bizarre Kaby Lake-X launch; the lack of PCI-E 4 support; overly high prices; still being stuck on a 14nm fabrication process. It’s no secret that Intel has been stumbling lately, while AMD has been a massive silicon Godzilla, scooping up Intel’s market share and stuffing it down its fat PCI-E 4 gullet. But for all these criticisms, you can’t get away from the fact that Skylake is a superb CPU microarchitecture, even now. The latest Comet Lake CPUs (see p16) might be based on an aging microarchitecture, and built on a 14nm process, while AMD is making its Zen 2 chiplets on TSMC’s 7nm process, but they’re also really fast. It says ‘world’s fastest gaming CPU’ on…

Intel’s 10th-gen CPUs, codenamed Comet Lake, are finally here, bringing plenty of changes with them, including more cores, more threads and some tweaks under the hood. Here’s all you need to know about them before you take the plunge. A new socket The most important information here is that you’ll need a motherboard with Intel’s new LGA1200 socket to use Comet Lake CPUs. LGA1200 isn’t backwards compatible, and it’s also impossible to install older CPUs in it, as they use different socket guide holes. Boards based on the new Z490 chipset can be pricey, but sub-£200 models should be more than able to deal with the likes of the Core i5-10600K, plus cheaper non-Z-series chipsets are already on the horizon. The socket-mounting holes are identical to LGA115x, though, so old…

The lower down Intel’s 9th-gen product stack you go, the more the lack of Hyper-Threading seemed to hurt its chances against AMD. The likes of the Core i5-9600K were adequate for gaming, but they were hopelessly outgunned in multi-threaded tasks, even by cheaper AMD CPUs. Likewise, the Core i5-8600K too also had six cores and six threads like its 9th-gen successor, but arrived too late to steal AMD’s thunder. What Intel needed, above all else, was to boost multi-threaded performance, either by increasing core counts or adding Hyper-Threading. Thankfully, that’s now been done, with every 10th-gen model supporting Hyper-Threading, including the Core i5-10600K. This means it can execute 12 concurrent threads, instead of just six like its predecessor, and this essentially makes it very similar to the venerable Core i7-8700K.…

We haven’t reviewed a CPU that costs under £100 for a long time now, but the Ryzen 3 3100 doesn’t just offer quad-core performance for £99 – you get Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT) too, so you also get support for eight threads. It’s an equivalent spec to AMD’s Ryzen 5 1500X, which originally retailed for £190. That’s some serious horsepower, especially considering that this is a fully fledged 7nm Zen 2 CPU. While you might be able to buy an older 6-core model on the cheap, it’s also important to remember the big leaps in single-threaded and gaming performance that Zen 2 brought with it. As we mentioned on p26, the two new CPUs have a slightly different configuration under the heatspreader. The slightly more expensive Ryzen 3 3300X offers much…

The KC2500 is Kingston’s latest high-performance series of M.2 SSDs, and it’s set to replace the existing KC2000 series and sit above the company’s slower, budget-focused A2000 drives. With claimed sequential read and write speeds topping out at 3,500MB/sec and 2,900MB/sec respectively, it offers a decent performance bump over the older drive, which could hit 3,200MB/sec and 2,200MB/sec. This also puts the KC2500 at a similar level to most high-performance PCI-E 3 M.2 SSDs. Available in capacities from 250GB up to 2TB, the KC2500 is built on the company’s latest 96-layer 3D TLC NAND, putting it in line with most other SSDs in its class. The likes of Samsung’s 970 Pro employ faster, higher-endurance, two-level MLC NAND, but the benefits of these premium drives are proving less significant for all…

If your wallet has been shaking in the corner looking at some of the price tags of the other boards in this test, thankfully you’ll be pleased to know there’s plenty of more affordable Z490 motherboards around that will leave you with  change from £250. In fact, the MSI MAG Z490 Tomahawk costs just £195, making it by far the cheapest Z490 board on test. Despite this, though, the board includes plenty of premium features. While its two VRM heatsinks aren’t connected via a heatpipe unlike other boards on test, the 12+1+1 power delivery is cooled by two large chunks of metal, with the last heatsink morphing into the I/O shield too. As a result, the motherb a ton, but this should mean it’s able to handle lengthy periods of…

