Custom PC - August 2015 UK
Custom PC - August 2015 UK
Custom PC - August 2015 UK
H B S
LLI
A F R
H R
E
E,
V R L C I
BUILD A COMPLETE
4K GAMING PC
FOR
1,886
inc VAT
4KASUS
MONITOR
DUAL SLI
GRAPHICS
WINDOWS 8.1
PLUS
ADVANCED RIGID
TUBING GUIDE
AUGUST 2015/5.99
GAMING MONITOR
LABS TEST
*
( +$
( $ !$ $! )$ $
$
Welcome
Custom PC Issue 143
Editorial
EDITOR
Ben Hardwidge
[email protected]
LABS
Matthew Lambert, Orestis Bastounis
MODDING EDITOR
Antony Leather
GAMES EDITOR
Rick Lane
ART EDITOR
Bill Bagnall
www.billbagnalldesign.com
PRODUCTION EDITOR
Julie Birrell
FINANCE DIRECTOR
Brett Reynolds
CONTRIBUTORS
Gareth Halfacree, James Gorbold,
Mike Jennings, Paul Goodhead, Richard
Swinburne, Simon Treadaway, Tracy King
PHOTOGRAPHY
Antony Leather, Gareth Halfacree,
Mike Jennings
COMPANY FOUNDER
Felix Dennis
CHIEF EXECUTIVE
James Tye
Subscriptions
Publishing & Marketing
GROUP PUBLISHER
Paul Rayner
[email protected]
LICENSING MANAGER
Carlotta Serantoni
[email protected]
+44 (0)20 7907 6550
LICENSING &
SYNDICATION ASSISTANT
Nicole Adams
[email protected]
+44 (0)20 7907 6134
Printed by BGP
OVERSEAS NEWSSTAND
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Seymour International Ltd
+44 (0)20 7429 4066
C U S TO M P C / ISSUE 143
Contents
Welcome to Issue 143
84 Build a complete 4K PC
In under two years, the price of
4K-capable kit has crumbled.
Not only has the price of a
4K monitor plummeted
from three grand to well
inc VAT
under 500, but even the
required graphics equipmentt
no longer costs thousands off
pounds. In fact, thanks to Nvidias
Maxwell architecture, 562 will buy you
the whole graphics subsystem, and it
wont eat your PSU for lunch either.
Thanks to all these plunging prices,
with the right component choices you
can now build an all-singing, alldancing, 4K gaming PC for well under
2,000, and the price even includes the
monitor, SLI graphics and Windows 8.1.
In this issue, well show you exactly
what you need, how to put it together,
and how to fine-tune and overclock
your new PC for the best performance.
FOR
1,886
20
Highlights
10 Fresh from Computex
Our man in Taiwan, Richard
Swinburne, reveals his
highlights from the Computex
trade show, including loads of
new motherboards, graphics
cards and cases.
14
Steam refunds
Tracy King analyses Valves recent
decision to allow refunds on digital
downloads, and how it relates to
statutory rights.
38
94 Hobby tech
Gareth Halfacree puts the Orange
Pi and GrovePi+ Starter Kit through
their paces, and also looks at
building the Kim Uno.
techniques
Antony Leather shows you how to
create some neat effects with rigid
tubing, from installing metal and
copper pipes to bending acrylic
tubing into spiral shapes.
108
29
102
Reviewed
this month
PRODUCTS
REVIEWED
Hardware
CPU COOLER
17 Noctua NH-D9L
CPUs
18 Intel Broadwell for desktop
GRAPHICS CARD
20 Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 Ti
100
94
GAMING LAPTOP
26 MSI GE72 2QD-037UK
MOUSE
28 Natec Genesis GX88
KEYBOARD
30 i-Rocks Golem Series K50
Custom kit
36
36
36
37
37
37
90
74
Regulars
8
10
12
14
15
32
36
56
62
73
80
94
100
102
107
108
112
113
Cover guide
84
Richard Swinburne
Letters
Tracy King
Acer XG270HU
AOC G2460PG
Asus ROG Swift PG278Q
BenQ XL2730Z
BenQ XL2420G
LG 34UM67
Philips 272G5DYEB
ViewSonic VG2401mh
PC system reviews
20
Games
Incoming
GTA V
Project CARS
Broken Age
Wolfenstein: The Old Blood
PC system reviews
74
76
76
78
Hobby tech
How we test
Custom kit
Inverse look
94 Orange Pi
98 GrovePi+ Starter Kit
82
Customised PC
How to guides
RealBench leaderboard
Readers drives
Folder of the month
Your folding milestones
102
38
5
OPINION
THEPRICEOF
EARLYADOPTION
If Ben Hardwidge had bought a Titan X when it was launched,
hed now be fuming
f Id bought a Titan X when it first launched, just two
months ago, Id currently be sitting in a corner,
gradually boiling up,ready to explode into a Hulk-like
Fury, but with less green, considerably less muscle and an
English accent. It probably wouldnt be Hulk-like at all, in fact,
but I would be seriously annoyed. Imagine youve just spent
850 on a graphics card, only for Nvidia to release one thats
almost identical for 300 less cash in just a few weeks. Its like
taking a seal away from a hungry polar bear, poking it with a
stick and making lewd jokes about its parents.
Why do it?
In this case, the answer is simply to make
moremoney.Youmakeahigh-marginproduct
that only people with lots of money can afford,
and sell it as the equivalent of Formula 1 tech to
PC enthusiasts. If you want the very best then
you have to pay for it, knowing that youll be
able to get a much cheaper product that does
the same job later down the line. Its understandable from a
business perspective,but after two months? Thats ridiculous.
Weve been down this road before, of course. When the
originalTitanlaunched,theGeForceGTX780Ticameoutsoon
afterwards and lots of people were annoyed. As such, most of
us expected a new Nvidia card that sat between the GTX 980
and Titan X, but we thought it would come out later, and with
performancemuchclosertotheGTX980thantheTitanX.After
all,the latters big advantage was that it could properly handle
4K gaming on a single GPU you wouldnt want to mess with
such a key selling point, would you?
Ben Hardwidge is the editor of Custom PC. He likes PCs, heavy metal, real ale and Warhammer 40,000.
@mandogfish
A N A LYS I S
COMPUTEX2015
ROUNDUP
Richard Swinburne reports on all the exciting new tech thats been
displayed and announced at the Computex trade show in Taiwan
vejustgotbackfromattendingComputex2015thelarge
annual PC-tech-centric trade show thats held in Taipei,
Taiwan, at the start of June. The show is generally a great
guide to the tech treats that are coming out during the rest of the
Graphicscards
Solidstatedrives
Just as I predicted in last months column,
SATA-Express is nowhere to be found, yet
there were several premium 4x PCI-E drives
with SF8639-connectors on display from
Adata, Apacer and other SSD manufacturers.
Of particular note is Adatas drive (pictured),
which will be cheaper than Intels 750 SSD (see
p24), yet with a larger capacity of up to 2TB.
FancySLIbridges
Also on display were Gigabyte and MSIs branded SLI bridges; Gigabytes bridges were
made from black plastic, with a blue eye motif, while MSIs aluminium bridges had a black
and red colour combination.
10
ROG certified
Asus Republic of Gamers (ROG)
group has launched a certified
products program, showing off
heatsinks, cases, memory and
waterblocks. Asus also showed
off its new Cherry MX Claymore
keyboard with RGB
lighting.
InWinstransformingcase
The H-Tower is In Wins latest limited edition concept chassis, which transforms
(really!), opening up like a flower to reveal its innards. With this chassis, the new
super-sized 909 and more affordable 805, In Win is frankly ruling the high-end
case arena, with its choices of premium materials and truly unique designs.
Anall-in-onePCwith
propergraphics
MSI showed off its AX24 all-in-one PC design,
which eschews the standard fixed graphics system in
favour of a chassis that can accept a full-sized graphics
card, which can even be upgraded at a later date. A
great idea!
NewG.SkillkitandPSUs
Like Asus, G.Skill has launched a new Cherry MX keyboard with RGB lighting,
called the Ripjaws MX780 RGB, along with another mechanical keyboard with
red-only lighting. Also on G.Skills stand was a new gaming mouse with RGB
lighting, two 7.1 headsets (one with ten speakers for true surround, and one with
a cheaper, virtual surround two-speaker setup) and 80 Plus Gold/Platinum
power supplies going up to 1,250W. Speaking of power supplies, PSUs sporting
the 80 Plus Titanium badge (the top rank, above Platinum) only made a limited
show, with Seasonic alone committing one to market.
AntecsnewS10chassis
After a few quiet years, Antec is now making an
impact again with its new S10 chassis. Sticking to a
compartmentalised design akin to the companys
classic P180 case, the S10s front drive section is
separated from the main case, which is in itself
isolated from the
drives and PSU area.
This setup allows
room for a 360mm
radiator to be placed
right next to the motherboard. Theres a version
with a brushed aluminium side, which looks a bit
monolithic to me, but the version with a tinted,
tempered glass side looks much more appealing.
MSIshows off
Godlike
motherboard
MSI also showed off its new
X99 motherboard. It has some
neat touches, such as the RGB
LEDs. However, well leave you
to draw your own conclusions
about the new Godlike
branding on the heatsink.
Skylakemotherboards
As the launch of Intels Skylake CPUs is still some way
off, most of the Z170 Skylake motherboards shown off
were only entry-level designs. However, ASRock broke
rank with its Extreme 7,
which showed a
surprisingly tasteful
black/gold theme,
along with space for
three PCI-E M.2 SSDs.
ASRock has also
already committed to
a mini-ITX Z170
motherboard using
the Fatal1ty brand.
Richard has worked in tech for over a decade, as a UK journalist, on Asus ROG team and now as an industry analyst based in Taiwan
@Bindibadgi
11
F E E D B AC K
Letters
Please send us your feedback and correspondence to
[email protected]
Defending the 5.25in
drive bay
I can barely express how much
James Gorbolds Goodbye 5.25in
drive bays column concerns me. If
this is your direction of travel, then
CPC might well lose a subscriber
and Scan a customer. He may not
have used his 5.25in drive bays for
three years (really, James, really?)
but all of mine see use on a weekly, if
not daily basis.
Firstly, buying and ripping CDs is
often cheaper than downloading
music and it gives you control over
the bit-rate and format, as well as
artwork and liner notes to peruse,
while the audio quality of DVD-A is
unsurpassed. Streaming individual
low-res tracks may be okay for kids,
but until you can download a full
album in a single file with lossless
audio, plus high resolution artwork,
at a lower price than the physical
version, Im highly unlikely to make
the switch.
Streaming movies also are a poor
relation to DVD and Blu-ray,
particularly when it comes to
special features commentaries,
deleted scenes, alternative angles,
seamless branching and so on.
Another drive bay on my system
houses the I/O for my sound card,
allowing me to plug in instruments,
microphones and MIDI controllers
to record music, while another bay
contains a multi-card reader, which
is almost always the quickest and
most reliable way of transferring
files, especially when your bloated
phone/camera software goes
wrong. Theres all this, and I havent
even mentioned the benefits of fan
controllers. If I had a case with no
5.25in bays, Id have a tonne of stuff
cluttering up my desk and no free
USB ports, so consider this the start
of a campaign to save the 5.25in bay!
BEN NUNN
12
All sorts of
handy devices
come in 5.25in
drive bay format
Which memory?
PEDANTS PARADISE
Twitter highlights
Follow us on Twitter at @CustomPCmag
EckhardMahne I got a 2500K i5 CPU in
my current PC. I use my PC just for
gaming. Is a 4690K + new MB worth the
upgrade just for gaming?
Ben: For gaming, not really. Sandy Bridge was
a groundbreaking architecture when it came
out, and while Devils Canyon is faster, its not
that much faster in games, and your 2500K
should be really overclockable too. The best
upgrade you can get for gaming is a new GPU.
Ren_Gaming Not a bad way to spend an
afternoon.
VICTOR WONG
Coloured coolant in a
closed-loop cooler
Depending on the
way the tubing
connects to the
parts, you can
sometimes replace
the tubing on an
all-in-one liquid
cooler and add
coloured coolant
13
OPINION
REFUNDRIGHTS
Steam finally has a scheme for giving customers refunds, but weve
been legally entitled to such a system for years, says Tracy King
our statutory rights are not affected, says the old
disclaimer weve all seen on product packaging,
usually under theif this is terrible,send it back to us
blurb. The invoking of statutory rights in that context is akin
to claiming an aerosol can is CFC-free. Manufacturers and
retailers in those cases are boasting about something thats
actually mandated by law. Score one for canny marketing. Its
pretty difficult to imagine a scenario in which a manufacturer
couldaffectyourstatutoryrights.Rightsare,well,rights. Theres
a clue in the name.
But when it comes to digital products, the
waters are muddier, because digital products
are comparatively new. Consumer protection
regulations didnt spring up fully formed the
first time someone made an axe and sold it to
their neighbour for a chunk of gold.Legislation
is honed and refined as time, and markets, go
on. Lobbying is increasingly a factor, where
manufacturers try to influence legislation in
their favour rather than customersfavour,but
the law for England and Wales is pretty heavily consumerorientated, except when it comes to digital products.
Most people dont separate digital products from physical
products, or from services. In our heads, any product we buy
withmoneyshouldbefairgameforarefundifbroken,oratthe
very least, to be made good via a replacement or getting the
originalproductfixed.Forthepurposesofconsumerprotection,
digital downloads arent considered goods or services in
English law, and have their own bit of legislation governing
cancellations,but your rights remain the same when it comes
to getting refunds for broken stuff.This situation appears to be
newstotheprovidersofdigitalcontent,though,whohave long
resisted fair refunds for buggy or unfinished games.