Filco’s Majestouch range is one of the  stalwarts of the mechanical keyboard market, offering simple, high-quality keyboards long before the recent trend for mechanical gaming keyboards took off. No-nonsense and built like tanks, they tend to have fairly unflashy designs and relatively basic feature sets. The Convertible 2, then, is a little different. Okay, so a first glance at the design of this keyboard shows it’s not all that different, as the familiar chunky, all-black styling is as present as ever. However, this tenkeyless (TKL) keyboard has a trick up its sleeve, which is the ability to convert from a simple wired configuration into a Bluetooth-connected mode. Open up the battery compartment on the back, pop in the two supplied AA batteries and you can set up the keyboard to…

The Logitech K780 is a little different from your average keyboard. Designed primarily as an addition to mobile-orientated desks, where laptops, tablets and phones are the order of the day, it has a slot at the back into which you can sit your phone or tablet. It also offers three prominent buttons for quickly switching control between three separate devices connected over Bluetooth. It’s not a scenario we often require here, but if you regularly use your tablet for certain applications, and your PC or laptop for others, then it offers a very convenient way to switch between them. With the included wireless dongle connected to a PC and a phone connected over Bluetooth, we had the K780 up and running in minutes, and it was quick and easy to…

Microsoft’s Ergonomic Keyboard design has been around for decades, and has long proven itself as a comfortable option for people spending long periods of time typing. Now in its umpteenth iteration, it still offers the same core shape as previous versions but brings its design and features up to date. For those unfamiliar with the range, the idea is simple: by raising up and flaring out the central portion of the keyboard, it better fits the angle and position of your hands when placed on your desk. The large padded wrist rest is integral to the shape too, adding genuine support and padding for the heel of your hand, unlike the token wrist rests you often see supplied with keyboards. That’s the principle, and thankfully the design works in practice…

Resident Evil 3 was a horror game ahead of its time. The concept was that the player would be pursued through Raccoon City by a single, seemingly unstoppable enemy. The final version of this idea was more limited, as the game’s Nemesis could only ambush you in specific areas of the city. Nonetheless, the notion paved the way for games such as Alien: Isolation and Capcom’s own remake of Resident Evil 2, where a hulking opponent called Mr X chases you through the city’s Police Station. The presence of Mr X in Resident Evil 2 made the prospect of a remake of Resident Evil 3 incredibly exciting. Capcom had both the technology and capability to explore the ideas of the 1999 game properly, translating the terrifying cat-and-mouse play of Resident…

REVIEW PIXEL RIPPED 1995 Pixel Ripped 1995 is basically Stranger Things for 1990s kids, putting you in the pyjamas of nine-year-old David. Immersed in mid-1990s gaming culture, it starts to get weird for David when the characters of his games begin to bleed out into the real world, and platform protagonist ‘Dot’ enlists his help to defeat the evil Cyblin Lord. The meat of Pixel Ripped involves playing fictitious versions of classic games from the era, like a virtual ROM for retro titles, only without the official branding. It offers a whirlwind tour of the decade’s gaming highlights, including nods to Sonic the Hedgehog, Streets of Rage, Super Mario World and Crash Bandicoot to name a few. You’ll also find yourself getting hands on with different systems, from playing console…

1 TEST THE PCB As soldering is hard to reverse, always test your PCB first. Plug it in to your PC using a USB cable, then short each switch by touching the two switch pads with a pair of tweezers to see if the switch activates. Using a program such as Switch Hitter will let you also see if the keys that don’t print anything, such as the Shift keys, are also working properly. It happens rarely, but  it pays to be careful. The suo PCB by TX Keyboards was my choice for this build. It supports in-switch and underglow LEDs, and is compatible with the HJ75 kit. 2 FIT THE STABILISERS Next, you need to attach the stabilisers to the PCB for all of the keys that need them. On a…

Developer Sukko Pera has launched a project to recreate the Commodore Amiga 500 motherboard in open hardware form, as a means of bringing damaged systems back from the dead. ‘There are other projects like this one out there,’ Pera writes, ‘but none of them is Open Source and none of them comes with both schematics and board. This is a big advantage, since anyone can modify the board and make new improved versions, as long as they release their modifications with the same licence.’ The current design, which Pera warns is ‘untested [and] might not work at all’, is available from github.com/SukkoPera/Raemixx500…