If a download doesnt
work, or match its
description, youre
entitled to a refund
Gamer and science enthusiast Tracy King dissects the evidence and statistics behind popular media stories surrounding tech and gaming
14
@tkingdoll
CO M I N G S O O N / NEW KIT
Incoming
We take a look at the latest newly announced products
Steam hardware
available for pre-order
Valve has finally launched its Steam
hardware for pre-order, promising that
gamers who take advantage of this offer will
get their hardware on 16 October this year,
while everyone else will have to wait for the
general release on 10 November. In the UK,
www.game.co.uk is offering a series of
bundles containing the Steam controller on
its own, and with the Steam Link device,
which enables game streaming from your
desktop PC to your TV at 1080p with a frame
rate of 60fps. Prices start at 60 inc VAT for
the controller with a 20 Steam Wallet Top
Up, while 100 will get you the same bundle
with the Steam Link device.
Valve says that full Steam machines will
also soon get the pre-order treatment,
naming CyberPower as the first
manufacturer to offer one, with other PC
builders following suit.
Windows 10 gets
release date
Microsofts next PC operating system,
Windows 10, is going to arrive sooner than
expected, with the company announcing an
official launch date of 29 July this year. The
new operating system will be available as a
free upgrade for users of Windows 7 and 8.1
for a year, although only users of the
Professional versions of the operating
system will get a free upgrade to Windows 10
Pro. If you want to upgrade from an older
system, or buy the new OS fresh, Windows
10 Home will cost $119 (around 78), while
Windows 10 Pro will cost $199 (about 130).
15
Reviews
HOWWETEST
PAGE 32
C P U CO O L E R
Noctua NH-D9L/39
inc VAT
SUPPLIER www.quietpc.com
IN T EL L GA 1 1 50
59C
Noctua NH-D9L
63C
Noctua NH-D9L
55C
DeepCool Assassin II
0
17
34
51
68
IN T EL L GA 2 0 1 1
52C
Noctua NH-D9L
58C
Noctua NH-D9L
47C
DeepCool Assassin II
0
Fixed fan speed
15
30
Low fan speed
45
60
Lower is better
LG A 1 1 5 x
COOLING
31/40
VALUE
DESIGN
85%
DESIGN
OVERALL SCORE
29/30
25/30
OVERALL SCORE
LG A 2 0 1 1
COOLING
39/40
VALUE
29/30
24/30
VERDICT
83%
17
R E V I E WS / NEW KIT
PREVIEW
Broadwells 14nm
transistor fins
are thinner, taller
and spaced more
closely together
22 nm 1st Generation
Tri-gate Transistor
18
14 nm 2nd Generation
Tri-gate Transistor
Farewell to K
With the manufacturing differences covered, lets take a look
at the new chips themselves the Core i7-5775C and Core
i5-5765C. The C at the end of the name basically has the
same meaning as the K at the end of current Intel CPUs
product names these chips both have unlocked multipliers
to enable overclocking.
As with other recent Intel desktop line-ups, the Core i5
chip has four physical cores, but doesnt support HyperThreading, while the quad-core Core i7 chip uses HyperThreading to effectively handle eight threads at once.
As expected after a die shrink, the quoted TDP of both
chips is also significantly lower than that of their Devils
Canyon counterparts. Intel quotes a TDP of just 65W for
both the new chips, compared with 88W for the Core
i7-4790K and Core i5-4690K.
Thats a significant reduction in power consumption for a
die shrink, you might think, and youd be right because the
die shrink isnt the only factor contributing to lower power
consumption.
The other main factor is the clock speed; interestingly, this
has been significantly reduced. The Devils Canyon Core
i7-4790K had a stock base clock of 4GHz, which uses Turbo
Boost to hit up to 4.4GHz.
Comparatively, the Core i7-5775C has a base clock of just
3.3GHz, which can boost to 3.7GHz. Thats a significant drop
in clock speed of 700MHz.
Of course, we expect the number of instructions per clock
(IPC) rate to also increase with a new CPU architecture, but
thats a big reduction in stock clock speed, especially when
new CPU architectures have seen gradual increases in clock
speed since the Core architecture was first launched.
Otherwise, the CPU core specs are very similar to those
of Haswell chips. Theres 6MB of Level 3 cache, and support
New graphics
In fact, the biggest change between Haswell and Broadwell
isnt the CPU core, but the integrated graphics system.
AMDs APUs have consistently outperformed Intels CPUs
in this respect, and not surprisingly so, given AMDs graphics
expertise from the ATI buyout all those years ago. However,
Intels new integrated graphics system looks set to offer a
serious challenge, with the GPU occupying a serious
amount of die space.
Iris Pro graphics have previously been available in laptops,
but this is the first time theyve been available in socketed
desktop CPUs. The new Iris Pro Graphics 6200 system
offers 48 execution units significantly more than the 20 in
the Core i7-4790Ks Intel HD Graphics 4600 system. The
graphics base frequency sits at 300MHz, with a 1.1GHz
maximum dynamic frequency, which is slower than the
350MHz (1.25GHz maximum dynamic) of the i7-4790Ks
frequency, but the extra execution units will counter that
clock speed reduction - in graphics, parallelism is key.
The Iris Pro Graphics 6200 system also has access to
128MB of super-fast eDRAM, which acts a little like an L4
cache like AMDs approach to integrated graphics, Intel is
looking at the GPU as a part of the CPU, rather than an addon. Weve yet to test an Iris Pro Graphics 6200 system, but
various reports in the industry point to it offering similar
performance to the GPU in AMDs top-end GPUs we look
forward to finding out whether this is true. Intel itself claims
it offers double the 3D graphics performance of Intel HD
Graphics 4600 systems, with a 20 per cent increase in
compute performance.
Final thoughts
Weve known about
the Broadwell desktop
launch for a while, and
the original plan for this
issue was to have
performance figures
from not only the new
CPUs, but also some fully built systems. However, we
havent received review samples of the chips from Intel.
Whats more, two system builders have now declined
to send us Broadwell systems because of reduced
performance, with one claiming they were struggling to
get decent overclocks out of their engineering samples
without experiencing thermal throttling.
We wont be able to verify desktop Broadwells
performance and overclocking headroom until we have
the final chips in our hands, of course. However, with their
significantly lower stock clock speeds, wed be very
surprised if the Core i7-5775C and Core i5-5765C offered
a compelling upgrade for enthusiasts with current Devils
Canyon systems.
The power consumption might be lower, and the
integrated graphics system might be more powerful than its
predecessor, but thats only really useful for building very
small form factor machines and low-budget PCs. Of course,
thats a big market, but it isnt one we expected to be
primarily targeted by Intels new unlocked desktop CPUs.
Given that Intels new Skylake CPUs, and 100-series
motherboard chipsets, look scheduled to be released in less
than a year, we think its safe to say that its best to wait and
see what the future holds, rather than upgrading to a
Broadwell CPU in preference to a Devils Canyon chip now.
BEN HARDWIDGE
19
R E V I E WS / NEW KIT
GRAPHICS CARD
inc VAT
SUPPLIER www.overclockers.co.uk
20
Performance
You only need to glance at the performance figures to see
the proximity in performance of the GTX 980 Ti and Titan X.
Across 2,560 x 1,440 and 4K, the GTX Titan X is 4 per cent
quicker than the GTX 980 Ti on average a difference youre
never likely to notice. Even in Alien: Isolation at 2,560 x 1440,
where the Titan Xs minimum frame rate is 11 per cent higher,
both cards are running so fast here that you wouldnt notice
the difference. In turn, the GTX 980 Ti is ahead of the GTX
980 by a healthy 29 per cent when taking the average of the
game results, and ahead of the R9 290X by 42 per cent.
For 2,560 x 1,440 gaming, the GTX 980 Tis minimum
frame rates exceed 60fps in all but one of our games,
Crysis 3, where the 53fps minimum is still smooth.
Even 4K is handled well, thanks to the 980 Tis fast
memory subsystem and large frame buffer. Again, in every
game except Crysis 3, it stays well above 30fps were
finally seeing cards that can handle 4K with maximum or
close to maximum details by themselves. In Crysis 3, the
26fps minimum passes also our technically playable test,
and is still a good result that matches that of the Titan X.
Power consumption is completely in line with the Titan X
too. The fact that you can run games this fast in a PC that
draws less than 400W from the mains is testament to
Maxwells outstanding efficiency. The cooler runs louder
than on the GTX 980, and is clearly audible, but it will only be
a distraction if you have your graphics card positioned very
close to you and your gaming audio is set to a low volume.
ELITE
NEWENTRY
P 62
Conclusion
The GTX 980 Ti is a powerful pre-emptive strike against
AMD, which at the time of publication still hasnt released its
R9 300 series. The pricing is fair too; its 30 per cent quicker
than a GTX 980 and about 30 per cent more expensive. Its
still costly, yes, but the performance benefit is equally
massive. The card is also future-proof with DX12, HDMI 2
and G-Sync support as well as a 6GB frame buffer, and the
overclocking potential is outstanding. However, Nvidia has
MATTHEW LAMBERT
CR YS IS 3
93 fps
35
93 fps
70
105
140
18
52 fps
48 fps
39 fps 48 fps
17
34
65 fps
26 fps
Nvidia GTX Titan X
62 fps
51
65 fps
64 fps
49 fps
40
18
59 fps
30 fps
22
44
56 fps
45 fps
67 fps
44 fps
54
72
66
88
43 fps
36
87 fps
85 fps
51 fps 64 fps
68 fps
46 fps
72
66 fps
59 fps
39 fps
54
68 fps
46 fps
36
40 fps
67 fps
25 fps
M ID D L E EA R T H : S H A D O W O F M O R D O R
77 fps
60
39 fps
39 fps
20 fps
0
79 fps
18
72
32 fps
68
54
33 fps
33 fps
26 fps
B AT T LEFI ELD 4
36
65 fps
42 fps 51 fps
53 fps
122 fps
76 fps
57 fps 67 fps
Overclocked min
15
55 fps
54 fps
33 fps
40 fps
30
45
60
Overclocked avg
T O T A L S Y S T E M POW ER D R A W
Nvidia GTX 980
104W
109W
381W
108W
386W
100
Idle
SPEED
FEATURES
39/40 18/20
VALUE
27/40
OVERALL SCORE
84%
Load
295W
200
300
400
Lower is better
VERDICT
By offering 4K gaming on a single GPU for just 549, the
GTX 980 Ti already makes the Titan X redundant. However,
we recommend holding out to see the impact of AMDs R9
300 series before buying a premium GPU right now.
21
R E V I E WS / NEW KIT
S O L I D STAT E D R I V E
inc VAT
SUPPLIER www.scan.co.uk
24
Performance
The SSD 750 dominates nearly all of our benchmarks, and
is clearly capable of achieving the advertised speeds in
particular, the sequential read and write speeds are
phenomenal. Its leagues ahead of SATA performance in
every test except single-queue-depth reads, although its
still fast here too.
Even in PCMark 7 and 8, which use traces of software not
optimised for NVMe, the SSD 750 has the best result in
each test. That said, the differences are small and often
inconsequential in games and standard office apps, youre
unlikely to notice any difference, although more demanding
tasks such as heavy photo and video editing may be met
with a small but appreciable speed bump.
Where it all comes together is in Iometer testing, which
batters the drive with high-queue-depth, random read
and write workloads typical of various professional and
workstation environments. NVMe was designed to
accelerate these workloads, and it works a treat; overall, the
SSD 750 is almost five times faster than the Samsung SSD
850 Pro, which is the best SATA drive available for this work.
The Windows 7 boot times are the only letdown, and here
we suspect the lack of native OS support is to blame we
AS SSD
Conclusion
Clearly, NVMe is a turning point for flash-based storage, but
at over 800, or around 73p per usable gigabyte, it comes
with a high cost of entry. Still, many professional and
workstation workloads will see a dramatic increase in
throughput, which could well justify this price.
Average home users and gamers are unlikely to notice the
difference, but if youre an enthusiast who wants the fastest
storage system available, we recommend turning to the
400GB model its slightly slower, but the 300 price tag is
much more palatable.
MATTHEW LAMBERT
P CM A R K 7
Secondary Storage score
1,307
2,320
600
1,200
1,800
112.3
75
150
225
300
324
0
1,456
383
400
800
1,200
1,600
551
450
900
1,350
129.7
100
200
300
400
372
0
Read
50/50
409
300
Write
/GB
10/20
BANG/BUCK
19/30
35
70
105
140
Lower is better
350.2
360.3
0
100
200
300
400
Lower is better
27.9
28.2
0
16
600
900
1,200
Samsung SSD
850 Pro 1TB
Intel SSD 750 1.2TB
12.95
19.02
5
10
79%
15
20
Lower is better
218,026
46,980
0
OVERALL SCORE
24
32
Lower is better
IO M ET ER
1,004 1,010
1,800
386.9
132.8
B O O T R A CER
46.2
Samsung SSD
850 Pro 1TB 39.6
131.8
1,663
6,000
4,500
1,112
3,000
285.3
1,500
P CM A R K 8
42.7
Samsung SSD
850 Pro 1TB 36.7
5,615
0
2,400
5,929
501 526
0
SPEED
60,000
120,000
180,000 240,000
VERDICT
NVMe has made a seriously impressive debut in the SSD
750, but at this price, only wealthy early adopters and
workstation users need apply
25
R E V I E WS / NEW KIT
G A M I N G L A P TO P
inc VAT
SUPPLIER www.scan.co.uk
26
Performance
The GE72 may sit at the affordable end of the gaming laptop
scale, but its benchmark results arent bad for the money,
thanks to its quad-core CPU with Hyper-Threading support.
The GE72s overall result of 81,712 isnt record-breaking, and
weve seen better results from other gaming laptops, but it
shows the MSIs performance is ample for gaming and
other Windows tasks.
Meanwhile, gaming performance is a mixed bag. Lets
start with the good, which is that the GE72 never dropped
below 34fps when playing BioShock Infinite at top settings
at the screens native resolution. However, the rest of our
game tests failed to hit our 25fps minimum target for
playability, let alone 30fps.
To be fair, though, our games tests are very demanding,
and the Battlefield 4 minimum of 24fps was very close
youll only need to slightly tweak the graphics settings to
make it playable. However, youll need to do a fair bit of
tweaking in Shadow of Mordor or Crysis 3 to make them
playable on this machine at its native resolution. As a point
of comparison, the Gigabyte P35X v3 (see Issue 138, p30)
achieved 30fps minimums in all our 1080p games
benchmarks with its GTX 980M GPU, but that range of
laptops starts at 1,499.
On the plus side, the comparatively modest specifications
means the GE72s noise output isnt bad. When running
undemanding tasks, the GE72 is tricky to hear at all; its
louder when stress tested, but its modest fan is easier to
ignore than the one in the aforementioned Gigabyte laptop.
The temperatures werent too toasty either; in stress
testing, the CPU topped out at 87C, and the GPU at 74C
weve seen CPU temperatures go well above 90C in other
gaming laptops.
On the downside, the GE72s screen isnt great. The colour
temperature of 7,549K is far too cool, and the delta E of 7.49
is way off the mark, meaning colours just wont be accurate.
CP C REALBEN CH 2 0 15
GIMP IMAGE EDI T I N G
12,000
B A TTL E FI E L D 4
1,920 x 1,080, Ultra Detail, 4x AA
42,941
MSI GE72
0
Conclusion
24,000
36,000
188,876
0
50,000
100,000
37,693
10,000
20,000
30,000
40,000
25,000
75,000
100,000
16
24
48
14fps
8
32fps
32
25,000
50.000
75,000
DESIGN
20/25
19/25
22/25
22/25
VALUE
16fps
MSI GE72
100.000
HARDWARE
36
CRYSIS 3
81,712
MSI GE72
SPEED
44fps
24
SHADOW OF MORDOR
SYST EM SCORE
0
12
MSI GE72
50,000
32
87,496
0
34fps
MSI GE72
HEAVY MULT IT AS K I N G
MSI GE72
24
150,000 200,000
MSI GE72
16
B I O S H O C K I N FI N I TE
L UXMARK OP EN C L
0
HANDBRAKE H. 26 4 VI DEO EN C O DI N G
MSI GT80
24fps 29fps
MSI GE72
48,000
Minimum
OVERALL SCORE
83
14
26fps
21
28
Average
VERDICT
Youll need to tone down your graphics settings to run
demanding games at 1080p, but the GE72 is otherwise a
solid gaming laptop for a very tempting price.
27
R E V I E WS / NEW KIT
GAMING MOUSE
incVAT
28
CONCLUSION
The GX88 is a little complicated to set up, especially if you
dont use the software, and the super-granular dpi
adjustment can be tricky to tune on-the-fly. However, the
software is good, its generally comfortable to use and it has
plenty of programmable buttons and modes. Its price isnt
bad for the features on offer either. Its only problem is that
the gaming mouse market is very crowded and its up
against some seriously stiff competition from the likes of
Logitech and Mionix.
ANTONY LEATHER
DESIGN
31/40
OVERALL SCORE
83
FEATURES
30/35
VALUE
22/25
VERDICT
A reasonably priced and wellmade mouse with plenty of
customisation options, but its up
against tough competition.
HOWWETEST
PAGE 32
R E V I E WS / NEW KIT
K E Y B OA R D
inc VAT
30
The K50 retails for 39, and its devoid of quite a few
features as a result. There are no macro keys, USB ports or
customisation software included, and the only options for
media keys are the volume control buttons.
Thankfully, the keys offer 24-key rollover with PS/2
or 13-key with USB, and theyre backlit, albeit with a single
lighting level and only in orange, but the brightness level is
fine in both low light and completely dark lighting conditions.
Theres no wrist rest either, and the support stands only
offer a single, slightly overzealous height setting. That said,
the K50s sloped key set made for comfortable typing
without the stands engaged anyway.
Theres no braided cable either, but there are cable
channels that enable you to route the USB cable via either
side or the centre.
Conclusion
While it lacks advanced features, the K50 is pleasant to
use, very quiet and offers far more tactile feedback than
membrane keyboards, although the membrane bounce
means it isnt for Cherry MX fans.
With its sub-40 price, though, it sits comfortably
between membrane and mechanical price brackets,
offering a solid step up if youre not quite prepared (or dont
have the cash) to enter the realms of mechanical keyboards.
ANTONY LEATHER
DESIGN
33/40
OVERALL SCORE
82%
FEATURES
25/35
VALUE
24/25
VERDICT
A great upgrade for membrane
keyboard owners, and its quiet
too, although it isnt going to
challenge Cherry MX designs.
R E V I E WS / NEW KIT
Howwetest
Thorough testing and research is the key to evaluating whether a product
is worth buying, and deciding whether or not theres a better alternative
PROCESSORS
We judge CPUss on whether
er they offer sufficient speed for the price. Part of a CPUs speed score comes from how
overclockable it is. Every
E
type
e of CPU is tested
t in the
h same PC, so all results are directly comparable.
a
INTEL LGA2011V3
INTEL LGA1150
Intel
LGA1150
CPU
16GB Corsair
Vengeance Pro
1,600MHz DDR3
+
240GB
OCZ Vector
150
Intel
LGA2011 -v3
CPU
+
Asus
Rampage V
Extreme
16GB Corsair
Vengeance LPX
2,133MHz DDR4
512GB Crucial
MX100
COMMON
COMPONENTS
AMD FM2+
+
AMD FM2+
APU
+
Gigabyte G1 Sniper
A88X
+
8GB G.Skill RipjawsX
1,600MHz DDR3
(CPU testing)
+
256GB Plextor
M5 Pro
Nvidia GeForce
GTX 780 3GB
Windows 7
64-bit
TESTS: We use Custom PC RealBench 2015, Cinebench R11.5 and a variety of games. We also test the power draw of the test PC with the
CPU installed. These tests reveal a broad range of performance characteristics, from image editing to gaming and video encoding to 3D
rendering. We run all tests at stock speed and again when overclocked to its highest frequency.
*Please note: We test AMD FM2+ APUs using the on-board graphics, not the Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 3GB
GRAPHICS CARDS
Graphics cards are mainly evaluated on how fast they are for their price. However, we also consider the efficacy and
quietness of the cooler. Every graphics card is tested in the same PC, so all results are directly comparable.
32
Asus Maximus V
Extreme
Windows 7
64-bit
= SCORES
AMD REFERENCE
+
240GB
OCZ
150
+
Asus
Maximus
Gene VII
=100%
Nvidia
GeForce GTX
780 3GB
AMD
8GB of Corsair
A10-7850K 2,133MHz
DDR3
+
256GB
Plextor
M5 Pro
MOTHERBOARDS
Motherboards are evaluated on everything from layout and features to overclockability
and value for money. Every motherboard is tested with the same components, so all
results are directly comparable.
INTEL LGA1150
Motherboard
16GB Corsair
Intel
240GB
on test
Vengeance Pro OCZ Vector
Core
1,600MHz DDR3
i7-4790K
150
INTEL LGA2011V3
+
AMD
A10-7850K
Motherboard
on test
16GB Corsair
Vengeance Pro
2,133MHz DDR3
COMMON COMPONENTS
Nvidia GeForce
GTX 780 3GB*
The
Awards
EXTREME
ULTRA
AMD FM2+
Windows 7
64-bit
TESTS: We use Custom PC RealBench 2015 and several games, and also test the speeds of the
boards SATA ports. We try to overclock every motherboard we review by testing for a maximum QPI,
base clock or HTT as well as overclocking the CPU to its maximum air-cooled level. We run our tests at
stock speed and with the CPU overclocked.
*Please note: We test AMD FM2+ motherboards using the on-board graphics, not the Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 3GB
PREMIUM
GRADE
Premium Grade
products are
utterly desirable
wed eat nothing
but beans until we
could afford them.
PROFESSIONAL
Products worthy of
the Professional
award make you
and your business
appear even more
awesome.
APPROVED
Approved products
are those that do a
great job for the
money; theyre the
canny purchase for
a great PC.
CUSTOM KIT
TESTS: By using the fast PC detailed on the left, we can be sure that any limitations are due to the
graphics card on test, rather than being CPU limited. We test the four games (above) at their maximum
detail settings, in their highest DirectX mode, at several resolutions. High-end cards should be able to
sustain playable frame rates at 2,560 x 1,440, while 1,920 x 1,080 is more important for mid-range
cards; we also test at 3,840 x 2,160 for 4K monitors, and try to overclock every graphics card we test to
assess the performance impact.
33
R E V I E WS / NEW KIT
CustomKit
Paul Goodhead checks out the latest gadgets, gizmos and geek toys
USB DRIVE
inc VAT
On The Go (OTG) USB drives offer a flexible way to add extra storage to an
Android tablet or phone, and the JetFlash 880 may be the best example weve
seen yet. Firstly, its tiny. Barely bigger than the USB 3 connection its built
around, the 880 is discreet and light. Its also water-resistant and stood up to
a quick dunk under a running tap. Water-resistant doesnt mean waterproof,
though, so its unlikely to survive a trip through the washing machine.
It isnt the quickest USB 3 drive weve ever seen, with respective read/
write speeds of 69.3MB/sec and 19.6MB/sec, but thats still plenty of
bandwidth for watching 1080p video. Its reasonably priced too 25
nets you the 64GB version, which is just 10 more than the 32GB USB2
SanDisk OTG drive we recently reviewed.
SUPPLIER www.morecomputers.com
2.0 SPEAKERS
Microlab B58/17
inc VAT
Despite the budget price tag, first impressions of the Microlab B58 speakers are good;
theyre bigger and sturdier than other cheap 2.0 speakers weve seen and, while the styling
on show isnt exactly scintillating, they are far from offensive. The budget leaning
gs of the set
es, however.
become more apparent when theyre tasked with belting out your favourite tune
High frequencies such as like splashy hi-hats sounded crackly and distorted, mid
de from the
frequencies sounded wishy-washy and lacking punch, and the available volume
speakers can best be described as measly.
e highlight,
The bass response which was deep, booming and well behaved was a rare
but overall, the B58 is an unsatisfying set of desk speakers, despite its temptingly
y low price.
SUPPLIER www.scan.co.uk
H D D C A D DY
inc VAT
Finished in brushed aluminium and boasting a USB 3 connection, the AC6034-U3 initially
looks pretty solid for its 17 asking price. Get your hands on it, though, and you can quickly
see where costs have been cut. The aluminium casing is paper-thin, and there isnt any
padding or protection in sight. The top doesnt screw down either it just fastens in place
with a flimsy friction clip.
What it lacks in luxury, it makes up in speed though. With an SSD inside it, and using a
test folder containing videos and MP3s, we saw read/write speeds of 103.1MB/sec and
69.3MB/sec respectively. The AC6034-U3is a neat-looking device that offers decent
storage speed. Just make sure you dont drop it if it contains a mechanical hard drive.
SUPPLIER www.novatech.co.uk
36
S M A R T WATC H
inc VAT
However, apps dont install on the Watch but on the paired phone,
which causes lag as data is shunted between devices. You also cant
enter text on the Watch (except via Siri), and it doesnt have a web
browser, so you can do very little on the Watch itself. Theres genuinely
useful potential here, but for now it feels more like a tech demo.
SUPPLIER www.apple.com
B LU E TO OT H S P E A K E R
QDOS Q-PUK/40
inc VAT
CARD READER
As the name implies, the Q-PUK is around the size of an ice hockey
puck. Consequently, we werent surprised that its output lacked a little
bit of oomph in the bass department. Mid and high frequencies were
clear and bright, though, and the overall effect was acceptable for a
small unit, and definitely preferable to a tinny smartphone speaker.
Where the Q-PUK really shines, however, is in its ruggedised design
and build quality. Compliant with the IP67 standard, its dustproof and
waterproof, so its equally at home in the shower or at a dry and dusty
festival. It floats too, so its easy to find if you drop it in water. As such,
its more reliable and versatile than some of the more technically
proficient, but fragile, portable Bluetooth speakers.
SUPPLIER www.qdossound.com
SUPPLIER www.currys.co.uk
inc VAT
37
L A B S T E ST
Synccity
We put several FreeSync and G-Sync monitors through their
paces to find the best displays for tear-free gaming
ired of tolerating visual stuttering and tearing artefacts in
games, in an age when technology should be better? Then
join us in the frame-synced heaven of this months monitor
Labs. Nvidias G-Sync and AMDs FreeSync are variable refresh rate
technologies, synchronising a monitors refresh rate in real time to
the frame rate of the content being displayed. For games, where the
frame rate varies constantly, these technologies theoretically lead to
gameplay thats free from both stuttering and tearing.
G-Sync was unveiled by Nvidia in 2013, while FreeSync is AMDs
equivalent technology, which the company says will do the same
job, but for less money through the use of open industry standards.
FreeSync has been demonstrated and discussed for a long time, but
only received an official launch in March this year.