After a series of delays, Intel’s 10th-gen Core desktop CPUs are finally here. I’m sure you’ve already read the extensive review coverage in the rest of the mag (see p16), but suffice to say that Intel missed a trick given the naming to finally unveil some 10nm processors. Instead, 10th-gen Core processors are stuck with yet another revised 14nm process based on the aging Skylake architecture from 2015. To add insult to injury, these new CPUs need a new motherboard and the ‘K’ versions use a fair bit of power, especially when overclocked. Although the Core i9 is getting most of the media attention, I’m actually more interested in what’s going on with Core i5 this time around. That’s because 9th-gen Core i5 CPUs have been losing market share to…

In Issue 202, Antony Leather gushed over the novelty of teeny-tiny mini-ITX systems, which is fine if that’s what you want, but for me, big cases are simply better. Few people remember mini-ITX cases years after their release, yet you might remember big ATX cases, such as the SilverStone TJ07, Chieftec Dragon, Cooler Master Stacker and even a personal favourite that I will forever regret throwing out – the YY Cube. I currently own a Corsair 900D, which sits somewhere between large and huge in today’s size range. It uses less desk space than even the smallest mini-ITX case, because it has to sit on the floor. And while it’s on the floor, it’s so tall it does double duty as my armrest. Such convenience! Thanks to the CPU fans exhausting…

If you’re buying a new system or upgrading your old  one, you’re already going to need a new motherboard and the chances are you might be in for a memory upgrade too, in order to either boost capacity or speed. We recommend at least 16GB of memory for a new system these days, as we see more than 8GB regularly being used on a modern PC, meaning that a dual-channel 8GB kit could be slowing you down. Meanwhile, the optimal memory frequency is trickier to nail down on Intel systems than on current AMD systems, especially while the coronavirus pandemic plays havoc with hardware prices. However, we’ve carried out some benchmarks (shown on the right), to ascertain if there’s any difference between previous-generation Intel CPUs and the latest Comet Lake…

Intel’s 10th-gen CPUs are easy to overclock. They scale reasonably well with good cooling, and you won’t have to fork out for a new PSU if you already have a six or eight-core CPU. You’ll need a decent CPU cooler, though, and if you’re aiming for 5GHz or more across all cores on the Core i9-10900K, you’ll want to consider a 240mm all-in-one liquid cooler. Assuming you have the necessary cooling credentials, here’s how to overclock it. 1 Set XMP profile and multiplier Start by enabling XMP in your motherboard’s EFI to set the correct memory speed and timings. Depending on your motherboard, the multiplier and CPU vcore settings will either be on the same page, or within the overclocking section under voltages. The multiplier in our EFI was…

AMD hasn’t released to the masses any CPUs with fewer than four cores since 1st-gen Ryzen, where we saw the likes of the Ryzen 5 1500X. Since then, only AMD’s APUs have offered very affordable ways of owning an AMD CPU, but that’s all changed with the release of the Ryzen 3 3100 and Ryzen 3 3300X. Retailing for £99 and £120 respectively, they’re considerably cheaper than the Ryzen 5 3600, offering those who don’t need huge multi-threaded grunt a cheaper way to get a 3rd-gen Ryzen system. However, the Ryzen 3 3300X seems to be a bit of a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It has a peak boost frequency 100MHz higher than the Ryzen 5 3600 at 4.3GHz, and a 200MHz higher base frequency too, reaching an all-core boost of…

Externally, Fractal Design’s recent cases don’t appear to have changed much from their predecessors, but the company has been beefing up accessory packs, customisation options and features quite significantly compared with its ATX towers from a year or two ago. The Define 7 Compact follows on from the larger Define 7 case, which we’ll hopefully be reviewing soon, but it sports a much lower price tag and, as its name suggests, a smaller volume. It measures just 21cm wide and 42cm long, while the Define 7 stretches to over 24 x 54cm. It’s a suitably space-efficient case, then, but you do lose some of its larger sibling’s features as a result. There’s no fan hub, no multi-purpose brackets for hard disks and pumps, no vertical GPU mount and no option…