Contents
How we test / p39
FreeSync and G-Sync explained / p42
How to set up G-Sync and FreeSync / p50
The future of sync tech / p54
Results / p55
38
MONITORS
Acer XG270HU / p40
AOC G2460PG / p41
Asus ROG Swift PG278Q / p44
BenQ XL2730Z / p46
How we test
daptive-refresh technology
was invented to provide better,
smoother motion in games, by
eliminating screen tearing and the reliance
on vsync. The only way to judge how well
each display managed this task was by
loading a scene from a game and forming
a subjective conclusion about its
performance. We used sections of
Battlefield 4 and Crysis 3 on each of them,
adjusting the detail settings for a view of
the screens performance at a range of
frame rates. We also used AMD and
Nvidias own demos to judge ghosting,
testing the displays overdrive settings
where applicable.
In order to test panels beyond the
subjective level, we also tested each
monitor with a DataColor Spyder4Elite
colorimeter, which accurately measures a
monitors colour accuracy, contrast ratio,
brightness and gamma levels. The
colorimeter is placed in the middle of the
screen (which is reset to its factory
settings), and the software then displays a
number of different colours and shades of
grey for the Spyder4 to measure.
The outcome is a detailed report of
the measured values, which gives us an
at-a-glance evaluation of the panels
performance. Were looking for a neutral
colour temperature, also called the white
point, thats as close to the sRGB colour
spaces 6500 Kelvin (K) measurement as
possible; too high a value results in a cooler
temperature and a blue tinge to the picture,
while a low value signifies a warmer
temperature and a red tinge. To ensure
accurate and balanced detail in mid-tones,
gamma levels at different shades of grey
should be as close to 2.2 as possible, so as
to match the Windows and sRGB standards.
Meanwhile, the contrast ratio the
difference between the monitors blackest
black and whitest white is measured by
dividing the displays peak brightness in
candela per square metre (cd/m) by the
black point the brightness of black on the
screen. A higher value is considered better,
although weve only tested using static
contrast settings.
Dynamic contrast modes, available on
some screens, can achieve greater contrast
ratios, but at the cost of jarring and constant
39
L A B S T E ST / GAMING MONITORS
Acer XG270HU/380
incVAT
SUPPLIER www.ebuyer.com
Conclusion
The Acer XG270HU has the highest contrast
ratio on test, and great image quality on the
desktop and in games, with the exception of
slight ghosting. Of course, below the 40Hz
40
IMAGE
50/55
FEATURES
VALUE
7/15
VERDICT
Decent image quality,
great looks and a high
contrast ratio for a good
price, but it lacks features.
24/30
OVERALL SCORE
81
/SPECIFICATIONS
Native resolution 2,560 x 1,440
Screen size 27in
Panel type TN
Refresh rate FreeSync 40Hz-144Hz
Display inputs Dual-link DVI, HDMI and
DisplayPort
Extras None
AOC G2460PG/295
incVAT
SUPPLIER www.box.co.uk
Conclusion
The price of Nvidias G-Sync module clearly
adds a fair amount to the cost of a screen, as
you can see from the similar ViewSonic
VG2401mh (p53 ), which comes without the
technology and costs almost 100 less than
the AOC. Still, relative to the rest of the pack,
AOCs G2460PG offers good value for money
and a flawless gaming experience. If you
want a bigger or higher-quality panel, youll
need to spend more money, but for a
standard, PC-only G-Sync gaming screen,
the AOC G2460PG is a great option.ML
IMAGE
44/55
FEATURES
10/15
VERDICT
G-Sync adds to the cost,
but the AOC is one of the
most affordable ways to
enjoy G-Sync gaming.
VALUE
28/30
OVERALL SCORE
82
/SPECIFICATIONS
Native resolution 1,920 x 1,080
Screen size 24in
Panel type TN
Refresh rate G-Sync 30Hz-144Hz
Display inputs DisplayPort
Extras On-screen crosshair, 2 x USB 3 and 2 x
USB 2 ports
41
L A B S T E ST / GAMING MONITORS
FreeSync andG-Syncexplained
Why we need variable refresh rate technology, and how it works
ractically every display today runs
at a fixed refresh rate, typically
60Hz. However, LCD panels dont
require a fixed refresh rate to function; this
standard is simply a legacy that dates back to
vacuum tube-based televisions and CRT
monitors. For gamers, fixed refresh rates are
a problem while the panel updates its
image at fixed intervals, GPUs deliver frames
at varying intervals, as the work required
per frame changes constantly. If a frame is
delivered mid-refresh, you get screen
tearing, a phenomenon caused by the
monitor displaying part of the old frame
and part of the new one. Its particularly
evident in scenes with lots of motion, and it
can be very distracting.
Vertical sync, or vsync, solves this issue
by synchronising the GPU to the monitors
refresh rate, forcing it to wait until the start
of a screen refresh cycle, also known as
the vertical blanking (VBLANK) interval,
before delivering a frame. Vsync ensures
that only full frames are ever displayed,
eliminating tearing.
Vsync, however, introduces its own
problems. If the GPU takes too long to render
a frame, missing the refresh cycle, the screen
simply repeats the previous frame,
introducing visible stuttering and input lag.
Even if the GPU renders a frame quickly
enough, input lag can be an issue with vsync,
as it will hold frames until the refresh period,
meaning youre not being shown the latest
information as soon as possible.
Higher refresh rate panels (such as 144Hz)
help to combat these issues the shorter
wait between refreshes means tearing, input
lag and stutter are harder to detect, but you
need to be running at very high frame rates to
get the most benefit, and the problems are
lessened, not solved. However, variable
refresh rate (VRR) technology, such as
FreeSync and G-Sync, directly addresses and
fixes these issues by making the GPU the
master, synchronising and varying the refresh
rate to match the render rate.
42
Nvidias G-Sync
Pendulum
demo shows
synchronisation
tech in action,
with a massive
tear appearing in
the middle of the
pendulum at a fixed
refresh rate
Synchronised
refresh rate
At its worst, a fixed refresh rate thats out of sync with your frame rate can cause considerable tearing
43
ELITE
NEW ENTRY
P 62
L A B S T E ST / GAMING MONITORS
incVAT
SUPPLIER www.scan.co.uk
44
Conclusion
At 587 inc VAT, the Asus ROG Swift PG278Q
isnt cheap, nor is it quite the best monitor in
terms of image quality. However, its desktop
image quality is still decent, and its gaming
performance is phenomenal, and the latter is
your main priority when investing in a G-Sync
monitor. To top it all off, the PG278Q has a
cracking feature set. With loads of features
and simply superb gaming performance, the
Asus ROG Swift PG278Q is the G-Sync
monitor to buy if you can afford it. OB
IMAGE
51/55
FEATURES
12/15
VERDICT
Its pricey, but the Asus
gaming performance is
phenomenal, and it has a
cracking feature set too.
VALUE
21/30
OVERALL SCORE
84
/SPECIFICATIONS
Native resolution 2,560 x 1,440
Screen size 27in
Panel type TN
Refresh rate G-Sync 30Hz-144Hz
Display inputs DisplayPort
Extras On-screen crosshair, Turbo Key, 5-way
joystick-controlled OSD and 2 x USB 3 ports
/*- +"# ///2
(
(
#$3/'$'2
"7$#'$'2
L A B S T E ST / GAMING MONITORS
incVAT
SUPPLIER www.box.co.uk
46
Conclusion
Although G-Sync displays have a slight edge
over FreeSync monitors, with less tearing at
lower frame rates, thats no good if you own
an AMD GPU, and BenQs XL2730Z offers a
great display for AMD users.
If youre looking for a FreeSync monitor,
the Ben Q XL2730Zs great image quality,
genuinely useful features, good FreeSync
performance and decent resolution make it
a fantastic gaming monitor. OB
IMAGE
49/55
FEATURES
VALUE
14/15
VERDICT
With great image quality
and features, plus a high
resolution, this is our topchoice FreeSync monitor.
24/30
OVERALL SCORE
87
/SPECIFICATIONS
Native resolution 2,560 x 1,440
Screen size 27in
Panel type TN
Refresh rate FreeSync 40Hz-144Hz
Display inputs Dual-Link DVI, 2 x HDMI, VGA
and DisplayPort
Extras Remote for OSD, 2 x USB 3
ELITE
NEW ENTRY
P 62
BenQ XL2420G/400
incVAT
SUPPLIER www.cclonline.com
IMAGE
42/55
FEATURES
13/15
VERDICT
Loads of great features,
but you can get similar
G-Sync performance for
less money elsewhere.
Conclusion
There are certainly
praiseworthy aspects of
the BenQ XL2420G, not
least its flexibility when it
comes to connecting
multiple devices, as well
as its remote-controlled
OSD system. However, the
AOC G2460PG offers a
VALUE
23/30
OVERALL SCORE
78
/SPECIFICATIONS
Native resolution 1,920 x 1,080
Screen size 24in
Panel type TN
Refresh rate G-Sync 30Hz-144Hz
Display inputs Dual-Link DVI, 2 x HDMI and
DisplayPort
Extras Remote for OSD, 2 x USB 2 ports
47
L A B S T E ST / GAMING MONITORS
LG 34UM67/400
incVAT
SUPPLIER www.ebuyer.com
48
Instead of using
buttons, the OSD is
controlled with a
joystick in the centre
other displays. Although this IPS panel has
a quoted refresh time of 14ms, when TN
screens manage 1ms, ghosting levels were
pleasingly low on this screen, even with this
setting on its lowest value.
The horizontal and vertical viewing
angles of 178 degrees offer a noticeable
improvement over TN screens too. With such
a wide display, horizontal discolouration
would likely be even more noticeable at
different on a TN panel.
Meanwhile, colours look excellent on the
desktop. The uncalibrated brightness of
328cd/m and contrast ratio of 620:1 are
good results, while the delta E result
below 2 indicates excellent out-of-thebox colour reproduction. Power
consumption of 48W at 100 per cent
brightness isnt bad for a 34in display
either, although the comparatively low
number of pixels to illuminate is
undoubtedly a contributing factor.
As long as you remain within
the 40Hz-144fps frame rate
range while gaming, the 34UM67
works just as well as any other
FreeSync display. Below or
above this range, however, it
unfortunately introduces the
Conclusion
A reasonable price, an ultra-wide aspect ratio
and good image quality make the 34UM67
seem like a brilliant purchase at first, but its
low pixel density and limited support for the
extended FreeSync frequency range really
damage it when compared with the
competition, especially for a dedicated
gaming monitor. All of this is a shame
because, in all other respects, gaming on this
screen is a blast. OB
IMAGE
47/55
FEATURES
VALUE
7/15
VERDICT
A great aspect ratio for
gaming, but its let down
by a low pixel density and
limited FreeSync range.
23/30
OVERALL SCORE
77
/SPECIFICATIONS
Native resolution 2,560 x 1,080
Screen size 34in
Panel type IPS
Refresh rate FreeSync 48Hz-75Hz
Display inputs Dual-Link DVI, HDMI and
DisplayPort
Extras Six-way joystick-controlled OSD
L A B S T E ST / GAMING MONITORS
HOW TO
3 Auto-detection
FreeSync: Youll see the following pop-up dialogue:
Click on the
notification to
access the Nvidia
Control Panel.
If you dont see a
pop-up window or
notification, the
Catalyst Control
Center and Nvidia
Control Panel can
both be accessed by
right-clicking on
your desktop.
50
6 Reboot
Restart your system and check that the settings have been
maintained. You can then run some games and enjoy high frame
rates without any stuttering or tearing artefacts.
L A B S T E ST / GAMING MONITORS
Philips 272G5DYEB/395
incVAT
SUPPLIER www.ballicom.co.uk
Conclusion
The Philips 272G5DYEB is another good
G-Sync screen that delivers a great gaming
experience, although it doesnt have
outstanding colour or image reproduction.
However, while its a better monitor than
52
IMAGE
44/55
FEATURES
12/15
VERDICT
A good size, and 144Hz
G-Sync is excellent, but it
isnt quite worth the extra
100 over the AOC.