Once you get down to sub-£20 keyboards, there are so many no-name brands with cheap-as-chips, throwaway models that it’s impossible to test them all. Doing so would also be rather pointless anyway – if a keyboard only costs £5-10, as long as it doesn’t blow up your computer, it has essentially done its job. However, we were intrigued to know what sort of experience we could get from a very cheap wireless model from a known brand such as HP. Costing just £25 inc VAT, the K2500 is just about the cheapest wireless model we could find, so not surprisingly, it offers few frills. However, it’s still a full-sized keyboard with a numpad, and it even includes four extra multimedia keys in its top right corner, including Mute, Volume Down,…

The MX Craft is Logitech’s most premium non-gaming keyboard, and it boasts the same excellent all-round typing experience, wireless convenience and low-profile design of the MX Keys (see Issue 195), but with the addition of a creative input dial called the Crown. Like Microsoft’s Surface Dial, this large, pleasingly tactile dial enables you to manually adjust settings such as contrast levels in Photoshop, or the brush size in Illustrator. It’s designed to give creatives a very accurate extra means of adjusting these analogue parameters in a way that isn’t easily replicated with a mouse or keyboard. It works too. The dial’s relatively large size, heft and high sensitivity makes it easy to very finely adjust whatever setting you’re tweaking. As well as controlling smooth, linear settings, it can also be…

Originally released in 2018, Fallout 76 has been the source of much derision. The Fallout games are fundamentally about human interactions. Players have to chat, trade and often fight with other survivors of a Nuclear apocalypse, exploring and building relationships with communities built from the ashes of the old world. When it launched, Fallout 76 had none of this. Its massive virtual rendition of Appalachia had no non-player characters whatsoever. Save for audio logs left behind by previous inhabitants, and the occasional encounter with other players, it was devoid of humanity. Bethesda had created a wasteland in a very literal sense – a stunning landscape completely wasted on a rubbish game. Whether this was deliberate or accidental, it looks highly deceptive With the recent Wastelanders update, however, Fallout 76 now…

Launching as part of the Master Chief Collection, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary brings Saber Interactive’s 2011 remaster of Halo to the PC for the first time. Despite being almost two decades old, Halo is still a pretty entertaining FPS, but Saber’s visual overhaul leaves much to be desired. The remaster changes the original game’s visuals in three main areas. It updates the environments with HD textures; it provides new, more detailed models for weapons, characters and vehicles; and it also adds dynamic lighting. These new visual elements are overlaid directly onto the original game, meaning you can switch seamlessly between the two visual styles by pressing Tab. Doing so, however, reveals how the remaster compromises the original game’s look and atmosphere. Saber has transformed Halo’s austere terrain and eerie skies…

“OPERATIONS CAN BE BROKEN DOWN INTO SIMPLE ON/OFF CALCULATIONS KNOWN AS BOOLEAN ALGEBRA” As computers have evolved over the years, so has the way in which all the components within them communicate with one another. From improvements in the core processors that drive our systems, such as CPUs and GPUs, to changes in RAM technology and overhauled system buses, as one aspect changes, other components need to follow suit. In this feature we’ll explore the inner workings of all these connections, explaining the difference between a graphics card slot and a CPU socket, why the latest M.2 SSDs can run at ridiculous speeds and why USB works the way it does. Along the way, we’ll explore just why current PCs came to be this way. Digital vs analogue When you…

ANALYSIS Makers for health We don’t usually call on computer makers, hobbyists and tinkerers to shore up national health services, but in the wake of SARS-CoV-2’s spread, and the explosion of cases of COVID-19 it has caused around the world, these people have proven invaluable global resources. The rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2, formerly known as the novel coronavirus, risked overwhelming health service equipment. At the time of writing, the UK National Health Service (NHS) had reported stocks of invasive ventilators – required for people with the most severe reaction to the disease – being considerably below the expected peak requirement. Meanwhile, stocks of personal protective equipment (PPE), including FFP2 (N95-equivalent) respirators, and even simple face shields and gowns, have been running dangerously low. Enter the makers. The ventilators Ventilators, devices…