VALUE
24/30
OVERALL SCORE
80
/SPECIFICATIONS
Native resolution 1,920 x 1,080
Screen size 27in
Panel type TN
Refresh rate G-Sync 30Hz-144Hz
Display inputs Dual-link DVI, HDMI and
DisplayPort
Extras On-screen crosshair, 4 x USB 3
1 4 4 H Z F I X E D R E F R E S H R AT E M O N I TO R
ViewSonic VG2401mh/199
incVAT
SUPPLIER www.dabs.com
Conclusion
The VG2401mh works well at 144Hz
regardless of your GPU, with good
desktop image quality, little ghosting,
a wide range of display inputs and an
adjustable stand. If your budget cant
quite stretch to a variable refresh
rate panel, the ViewSonic is a good
budget alternative. OB
IMAGE
FEATURES
VALUE
OVERALL SCORE
84
/SPECIFICATIONS
Native resolution 1,920 x 1,080
Screen size 24in
Panel type TN
Refresh rate Fixed 144Hz
Display inputs Dual-Link DVI, 2 x HDMI and
DisplayPort
Extras On-screen crosshair, 2 x USB 3 and
2 x 3W speakers
53
L A B S T E ST / GAMING MONITORS
MSI is updating
its GT72 gaming
laptop to support
Nvidias G-Sync
technology
54
CONTRAST RATIO
Acer XG270HU
200
Acer XG270HU
780
BenQ XL2730Z
200
BenQ XL2730Z
660
LG 34UM67
200
LG 34UM67
500
BenQ XL2420G
Philips
272G5DYEB
600
AOC G2460PG
200
400
BenQ XL2420G
88
530
AOC G2460PG
85
520
Acer XG270HU
80
460
BenQ XL2420G
88
85
590
Philips
272G5DYEB
400
AOC G2460PG
LG 34UM67
Philips
272G5DYEB
300
620
92
BenQ XL2730Z
600
800
Higher is better
77
25
50
75
100
Higher is better
COLOUR ACCURACY
AVERAGE GAMMA
Average delta-E
Philips
272G5DYEB
33
LG 34UM67
AOC G2460PG
34
43
Acer XG270HU
Acer XG270HU 0
1.27
BenQ XL2420G 0
1.69
LG 34UM67 0
1.91
Acer XG270HU
Philips
272G5DYEB
LG 34UM67
48
BenQ XL2730Z
49
Philips
272G5DYEB
2.23
AOC G2460PG
0.2
AOC G2460PG
2.32
0.2
77
BenQ XL2420G
89
BenQ XL2730Z
25
50
75
100
Lower is better
1.98
3.2
BenQ XL2420G
3
4
Lower is better
0.1
0.3
BenQ XL2730Z
0.1
0.2
0.3
Lower is better
55
R E V I E WS / NEW KIT
PC system reviews
GAMING PC
SUPPLIER www.box.co.uk
56
Performance
On paper, the Core i5-4690K is a step down from the stockspeed Core i7-4790K that forms the basis of our RealBench
2015 reference score, but Boxs overclocking means its only
slightly behind, only really taking a hit in the multi-tasking
test. Unless youre running highly multi-threaded
A Thermaltake
Water 3.0 keeps the
overclocked Core
i5-4960K cool
An MSI GeForce
GTX 970 graphics
card handles
gaming duties
Conclusion
Boxs machine isnt fussy or over the top, but it has power in
every key department: theres enough gaming power to
handle 2,560 x 1,440 gaming without breaking a sweat, and
theres a fast processor, 240GB of solid state storage and a
2TB hard drive.
C P C REALB ENC H 2 0 15
GI MP I MAGE EDI T I N G
16,000
3
2
B A T T L EF IEL D 4
60,071
32,000
48,000
64,000
HANDBR AKE H. 2 6 4 V I D E O E N C O D I N G
237,828
60,000
120,000
180,000 240,000
70,503
18,000
36,000
54,000
72,000
70,000
105,000 140,000
112,119
DESIGN
21/25
20/25
20/25
21/25
HARDWARE
40
60
80
SHADOW OF MORDOR
35fps
12
24
44fps
36
48
CR YS IS 3
60,000
90,000
VALUE
30fps
120,000
11
I NTEL REFERENCE : 9 7 . 9 6 %
SPEED
20
S YS TEM S C OR E
0
52
136,477
50fps
39
59fps 70fps
HEAVY MULTI TA S KI N G
35,000
26
13
B IO S H O CK IN F IN IT E
LUXMARK OP ENC L
0
41fps
Minimum
OVERALL SCORE
82%
22
43fps
33
44
Average
VERDICT
Enough power to play games at 2,560
x 1,440 for under a grand, and theres
plenty of room for future upgrades too.
57
R E V I E WS / NEW KIT
GAMING PC
inc VAT
SUPPLIER: www.scan.co.uk
58
Performance
Nvidia says that the GTX 980 Ti is designed for 4K gaming,
and weve no reason to quibble. In Battlefield 4 at 3,840 x
2,160 and Ultra settings, the Scan hit a minimum of 33fps,
and it managed a better minimum of 48fps in Shadow of
Mordor both scores that will ensure smooth gameplay.
Crysis 3 was a little more challenging, with a minimum of
25fps at the games toughest settings, but the average of
35fps is better and thats a remarkable achievement for a
single-GPU system at this price.
The Core i7-5820K is no slouch either, helping the Scan
to an overall application benchmark score of 160,430
points. Thats 40 per cent better than our reference system,
and the 6-core CPU, not surprisingly, excelled in the heavily
multi-threaded parts of our test suite.
Theres no denying the sheer speed on offer from
Samsungs PCI-based SSD either. Its sequential read and
ELITE
NEWENTRY
P 62
An overclocked Core
i7-5820K sits under
this massive Be
Quiet! cooler
1
2
Conclusion
Scans choice of components is clever and powerful: the
GTX 980 Ti has the power needed to play games at 4K, the
SSD offers blistering pace and the Core i7-5820K is very
fast in multi-threaded apps.
Whether you want to run multi-threaded software or
demanding games, this machine will do it all, and for under
two grand. It impresses elsewhere too, with a great case and
C P C R EALB ENC H 2 0 15
GI MP I MAGE EDIT I N G
B IO S H O CK IN F IN IT E
48,582
0
13,000
26,000
39,000
52,000
300,000
400,000
LUXMAR K OP ENC L
Scan 3XS X99
Carbon Ti
25,000
50,000
75,000
100,000
150,000
41,000
82,000
123,000
200,000
164,000
25
50
50fps
22
44
75
25fps
0
100
10
Minimum
33fps
12
24
61fps
48
64
75fps
66
88
20
35fps
30
40
Average
43fps
36
48
Average
DESIGN
24/25
22/25
22/25
22/25
HARDWARE
48fps
SPEED
32
80
70fps 84fps
Minimum
16
79fps
60
B AT T LEFI ELD 4
40
20
CR YS IS 3
I NTEL REFERENCE : 14 0 . 17 %
80
160,430
0
72fps
60
62fps
40
S YS T EM S C ORE
20
50,000
120
100,000
190,342
0
90
56fps
0
HEAVY MULT I T A S K I N G
Scan 3XS X99
Carbon Ti
60
SHADOW OF MORDOR
90,189
0
30
384,761
100,000
100fps 116fps
0
HANDB R AKE H. 2 6 4 V I D E O E N C O D I N G
0
VALUE
OVERALL SCORE
90%
VERDICT
Rapid speed from every component,
and a slick design, make the 3XS X99
Carbon Ti a superb gaming machine.
59
R E V I E WS / NEW KIT
GAMING PC
incVAT
SUPPLIER www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk
60
Performance
The CyberPower machine might be a mini-ITX build, but it
still has strong application power. Its encoding benchmark
score of 358,997 is fantastic thanks to the i7-5820Ks six
cores, and it also excelled in the multi-tasking test with a
result of 183,879. The CyberPowers overall result of
152,964 is superb not far behind the Scans 160,430 score,
and enough to ensure that high-end games and work tasks
are completed swiftly.
There was more of a gulf between the CyberPowers GTX
980 and the Scans GTX 980 Ti, although thats no surprise:
the CyberPowers card has a far weaker specification thats
not really designed for 4K. Its minimum frame rate in Crysis
3 at 2,560 x 1,440 was a comfortable 34fps, but that figure
dropped to just 7fps with an average of 22fps when we
raised the resolution to 3,840 x 2,160.
Conclusion
CyberPowers system is striking thanks to its triple-pronged
case design, and theres plenty to like about the Tristellar
chassis: its looks will draw admiring glances, and its well
built too. There are reminders throughout, though, that the
Fang makes compromises in order to look so outrageous.
Its processor and memory are a little slower than the similar
MIKE JENNINGS
C P C REALB ENC H 2 0 15
GI MP I MAGE EDI T I N G
B IO S H O CK IN F IN IT E
CyberPower
Trinity 300
54,880
15,000
30,000
45,000
60,000
CyberPower
Trinity 300
358,997
90,000
180,000
270,000 360,000
LUXMARK OP ENC L
CyberPower
Trinity 300
40,000
80,000
CyberPower
Trinity 300
100,000
152,964
40,000
80,000
120,000
160,000
10
20
39
52
31fps
40fps
30
40
CyberPower
Trinity 300
34fps
13
49fps
26
39
12
18
52
CyberPower
Trinity 300
CyberPower
Trinity 300
46fps 55fps
15
30
45
7fps
Minimum
CyberPower
Trinity 300
22fps
8
16
22fps
60
24
Average
29fps
24
32
Average
DESIGN
21/25
23/25
21/25
20/25
HARDWARE
26
51fps
Minimum
13
CyberPower
Trinity 300
60
CR YS IS 3
I NT EL R EFERENCE : 133. 6 5 %
54fps
45
42fps
84
150,000 200,000
CyberPower
Trinity 300
30
CyberPower
Trinity 300
S YS TEM S C OR E
SPEED
42fps
15
183,879
50,000
63
60,000
CyberPower
Trinity 300
42
HEAVY MULTI TA S K I N G
0
70fps 81fps
21
SHADOW OF MORDOR
70,503
20,000
CyberPower
Trinity 300
0
HANDBR AKE H. 2 6 4 V I D E O E N C O D I N G
0
hardware in the Scan, and the GTX 980 and SSD are
outpaced by Scans machine too.
Theres no denying the Trinitys outstanding design
though if youre not bothered by 4K gaming, and your
priority is a system that looks great, and youre prepared to
pay for it, the Fang Trinity 300 is still a cracking PC just be
aware that you can get more performance for the same
money in a standard PC case elsewhere.
VALUE
OVERALL SCORE
85
VERDICT
A striking, sturdy design and great
performance in most tests, but more
traditional PCs can offer 4K gaming
performance for the same money.
61
Elite
Our choice of the best hardware available
Build a budget PC
Core components
The parts youll need to build either PC. This kit list gives you a solid PSU, a decent-quality case and the OEM
version of Windows 7 Home Premium.
PRICE
NAME
SUPPLIER
FEATURED
NZXT S340
www.overclockers.co.uk
60
Corsair CS550M
www.scan.co.uk
64
www.scan.co.uk
36
www.ebuyer.com
68
62
(inc VAT)
All-purpose PC
The parts youll need to add to the core components to build a general-purpose PC. This machine will handle
general computing tasks with no trouble, and will also cope with basic gaming, although youll have to lower the
detail settings. It features high-speed memory to boost the performance of the AMD APUs graphics system.
PRICE
NAME
SUPPLIER
FEATURED
Gigabyte GA-F2A88XM-D3H
www.cclonline.com
58
AMD A10-7850K
www.scan.co.uk
116
www.scan.co.uk
50
www.scan.co.uk
26
TOTAL
(inc VAT)
478
Gaming PC
The parts youll need to build a budget machine capable of playing the latest games at maximum settings on a
1080p monitor. The machine has a discrete graphics card, a highly overclockable dual-core CPU and high-speed
memory. Meanwhile, the Z97 motherboard gives you headroom to upgrade to a faster CPU later.
PRICE
NAME
SUPPLIER
FEATURED
www.scan.co.uk
79
www.scan.co.uk
52
www.ebuyer.com
150
www.scan.co.uk
50
www.scan.co.uk
26
TOTAL
(inc VAT)
585
Recommended extra
A solid state drive will make a huge difference to the responsiveness of Windows, as well as boot-up times.
We strongly recommend adding one to any build.
NAME
SUPPLIER
FEATURED
www.ebuyer.com
PRICE
(inc VAT)
69
63
Build a mid-range PC
Work PC
The parts youll need to build a solid quad-core PC with plenty of upgrade potential. This kit list gives you an
all-in-one liquid cooler and a K-series Core i5 CPU, meaning you can overclock it and get some serious
processing power. Weve managed to get the Core i5-4690K Haswell CPU up to 4.8GHz, so it has some serious
performance potential. Also included is a solid Corsair PSU, a 500GB SSD and 8GB of high-speed memory.
The core configuration assumes you wont be doing any serious gaming, however, and it relies on Intels
integrated graphics.
PRICE
NAME
SUPPLIER
FEATURED
www.overclockers.co.uk
98
Gigabyte Z97X-SLI
www.overclockers.co.uk
90
www.scan.co.uk
179
www.scan.co.uk
50
www.overclockers.co.uk
70
Corsair CS550M
www.scan.co.uk
64
www.scan.co.uk
58
Lite-On IHAS124-14
www.dabs.com
10
www.ebuyer.com
137
www.ebuyer.com
68
TOTAL
(inc VAT)
824
Gaming PC
The graphics card youll need to play current games at their maximum settings at 1080p and 2,560 x 1,440.
64
PRICE
NAME
SUPPLIER
FEATURED
1,920 x 1,080
AMD Radeon R9 280 3GB
www.ebuyer.com
150
2,560 x 1,440
AMD Radeon R9 290 4GB
www.scan.co.uk
227
(inc VAT)
Build a performance PC
Work PC
The parts youll need to build a high-quality, fast PC thats ideal for multi-threaded workloads. This kit list
features a high-quality, beautifully built case, and has a Core i7-4790K CPU. This processors support for
Hyper-Threading effectively splits the resources of the CPUs four physical cores into a further four virtual cores,
meaning it can effectively handle eight threads at once. Theres also a solid 850W PSU, giving you plenty of
headroom for overclocking and adding multiple graphics cards, and an all-in-one liquid cooler.
PRICE
NAME
SUPPLIER
FEATURED
www.overclockers.co.uk
125
www.scan.co.uk
131
www.scan.co.uk
252
www.scan.co.uk
50
www.overclockers.co.uk
70
www.overclockers.co.uk
110
www.scan.co.uk
58
www.scan.co.uk
156
www.ebuyer.com
68
TOTAL
(inc VAT)
1,020
Gaming PC
The graphics card youll need to play current games at their maximum settings at 2,560 x 1,440 and beyond.
PRICE
NAME
SUPPLIER
FEATURED
2,560 x 1,440
AMD Radeon R9 290 4GB
www.scan.co.uk
227
4K
2 x Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 4GB
www.scan.co.uk
504
(inc VAT)
Recommended extra
A discrete sound card gives you higher-quality sound when playing back or recording music.
NAME
SUPPLIER
FEATURED
www.scan.co.uk
PRICE
(inc VAT)
62
65
NAME
SUPPLIER
FEATURED
www.scan.co.uk
137
www.overclockers.co.uk
310
www.scan.co.uk
305
www.ebuyer.com
150
www.scan.co.uk
150
www.scan.co.uk
101
www.scan.co.uk
254
www.cclonline.com
308
www.scan.co.uk
58
Lite-On IHAS124-14
www.dabs.com
10
www.ebuyer.com
110
TOTAL
(inc VAT)
1,893
4K gaming PC
This LGA2011-v3 system can support multiple graphics cards over 28 PCI-E 3 lanes, making it an ideal
foundation for high-resolution PC gaming, replacing the graphics card listed above with two high-spec cards.
We recommend using Windows 8.1, rather than Windows 7, if youre using a 4K monitor.
NAME
SUPPLIER
FEATURED
4K
2 x Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 4GB
www.scan.co.uk
TOTAL
66
PRICE
(inc VAT)
504
2,247
Build a mini PC
Core components
The parts youll need to build either PC. This kit list gives you a solid PSU, 8GB of RAM, an overclockable Haswell
CPU, an all-in-one liquid cooler and Windows 7 Home Premium. Also included is a short-PCB graphics card that
can play current games at their maximum settings at 2,560 x 1,440, and a 512GB SSD.
PRICE
NAME
SUPPLIER
FEATURED
www.scan.co.uk
179
www.scan.co.uk
50
Corsair H75
www.scan.co.uk
64
www.overclockers.co.uk
300
www.ebuyer.com
137
www.scan.co.uk
58
Lite-On IHAS124-14
www.dabs.com
10
Corsair CS550M
www.scan.co.uk
64
www.ebuyer.com
68
(inc VAT)
Mini-ITX PC
NAME
SUPPLIER
FEATURED
www.dabs.com
70
www.overclockers.co.uk
180
TOTAL
(inc VAT)
1,180
Micro-ATX PC
The parts youll need to build a mini PC that doesnt take up as much room as a full-sized desktop.
PRICE
NAME
SUPPLIER
FEATURED
www.scan.co.uk
66
www.overclockers.co.uk
165
TOTAL
(inc VAT)
1,161
67
Cases
PRICE
TYPE
NAME
SUPPLIER
FEATURED
Budget ATX
NZXT S340
www.overclockers.co.uk
60
Sub-100
ATX quiet
www.scan.co.uk
87
Sub-100 ATX
performance
www.overclockers.co.uk
98
Air-cooling
Sub-150 ATX
www.scan.co.uk
131
Water-cooling
sub-150 ATX
NZXT H440
Special Edition
www.overclockers.co.uk
125
Water-cooling ATX
www.overclockers.co.uk
225
Mini-ITX tower
www.dabs.com
70
Mini-ITX cube
Antec ISK600
www.overclockers.co.uk
50
Micro-ATX
www.scan.co.uk
66
Water-cooling
micro-ATX
www.overclockers.co.uk
140
(inc VAT)
Graphics cards
68
PRICE
TYPE
NAME
SUPPLIER
FEATURED
1,920 x 1,080
gaming
www.ebuyer.com
150
2,560 x 1,440
gaming
AMD Radeon R9
290 4GB
www.ebuyer.com
227
Nvidia GeForce
GTX 980 Ti
www.overclockers.co.uk
540
4K gaming
2 x Nvidia GeForce
GTX 970 4GB
www.scan.co.uk
504
Mini-ITX
www.overclockers.co.uk
300
D
U PDATE
(inc VAT)
Power supplies
PRICE
TYPE
NAME
SUPPLIER
FEATURED
Mid-range 550W
Corsair
CS550M
www.scan.co.uk
64
High-end 750W
Corsair
HX750i
www.dabs.com
115
Mid-range 850W
SilverStone Strider
Gold 850W
www.overclockers.co.uk
110
High-end 1.2kW
www.scan.co.uk
254
(inc VAT)
Networking
PRICE
TYPE
NAME
SUPPLIER
FEATURED
Router
Asus RT-AC68U
www.dabs.com
145
Wi-Fi adaptor
Asus PCE-AC68
www.dabs.com
70
TYPE
NAME
SUPPLIER
FEATURED
Hard disk
www.scan.co.uk
58
250GB SSD
Crucial BX100
250GB
www.ebuyer.com
69
500GB SSD
Crucial BX100
500GB
www.ebuyer.com
137
1TB SSD
Samsung 850
Evo 1TB
www.cclonline.com
308
High-performance
SSD
Intel SSD
750 1.2TB
www.scan.co.uk
817
NAS box
Synology
DS215J
www.cclonline.com
140
(inc VAT)
Storage
U PDATE
PRICE
(inc VAT)
69
Monitors
PRICE
TYPE
NAME
SUPPLIER
FEATURED
24in monitor
Dell U2414H
www.overclockers.co.uk
200
29in monitor
Asus
PB298Q
www.scan.co.uk
294
28in 4K monitor
Asus
PB287Q
www.dabs.com
420
G-Sync monitor
Asus ROG
ATE D
Swift PG278Q U PD
www.scan.co.uk
587
FreeSync monitor
BenQ
XL2730Z
www.box.co.uk
460
D
U PDATE
(inc VAT)
Peripherals
70
PRICE
TYPE
NAME
SUPPLIER
FEATURED
Budget mechanical
keyboard
Gigabyte
Aivia Osmium
www.awd-it.co.uk
72
Mechanical gaming
keyboard
CM Storm
Trigger-Z
www.ebuyer.com
100
Mechanical MMO
keyboard
www.ebuyer.com
95
Gaming mouse
Logitech G402
Hyperion Fury
www.currys.co.uk
40
Wireless gaming
mouse
SteelSeries
Sensei Wireless
www.box.co.uk
90
Flight stick
Saitek X-55
Rhino H.O.T.A.S.
www.overclockers.co.uk
170
Steering wheel
and pedals
Thrustmaster TX Ferrari
458 Italia Edition
www.overclockers.co.uk
260
(inc VAT)
Audio
PRICE
TYPE
NAME
SUPPLIER
FEATURED
www.scan.co.uk
62
USB DAC
www.overclockers.co.uk
363
2.1 speakers
Acoustic Energy
Aego M
www.amazon.co.uk
165
Soundbar
Razer
Leviathan
www.overclockers.co.uk
165
Headset
HyperX
Cloud II
www.ebuyer.com
75
Surround-sound
headset
www.cclonline.com
146
SUPPLIER
FEATURED
(inc VAT)
Systems
PRICE
TYPE
NAME
Sub-1,000
gaming PC
999
Quiet gaming PC
Chillblast Fusion
Serenity
www.chillblast.co.uk
c. 1,499
Dream PC
www.scan.co.uk
c. 6,999
Sub-2,000
gaming PC
www.scan.co.uk
1,999
4K gaming PC
Overclockers
Infin8 Nebula
www.overclockers.co.uk
c. 3,116
Micro-ATX
gaming PC
AWD-IT Chimera i5
Dead Silence Gaming PC
www.awd-it.co.uk
c. 949
Gaming laptop
MSI GT70
2PC Dominator
www.overclockers.co.uk
c. 1,320
Haswell-E PC
www.scan.co.uk
c. 3,349
(inc VAT)
71
OPINION
R I C K L A N E / INVERSE LOOK
DIFFICULTYSPIKED
Tough games are back in fashion, but these new challenges
dont signal a return to a golden age, argues Rick Lane
ince the release of Dark Souls in 2011, theres been a
minorrenaissanceofchallenginggames.Titlessuch
as XCOM and Spelunky have demonstrated how
losing can be as fun as winning, while Kickstarters kindling
of nostalgia has resurrected notoriously tough game genres
isometric RPGs such as Pillars of Eternity and Wasteland 2,
and adventure games such as Broken Age (see p76).
Alloftheabovearefantasticgames(exceptthesecondhalf
of Broken Age),but this resurgence of difficult games doesnt
hark back to a golden age. Modern difficult
games are an entirely different breed from
those original games of the 1980s and 1990s,
anditsthedifferencesbetweenmoderngames
such as Dark Souls, and nostalgic games such
as Broken Age, that demonstrate why.
The notion of challenge being a core part of
a games existence has its roots in the arcades,
where creating games that were difficult to
complete had a clear financial gain. The
tougher a game, and the more limited the players lives, the
moremoneyitsplayerswouldneedtopumpintothemachine
to get to the end. To complete a game, you either needed a fat
wallet or a lot of skill.
When home consoles arrived, challenge became less of a
concern, but by this point players were used to it, and so
expectedit.Moreover,ahardergametakeslongertocomplete,
andalongergamecanjustifyahigherpricetag.Itreachedthe
pointwheresimplicityandbrevitywereviewedwithoutright
scorn. In his 25th anniversary lecture on the wonderful
adventure game Loom,designed to be brief and accessible,its
creator Brian Moriarty revealed that the game was routinely
mocked for these qualities upon its release in 1990.
Asgamesdiversifiedandtheaudiencebroadened,theneed
forchallengetookabackseat.Teenagersinthearcadesbecame
adultswithjobsandfamilies.Meanwhile,gamescouldjustify
their price tags by being enormous rather than difficult. So
games lives and passwords were replaced by saves, which
were replaced by quicksaves and autosaves. We became
comfortable, even complacent.
ThenDarkSoulscamealongandpushedgamersoutoftheir
comfort zone,andmanyplayersfounditimmenselysatisfying.
But to judge Dark Souls by its difficulty is to
misunderstandit.DarkSoulsisaboutlearning
and interpretation, piecing together snippets
of information, and correcting your mistakes
toemergevictorious.Itisntareturntoanidea
that gaming lost its an entirely new idea.
But being pummelled by a dragon in Dark
Souls because you lack the necessary skills is
different from being pummelled by a dragon
in Pillars of Eternity because your level is too
low. The same goes for learning how to manage a complex
extraterrestrialresponseunitinXCOM,andbeingstymiedby
abadlythought-out,illogicalpuzzleinBrokenAge.Theformer
examples are instructive, the latter is obstructive.
Thatsthefundamentaldifferencebetweentheoldandnew
styleofchallenginggames,andanimportantonetorecognise.
Theres a huge difference between making a game thats
difficultthroughthenatureofitssystems,andmakingagame
thats difficult for difficultys sake.
There must be a reason behind challenge in a game,
otherwise its simple elitism, buying into an outmoded
concept because its incorrectly deemed to be integral part
of gaming.
@Rick_Lane
73
G A M E S / REVIEW
incV
VAT
80
74
75
G A M E S / REVIEWS
inc VAT
DEVELOPER Slightly Mad Studios / PUBLISHER Slightly Mad Studios / WEBSITE www.projectcarsgame.com
OVERALL SCORE
85
/ VERDICT
With a powerful
engine, elegant
bodywork and an
abundance of
customisation
options, Project
CARS is a
stellar drive.
inc VAT
50
76
77
G A M E S / REVIEW
inc VAT
OVERALL SCORE
60%
/ VERDICT
The Old Blood
retains the fun
gunplay of The
New Order, but
loses much of its
unique charm.
78
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G A M E S / ANALYSIS
GameMaker
Rick Lane investigates the indie darling of creation tools thats behind
Hotline Miami, Gunpoint and Super Crate Box
heres a curious irony at the
heart of GameMaker,
YoYoGames2D game
design tool and the program weve
been using to create our own game
over the last couple of issues.
GameMakers focus on 2D games
and simplifying the design process
makes it the indie darling of creation
tools,used by developers to make
Hotline Miami and Super Crate Box,
and by one-man bands such as Tom
Francis,who made Gunpoint.
Yet in recent years,GameMakers
own design has been influenced far
more by its mainstream industry
peers. Created by Dutch computer
scientist Mark Overmars in 1999,
GameMaker was purchased by
YoYoGames in 2007. In 2009,the
Dundee-based studio hired current
CTO Russell Kay and head of
engineering Mike Dailly,with a focus
on turning GameMaker into a more
professional design suite.
Until 2007,GameMaker was
really just a one-man band,with
Mark doing everything,Kay
explains.Since Mike and I started,
weve brought a lot of triple-A
knowledge in terms of how games
are put together. We applied that to
GameMaker,which fundamentally
changed the internals. Its
completely different now.
GameMakers story over the past
five years is one of gradual,hardearned transformation. Overmars
originally coded GameMaker in a
programming language called
Delphi.Its a Pascal-based objectoriented language that comes from
around about the turn of the
century,Kay jokes.
Not many programmers are
familiar with Delphi,and the code
Overmars had written for
GameMakers compiler was
80
Currently in
development,
Orphan
demonstrates
the power of
GameMakers
shading capability
GameMakers
image editor is
one of the last
vestiges of the
Delphi codebase
Hotline Miami
is one of the
most famous
examples of a
GameMaker game
Otherwise,GameMakers engine
can do much the same as any 3D
engine.In 2013,for example,
YoYoGames added programmable
shaders to it,which opened up far
greater possibilities for visual effects,
as seen in the screenshots of the
forthcoming game Orphan.You can
put normal mapping onto your
sprites,and do really nice lighting in
2D,plus reflections and water,Dailly
says. Most recently,YoYoGames
added a 2D particle physics system
called liquid fun,which allows for
dynamic 2D water simulation.
GameMaker is a great introduction
to game design,but there are flaws.