Testing Thermaltake’s 4400MHz ToughRAM RGB Thermaltake’s ToughRAM RGB memory kit picked up an Approved award a few issues ago, thanks to a low price, great RGB lighting, 3600MHz frequency and reasonable overclocking. So when Thermaltake offered us the chance to take a peek at the 4400MHz version of the kit, we agreed, if only to see how our current test systems handle such rapid memory. Of course, the trick with memory kits at these speeds is tweaking AMD motherboards, so the Infinity Fabric doesn’t go haywire. Our Intel system hit the rated 4400MHz speed straight away, just using the XMP profile and a lofty DDR voltage of 1.45V. With our AMD X570 system, though, doing that saw our test rig hit stability issues at the Windows desktop, so we delved…

Just imagine if you could pick up any one of the motherboards in this month’s Z490 Labs test (see p44), stick a Ryzen chip in it and know it would not only fit, but also work fine. In fact, imagine you’re not just limited to Intel and AMD CPUs, but you could put a CPU from all sorts of other chip manufacturers in your brand new motherboard. Not only that, but there’s a choice of chipsets all designed to work with all these CPUs as well. We’re so used to exclusive socket and chipset designs now that the idea seems like commercial suicide, but this was the situation in the Socket 7 era of the 1990s. This period is a strange little oasis in the time between times, where CPU…

Of all the odd happenings 2020 has thrown at us, the one that surprises me least is conspiracy theories becoming mainstream. It’s tempting to say lockdown made everyone paranoid, but really niche ideas just take hold whenever a society faces unprecedented challenges. It’s natural and unfortunate that those niche ideas tend to be conspiracy theories. Natural, because people look for answers in the absence of data, good leadership and hope. Unfortunate, because conspiracy theories actively make the world worse. In critical thinking, there’s an old aphorism called Hanlon’s Razor, which says ‘never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity’. It’s usually correct, but unpopular. Partly because it’s not nice to call people stupid, but also because it’s less exciting to believe we’re led by incompetent wallies rather…

Fan club I’ve been a loyal follower of Custom PC for a number of years, and I love the current design. There is one thing I feel that’s really lacking when it comes to your monthly Elite article though – case fans. There’s a pyramid of different fans available cases, and they’re so often overlooked but oh so important for the good running of a computer. Which fans offer good value for money? More importantly, what makes a really good case exhaust fan for getting all that heat out of your case? I really feel this is an area that shouldn’t be forgotten. Well done again to all at the magazine for doing a great job each month. ADAM BUCKENHAM Ben: Good point! We’ll see if we can squeeze some…

A couple of years ago, we were expecting Intel’s 10th-generation CPUs to sport a 10nm manufacturing process, but we’re still sat at 14nm and using the ageing Skylake-based architecture with minimal revisions. Core counts have improved by a fraction of what AMD has managed too, rising from four to ten cores with the stack-topping Core i9-10900K we’re reviewing here, whereas AMD offers up to 16 cores on its mainstream desktop platform. However, while we’re only seeing a shift from eight to ten cores with the flagship CPUs compared with the last generation, Intel has also made the interesting move of adding Hyper-Threading to its entire product stack. Previously, CPUs such as the Core i5-9400F and Core i5-9600K were massively held back in multi-threaded performance thanks to a lack of available…

When you consider that most TRX40 chipset motherboards will leave you with change from £500, spending nearly £300 more to own a mainstream desktop motherboard for CPUs with no more than 10-core CPUs might seem a little foolish. However, every motherboard manufacturer has such halo products, and people do actually buy them. The MEG Z490 Godlike is MSI’s topflight model and it costs a whopping £765 inc VAT. One reason for the high price is the power circuitry. There are 18 power stages, 16 of which are rated at 90A and feed the CPU. On top of the power system is a large finned heatsink array, with the top and left portions connected with a heatpipe to spread the heat. There’s active cooling here too, with a pair of tiny…