The sprite painting tool particularly
shows its age,for example,being
devoid of important artistic
components such as layers.The
developers have their own personal
gripes. Dailly describes GMLs
collision functions asterrible,and
the sheer amount of work needed to
bring the codebase up to date has
also limited it.GameMaker had
really good roots. It did some things
really nicely,but fell down with
limits that were placed on it because
of some of the tech that had been
used to actually create it,Kay says.
Reprogramming remains
YoYoGamesprimary focus,and
Dailly reckons it will be some time
before the last vestiges of Delphi are
completely removed.But other
changes are on the horizon.Theres
a new sprite painting tool in the
works,although Kay wont go into
specifics.Lets just say that the
version were working on just now
is very different,he says. The team
is also working on expanding
GameMakers toolset.
YoYoGames also wants broader
compatibility.GameMaker games
are already supported on 14
platforms and recently announced
that,with Windows 10,GameMaker
games will function across many
Microsoft systems,including
Windows desktops and tablets,and
even the Xbox.Over the last few
years weve been trying to raise the
limits,so you could use GameMaker
not just for doing your prototype but
for actually releasing your full game,
Kay says. Judging by the immense
growth in GameMakers popularity,
YoYoGames has succeeded.
81
G A M E S / ANALYSIS
Fire! Horror! Betrayal! Annihilation! No, it isnt the 2015 election result, its Rick
Lanes roundup of the best indie games coming soon to a PC near you!
Firewatch
Adr1ft
82
Outer Wilds
Sub Rosa
Hunger
DEVELOPER Tarsier Studios / RELEASE TBA
WEBSITE http://tarsier.se/ourwork/hunger
83
FEA
AT U R E / CUSTOMISATION
C S MS I N
BUILD A
COMPLETE
4KPC
FOR
1,886
inc VAT
Now that the kit required to build a complete 4K system has plummeted in price,
Antony Leather takes you through building a complete 4K gaming rig,
complete with monitor, for well under two grand
84
Hardware
GRAPHICS CARD
2 x Asus STRIX
GTX 970 Direct
CU II / 281 562
SUPPLIER www.scan.co.uk
F
For this reason,
weve leaned
towards
Nvidia, even
tthough its
graphics cards are
a little morre expensive
per buck, simply
terms of bang p
because their power rrequirements
are significantly lower, which becomes a
bigger deal when youre using multiple cards.
A pair of GeForce GTX 970 cards offer
enough performance to topple a GTX 980 Ti
and even a Titan X in some games, while
third-party coolers such as the Asus ones on
these Strix GTX 970 Direct CU II cards, are
incredibly quiet, even when gaming.
More importantly, they can handle even
tough games such as Crysis 3 at maximum
settings with room to spare.
PSU
SilverStone
Strider Gold
850W / 110 incVAT
SUPPLIER www.overclockers.couk
M O N I TO R
Asus PB287Q /
420 incVAT
SUPPLIER www.dabs.com
CPU
Intel Core
i5-4690K/ 180 incVAT
SUPPLIER www.ebuyer.com
M OT H E R B OA R D
M E M O RY
If youre keen to s
money then you
could opt for an
8GB memory
kit games
wont require any
more than 8GB at t
ent
anyway. However, as you can now buy a
decent 2,400MHz memory kit for under
100, we decided to go for a bit of futureproofing by installing 16GB (2 x 8GB for dualchannel bandwidth) of Corsairs 2,400MHz
Vengeance Pro Red memory.
C P U CO O L E R
NZXT Kraken
X41 / 70 incVAT
SUPPLIER www.overclockers.co.uk
CASE
NZXT Phantom
530 / 85 incVAT
SUPPLIER www.overclockers.co.uk
SSD
500GB Crucial
BX100 / 142 incVAT
SUPPLIER www.ebuyer.com
O P E R AT I N G SYST E M
Windows 8.1
Pro 64-bit / 115 incVAT
SUPPLIER www.scan.co.uk
TOTA
1 L =
,886
85
F E AT U R E / CUSTOMISATION
Building the PC
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
86
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
87
F E AT U R E / CUSTOMISATION
19
20
21
22
Performance
Our 4K PCs 461w power consumption
barely taxed our 850W PSU with Prime95
and Unigine Valley running concurrently.
Meanwhile, our GPUs hit 71C under load
(a delta T of 50C), while the CPU sat at
88C, (a delta T of 67C). These
temperatures are quite warm, but still
within the chips thermal limits. The game
results also speak for themselves. Our
highly demanding Crysis 3 test, with Very
High settings, never dropped below 35fps
at 4K. Even better, Battlefield on Ultra
settings never dropped below 47fps.
88
B A TTLEFIELD 4
60,829
Custom PC 4K PC
0
16,000
32,000
48,000
64,000
22,1971
0
60,000
120,000
180,000 240,000
30,000
60,000
SY STE M SC O R E
30,000
60,000
90,000 120,000
104,528
Custom PC 4K PC
0
27,500
55,000
82,500
110,000
68
35fps 41fps
Custom PC 4K PC
11
Minimum
90,000 120,000
113,996
Custom PC 4K PC
66fps
51
34
C R YSIS 3
106,594
Custom PC 4K PC
17
47fps
Custom PC 4K PC
22
33
250
375
44
Average
PO WER C O NSUMPTIO N
125W
Custom PC 4K PC
0
125
Idle
Load
461W
500
Lower is better
F E AT U R E / ANALYSIS
MOD SCENE
Earlier this year, Valve introduced paid mods to its Steam Workshop pages,
but it was removed a few days later after a massive online backlash.
Rick Lane investigates the fallout
n 23 April, a new feature
was launched on Steam
that allowed modders
amateur creators of
modifications for various games
to charge real money for their work.
Starting with Bethesdas Nordic RPG
Skyrim, the plan was to gradually roll
out this scheme across a range of
games with extensive modding
communities, in cooperation with
the developers of those games.
Only four days after paid mods
were implemented, however, the
program was abandoned, after an
incendiary backlash from Steam
90
Shezries
underground
Bleakden town for
Skyrim contains
no loading screens
between buildings
91
F E AT U R E / ANALYSIS
92
SureAI doesnt do
mods by halves
93
G A R E T H H A L FAC R E E S
Hobby tech
The latest tips, tricks and news in the world of computer hobbyism,
from Raspberry Pi, Arduino and Android to retro computing
REVIEW
Orange Pi
he unparalleled success of the
Raspberry Pi has created a sea of
competitors, many of which have
appeared on the market from the industrious
technologists of China. The latest of these
companies is Shenzhen Xunlong Software,
which has created what it claims is an open
source Raspberry Pi-like single-board
computer (SBC) dubbed the Orange Pi.
Like Lemakers Banana Pi, reviewed in Issue
134, the Orange Pi is exactly what the name
suggests: a riff on the Raspberry Pi theme,
but using a more readily available systemon-chip (SoC) processor compared with
the restricted-supply Broadcom
BCM2835/2836. That SoC, in this
instance, is the H3, a quad-core
1.6GHz Cortex-A7 part featuring
an integrated Mali-400MP2
graphics processor and a shared
1GB of DDR3 memory.
Like most low-cost Chinese
SBCs, the Orange Pi attempts to
differentiate itself from its inspiration
through the inclusion of additional
features: 8GB of on-board eMMC
flash storage is included as standard
on the model reviewed, as is a SATA
2.0 port complete with 5V power
94
An embedded 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi radio with bundled whip antenna helps the Orange Pi to stand out
95
T U TO R I A L
1 The buttons
Check you have all the parts in
n your
he 24 fourpackage, and then inserting th
With its very simple layout, the Kim Unos PCB is
a great soldering kit for beginners
96
2 The resistors
The circuit design of the Kim Uno is very
simple and, in dramatic contrast to the
Sinclair ZX81 kit I built back in Issue 109,
there are only 11 resistors in total, of two
values. The eight 1K Ohm resistors protect
the LED segments that constitute the Kim
Unos display; the three 2K Ohm resistors
provide current limiting for the keypad
scanning process. Bend each leg over your
thumbnail, stick them through the rear of the
board and solder them into place.
Getting the
buttons into
place can be
a pain, but
pliers can
help with leg
alignment
If you havent
read the
instructions
properly,
soldering the
headers is
where youre
likely to go
wrong
Theres only
a handful
of resistors
to solder,
with just
two values
helpfully with
differentcoloured
bodies
The ains of
the Kim Uno
is an Arduino
Pro Mini,
although the
emulator also
runs happily
on almost any
other Arduino
or compatible
ice
NE
IN BRIEF
Wind s 10 getsArduino
certification
Microsofts upcoming Windows 10, which will
include an Internet of Things (IoT) variant designed
for devices, including the Intel Galileo and Raspberry Pi, has become the first operating
system to gain official Arduino Certification. Assigned by Arduino LLC, the certification
promises full compatibility with the Arduino development platform. At its Build
conference, Microsoft demonstrated the Windows Remote Arduino application running
on a Windows Phone 10 device, controlling hardware connected to an Arduino Uno
equipped with Bluetooth radio module.
97
REVIEW
The Gr
bo mounts on top of any Pi and
you can still use the GPIO port for other hardware
Gareth Halfacree is the news reporter at www.bit-tech.net, and a keen computer hobbyist who likes to tinker with technology.
98
@ghalfacree
MODDING
A N TO N Y L E AT H E R S
Customised PC
Case mods, tools, techniques, water-cooling gear
and everything to do with PC modding
Water-cooled PCs dont have
to cost the earth
Its easy to think of water cooling as
a super-expensive way of cooling
your PC thats overkill. Its certainly
expensive compared with all-in-one
liquid coolers. For example, some of
the more expensive fittings or barbs
can cost upwards of 5 apiece even
10 in some cases so thats 50 in
fittings alone if youre talking about
cooling your CPU and graphics card.
When you add a premium pump,
radiator and reservoir into the mix, you
can quite easily spend over 300 on
just cooling a couple of components,
but it doesnt have to be this way.
Theres a lot of premium gear out
there that costs a small fortune, and it
certainly looks good. Many of the PCs
we feature in Readers Drives use this
gear too, but its important not to
become obsessed with PC mods and
lavish water-cooling equipment as if
theyre the norm. Water cooling offers
benefits such as better cooling and
lower noise levels, and its these
aspects that got me interested in it in
the first place, rather than aesthetics.
I was speaking to the UKs public
relations guy from Aquatuning the
other day and he made quite an
interesting point. Aquatunings best
sellers in terms of the water-cooling
gear it sells are actually the cheaper
components. It sells a huge amount of
100
Bitspower has
engraved the clear
acrylic top with a
STRIX logo, and put
a mirrored metal
plate above the
VRM section
@antonyleather
101
M O D D I N G / HOW TO GUIDES
How to
Becomeapro
withrigid
acrylicand
metal tubing
Theres a number of advanced
ways to use rigid tubing in your
water-cooled PC. Antony Leather
takes a look at them
P I C K M AT E R I A L A N D F I T T I N G S
1 / ACRYLIC OR METAL?
First you need to decide whether youll be using acrylic or metal-based
tubing for your project. Acrylic is popular, easy to bend, cheaper and comes
in a variety of colours. Metal tubing looks fantastic, but most of it doesnt
bend and soft copper piping requires tools to bend it to shape.
TOTA L P R OJ E C T T I M E / 3 6 H O U R S
ast month we built a water-cooled dream PC, which used
rigid acrylic tubing rather than standard flexible PVC tubing.
Hard tubing gives you clean, sharp bends and straight lines,
while offering resilience against clouding that can spoil your view of
the coolant. It comes in a variety of colours, and you can also use
metal tubing and even copper piping.
Following on neatly from our Dream PC feature last month, in this
months modding guide, we look looking at how to use metal tubing
and create advanced shapes using acrylic tubing too.
TO O L S YO U L L N E E D
Alphacool hard tube fittings
and adaptors /
www.aquatuning.co.uk
Alphacool HardTube /
www.aquatuning.co.uk
Primochill hard tube fittings
and acrylic tubing /
www.overclockers.co.uk
Monsoon hard tube
fittings, glue and
acrylic tubing /
www.overclockers.co.uk
102
3/ MONSOON FITTINGS
Monsoons fittings work with 13mm or 16mm outside-diameter tubing, and
include locking caps to prevent the tubing from slipping out of the fitting.
The downside is that they require more work, as you need to glue the caps
onto the tube using adhesive. Once set, the caps cant be removed either.
5 / PRIMOCHILL FITTINGS
Apply a generous amount of adhesive to the inside of the cap, then twist the
cap around so the adhesive fills the gap between the cap and tube with no
air bubbles. Allow it to dry for four hours, and then you can connect the tube
to the fitting.
Primochill fittings are the simplest to fit and just use a single large O-ring,
which you secure to the tubing the locking ring compresses this O-ring,
creating a tight seal.
AC RY L I C T U B I N G
6 / ALPHACOOL FITTINGS
3 / MEASURE TO SHAPE
The kit features several different rules that can be attached together to
allow you create an entire length of tubing with a bend, or bends, in the
middle. Create a section that stretches from one fitting to the other.
Use the cut-out in the centre of the rule as a guide for where the tubing will
sit, and then overlay this cut-out onto the appropriate guide before marking
the lengths of tubing youll need on the board.
103
M O D D I N G / HOW TO GUIDES
5 / BEND TO SHAPE
The kit also comes with a hacksaw and cutting support. Use these tools to
cut the tubing to the required length required to reach from fitting to fitting,
and also to apply your desired bend.
With the tube at the right length, warm it gently with the heat gun until it
becomes pliable in the area you need to bend it. You can then place it onto
the guide and gently move it around, pressing it firmly into the groove in
the guide.