SLOLS OUTDOOR POWER BANK / £31.99 inc VAT SUPPLIER amazon.co.uk The race to see just how many features can be crammed onto a  chunky power bank continues with this effort from Slols. This rugged power bank has 20,000mAh capacity, two regular USB outputs, a Type-C USB connector and, unusually for an outdoors model, a Qi wireless panel on the back. The Slols boasts solar charging too, but despite leaving it out for a day in the sun, there was no evidence of it providing any power. That could mean that the amount of power generated wasn’t enough to fill a 25 per cent block on the power indicator, or it more likely means that its few square inches of solar panel material doesn’t go very far. The introduction of wireless…

Despite costing nearly £300, Gigabyte’s Z490 Aorus Pro AX feels less substantial than the other boards on test – even MSI’s far cheaper MAG Z490 Tomahawk. It sports a 12-phase power delivery system, but it’s less beefy than the one on the Z490 Aorus Master, Plus, while there’s a large heatpipe embedded in the VRM heatsinks, the heatsinks aren’t as large as the others on test and there’s no active cooling option either. Thankfully, the Aorus Pro AX has plenty of potential in terms of water-cooling systems, with a thermal probe header that can be used to govern fan speeds in the EFI or Gigabyte’s software – a feature not offered by either of MSI’s motherboards, and even Asus’ boards can’t do it in the convenient EFI fan control suite.…

While the likes of the Logitech MX Craft and Matias keyboards on test this month reduce the dimensions on the vertical axis, the KBParadise V60 takes a different tack. This keyboard has a ‘60 per cent’ key layout, which reduces its number of keys from the typical 105 of a normal keyboard to just 62, greatly reducing its footprint. Where a normal keyboard measures in the region of 45 x 12-17cm, the V60 comes in at just 29 x 10cm. This size not only makes it well suited to particularly compact desk spaces, but also allows more room for your mouse on the right-hand side. This doesn’t make much difference for left-handed mouse users, but for right-handers, it allows you to have your mouse closer to you, so you can…

Matias is known for its Mac keyboards, which offer a similar low-profile, premium aluminium design to Apple’s own models, but come at a lower price and have more features. It makes some PC-focused models too, though, such as this oh so elegantly named Matias RGB Backlit Wired Aluminium Keyboard for PC.   As you can probably guess from that name, this is a wired unit and it has an aluminium shell. The company does also make wireless units but not in this PC-focused, RGB-capable form. Another feature that isn’t offered on Matias’ wireless units is the all-black livery of this model. The aluminium top has a black anodised surface, and the keycaps and base are made from matt textured and glossy black plastic respectively, resulting in a very stealthy, sleek…

After failing to save the world in XCOM: Enemy Unknown, your ragtag special-forces team successfully overthrew the hybrid alien occupation force in XCOM 2! But the aliens didn’t go away. In fact, they’re now living alongside humanity, sharing the same apartments, working the same jobs and, in some cases, committing the same crimes. This last part is most relevant to you, as the head of Chimera Squad, a new police task force dedicated to ridding City 31 of both human and extra-terrestrial crime. Unfortunately, you have your work cut out, as City 31’s mayor has just been assassinated. There are three suspected gangs involved, and you need to take them all down. Chimera Squad gives XCOM a radical and exciting new premise, and it brings some significant changes to how…

Receiver 2 is a shooter in which your weapons are just as dangerous to you as to your enemies. This intricate gun-handling simulator simulates every component of your firearm in a way that’s far more complex than point, shoot and reload. It’s a wonderful core system that’s sadly let down by a lack of quality elsewhere. You aim and fire Receiver 2’s guns in the same way as every other FPS, but it’s when you’re reloading that it gets interesting. Each stage of the reload process has its own unique control. Taking the starting revolver, you need to press E to flick open the revolving chamber, then press V to unload the cartridges. Z loads individual bullets into the chamber, while R flicks the chamber back into the revolver. With…

So how did this project start? Why did you want to build a wooden PC desk with motorised monitor lifts? Martin: We had just moved house, and a lot of our furniture is made from natural wood with copper accents. However, the PC desk I had at the time was white, so it didn’t fit with the other furniture, plus I wanted to sit facing into the living room, rather than looking at a wall. Also, one of the things that always bugs me about computer setups is the monitors. They’re big slabs of black that take up space and block your view, and I want to be able to use the full size of the desk when I’m marking up drawings or doing design work on paper, so a…