A DVA N C E D AC RY L I C T U B E B E N D I N G
The kits deburring tool uses metal blades to smooth both the inner and
outer edges of the tubing, removing any shards and rough edges. This
process is important to prevent damage to O-rings inside the fittings.
Once youve got to grips with acrylic tube bending, you can start to consider
more advanced bends, such as this spiral. Start by locating a suitable
template such as a glass or strong cardboard roll.
By using two tube supports that meet in the middle of your spiral, instead of
one, you can halve the distance they need to travel in order to be removed.
Additionally, coating them in a generous amount of washing-up liquid
lubricates them, but doesnt stain the tube when heated.
Heat the tube slowly and, as it becomes pliable, gently bend it into a spiral
form. Anchor the end of the tubing while you heat the tubing, and watch the
place where the tube supports join, as it can be prone to kinking.
104
S T R A I G H T M E TA L P I P E S
Once your spiral is complete, and youve waited for it to cool down, you
should be able to slide out the tube supports easily. If you used washing-up
liquid as a lubricant, youll also need to rinse the tubing thoroughly before
you connect it to your water-cooling system.
3 / FLEXIBLE ADAPTORS
Flexible fittings are essential for lining up metal tubes. They can rotate at
the base and middle, and have a revolving tip, so you can fine-tune a fittings
direction to line up with the next fitting, and achieve straight lines. You can
also use extenders to raise the fittings or adaptors above components.
4 / INSERT FITTINGS
Before you start measuring up and cutting the tubing, you first need to
install all your water-cooling components and their fittings, including any
adaptors or extenders.
Use a ruler to measure the distance between fittings. You need to allow
for the distance that the tubing protrudes into the fittings as well. For the
Alphacool fittings we used, this distance was around 5mm, but it differs
between fittings.
105
M O D D I N G / HOW TO GUIDES
6 / CUT TO SIZE
A cutting tool can be used with soft copper tubing but, as brass is much
harder, we decided to use a Dremel and cutting disc, which cut through the
metal tubing in a matter of seconds.
The downside to using a Dremel is that the cut isnt as clean as a hand-tool
cut, but using a metal file and deburring tool gets the tube ends shipshape
in a few minutes. You also need to file the edges of the end of the metal
pipe, in order to make it easier to insert into Alphacool fittings O-rings.
CO P P E R T U B I N G
2 / STRAIGHTEN TUBING
You can use 1/2in outside-diameter copper tube and readily available
13mm fittings, but the appropriate bending tools are expensive. Cheaper
tools can deal with 10mm or 12mm tubing, but youll need specific 12mm
fittings from the likes of EK or Bitspower.
You can use a workbench vice to straighten the copper tubing, as it will
arrive off a reel. This job can take an hour or more for an entire PCs worth of
tubing. However, www.kwixuk.com offers a hand tube straightener, which
costs around 40 and is perfect for the job, saving you time.
Use a tube cutter to cut the copper. This tool works by using a metal disc to
slowly cut into the tube, which is forced against it using a thumbscrew. It can
be hard work for your hands, but the process doesnt take long and gives
you a very clean cut. You then need to deburr the edges.
Finally, use a copper pipe bender, which uses force to bend the tubing
around groves, preventing it from kinking. The right size of tool is essential
even 12.7mm (1/2in) tubing is too big for a 12mm tool. The tool has angles
marked on it so you can accurately bend the tube.
106
DOWNLOAD FROM
WWW.ASUS.COM/
CAMPAIGN/
REALBENCH
CO M M U N I T Y / TESTING
Custom PC
in association with
Give your PC a workout with our new benchmark suite, and
see how your rig compares to other readers machines
Gimp
LuxMark OpenCL
CHROME WARNING
At the moment, Googles Chrome
browser flags up the RealBench 2015
download as potentially harmful, and
were aware of this issue. The file is
perfectly safe, however please ignore
this warning.
BENCHMARK YOUR PC
WINNERS!
Heavy multi-tasking
Our overhauled multi-tasking test plays
back a full screen 1080p video,while
running a Handbrake H.264 video encode
at the same time.
Scores
RealBench 2015 breaks down the individual
scores for each test,and then gives you a
total system score,as well as a percentage
reference score.
Congratulations to JourneymanMike,
carl.symons and Lordsoth, who are the
lucky winners of a shiny new Asus
Z97-Pro Gamer motherboard,
following our competition in Issue 142.
Please email the RBR file that
corresponds with your leaderboard
result to [email protected]
so that we can verify it, and well get
your board sent to you.
SYSTEM SCORE
REFERENCE
201,446
176%
USERNAME
MOTHERBOARD
CPU
CPU CLOCK
MEMORY
PRIMARY GPU
CustomPC
4.3GHz
197,964
173%
Carbonleg
Asus X99-E WS
Not reported
189,230
165.3%
shadowsrayne
4.2GHz
165,512
144.6%
Penfold
Asus X99-Deluxe
4.5GHz
163,650
143%
shaunhanson
Not reported
161,503
141.1%
Chris_Waddle
4.72GHz
155,685
136%
MAQ
Not reported
148,641
129.9%
claire.york83
Asus X99-S
4GHz
146,635
128.1%
hutch
4.5GHz
10
146,123
127.7%
Samual
4.95GHz
11
145,751
127.4%
sparrowhawks
Not reported
12
143,892
125.7%
robert_a_inglis
Not reported
13
139,757
122.1%
dainye
4.6GHz
14
136,031
118.9%
Karol
Asus Z97-A
4.8GHz
15
133,050
116.3%
adrian_symonds
4GHz
16
132,143
115.5%
andy.gwynnette
4.6GHz
17
128,862
112.6%
chrisray84
4.5GHz
18
124,784
109%
semmyconcious
Gigabyte GA-X99-UD4-CF
Not reported
19
124,431
108.7%
decks
Asus Z87-PRO
4.5GHz
20
124,246
108.6%
andrew.mcleod
4.5GHz
107
M O D D I N G / READERS DRIVES
Readers Drives
Lumo
After spotting In Wins D-Frame
Mini, Daniel Harper saw the
potential for a great mod with
a striking coat of fluorescent
yellow paint, plus custom CNC
and laser-cut parts
CPC: What originally inspired
you to build this project?
Daniel: The In Win D-Frame
Mini case. I saw it in some of the
Computex reviews, spotted the
potential immediately and started
bothering In Win
about it immediately.
I very much like the
quirky nature of In
Wins products the
company makes lovely
cases that require a
little planning and
care to achieve
/MEET THY MAKER
spectacular results.
Name Daniel Harper (B
Such a striking case
NEGATIVE)
needed a striking
theme, so I then
Age You love this, dont
rummaged through
you? Yes, Im 40
www.specialistpaints.
Location Dirty South
com to find what I
London
wanted a PC mod
Occupation Medical
always starts with the
equipment technician
colour palette for me.
Main uses for PC CAD and
Arma III
CPC: Where does the
Likes In Win, CNC, the
redhead at the bus stop I
drive past in the morning,
Jim Knees shoe collection
and Arma III
Dislikes Shellfish, ironing
instructions, childproof
caps and League of
Legends
108
http://tinyurl.com/
LumoModCPC
SYSTEM SPECS
CPU Intel Core i7-4670K
Graphics card 2 x Nvidia GeForce
GTX 680
Case In Win D-Frame Mini
Memory 16GB Crucial DDR3
109
M O D D I N G / READERS DRIVES
BE A WINNER
To enter your machine for possible inclusion in
Readers Drives, your mod needs to be fully working
and, ideally, finished based in the UK. Simply log on to
www.bit-tech.net and head over to the forums. Once
youre there, post a write-up of your mod, along with
some pics, in the Project Logs forum. Make sure you
read the relevant rules and advice sticky threads before
you post. The best entrant each month will be featured
here, where well print your photos of your project and
also interview you about the build process. Fame isnt
the only prize; youll also get your hands on a fabulous
selection of prizes see the opposite page for details.
110
Mayhems coolant
and dyes
VALUE 50 inc VAT /
MANUFACTURER www.mayhems.co.uk
The Phobya modding kit is designed with the modder in mind, offering
great value for money and quality products. The kit includes Nano-G 12
Silent Waterproof 1,500rpm multi-option fans,
which use an innovative fan-blade design.
As standard, the fans include braided black
cables to keep your case looking as neat as
possible. The fans are also supplied with a
special cable that lets you run the fan at 5V
rather than 12V, reducing the noise
emitted in order to help you to build
a silent system.
The kit also includes the
60cm Phobya 3-pin Molex to
4x 3-pin Molex Y-cable. This pre-
braided extension cable gives you extra routeing options in your case,
and it also enables you to run up to four fans from one compatible
motherboard header. Meanwhile, the Phobya SATA 3
cables included in the kit offer the same
great quality braiding as the rest of the
Phobya range, while also securing your
connection with latched connectors.
As well as this, the kit includes the
Phobya SlimGuide Controller, which
gives you the option to vary
the speed of other fans in
your case, while the Phobya
TwinLEDs let you shine a
light on your mods.
111
CO M M U N I T Y / FOLDING
Folding@Home
Join our folding team and help medical research
WHAT IS FOLDING?
Folding@home uses the spare processing cycles from
your PCs CPU and graphics cards for medical
research. You can download the client from http://
folding.stanford.edu and our teams ID is 35947. Once
you pass a significant milestone, youll get your name
in the mag. You can also discuss folding with us and
other readers on the www.bit-tech.net forums.
112
POINTS
MILESTONE
Philhasnoidea
whathe\\sdoing
20000
tallandgentle33uk
TimmyH
whiskeyecho
bradbooth
Alee4177
JamieRStone
20000
30000
30000
40000
50000
60000
upthesaddlers
+mrslippery
60000
Jao
rob_woolcott
Davith
Parmesan
Albie1971
Cryptofrog
Seamus3900
talpigi
TheTomBoy
TroyS2
Baxtee
Bleakknave
Bobthetoolnut
davm64
Kentara
Rateye
reidmarc
MetallicGloss
pete
RaistlinRTCW
RougeNikov
wew
Atanamir
bastardo_bill
Blexis
Bob_D
80000
80000
90000
90000
100000
100000
100000
100000
100000
100000
200000
200000
200000
200000
200000
200000
200000
300000
300000
300000
300000
300000
400000
500000
600000
600000
USERNAME
POINTS
MILESTONE
USERNAME
POINTS
MILESTONE
USERNAME
POINTS
MILESTONE
MikePreston
mrorange
Quozzbat
GJBriggs
RadeonRaider
daza17
Lethaertes
NoizDaemon666
Chrissebooboo
Lunnbow
Pickles
carbontwelve
Damien_Tanner
Gingerbunny44++
Hateboy
HHomputers
Sparrowhawk
Trunkey
varnis
Zeer83
billssteam
BondyBoy
Hagrids-Desktop-18
matgsi
techknowledgey
adbygrave
andboo1
Scammelio
ZeDestructor
daxchaos
killtothis
MarkVarley
robgsxrk4
Uncle_Fungus
Bluce_Ree
Ken_Swain
600000
600000
600000
700000
700000
800000
800000
800000
900000
900000
900000
1000000
1000000
1000000
1000000
1000000
1000000
1000000
1000000
1000000
2000000
2000000
2000000
2000000
2000000
3000000
3000000
3000000
3000000
4000000
4000000
4000000
4000000
4000000
5000000
5000000
Liam266
RabidMongoose
Skidder
Tommye123
5000000
5000000
5000000
5000000
BrentwoodComputers.com
6000000
davmonk
madmatt1980
SP1
Bedders
gupsterg
Mem
Simlec
Votick
Humwawa
MattEngr
Andy_J
rvalkass
Dave_Lan
gtDunk
ITHelpDirect
6000000
6000000
6000000
7000000
7000000
7000000
7000000
7000000
8000000
8000000
9000000
9000000
10000000
10000000
10000000
Maglor
ChunkyBrother
Little_Willie
SicoAnimal
BeezaBob
Vaio
sonic_vortex
Wilding2004
Angy
Assassin8or
Roveel
mmorr
apeman556
HHComputers
PC_Rich
piers_newbold
coolamasta
johnim
StreetSam
DocJonz
10000000
20000000
20000000
20000000
30000000
30000000
40000000
40000000
50000000
50000000
60000000
70000000
100000000
100000000
300000000
400000000
700000000
300000000
500000000
1000000000
TEAM NAME
POINTS
DAILY
POINTS
AVERAGE
TIME UNTIL
OVERTAKE
[H]ardOCP
49,886,628,654
9,948,368
11.1 years
TSC! Russia
17,109,043,510
17,720,642
4.3 years
Custom PC &
bit-tech
16,092,576,593
18,315,644
23
LinusTechTips_
Team
4,559,969,429
30,813,017
2.5 years
TOP 20 PRODUCERS
TOP 20 OVERALL
RANK
USERNAME
POINTS
WORK UNITS
RANK
USERNAME
OVERALL SCORE
Nelio
2,346,278,033
111,150
HHComputers
2,564,069
191,310,241
DocJonz
1,082,740,220
172,293
DocJonz
1,666,335
1,082,446,466
coolamasta
713,130,383
163,743
piers_newbold
1,414,687
442,617,166
Scorpuk
561,411,577
14,906
PC_Rich
1,130,653
315,334,724
554,545,092
StreetSam
554,610,316
89,852
StreetSam
751,544
Dave_Goodchild
457,895,338
117,692
johnim
679,815
347,044,471
piers_newbold
442,767,978
38,615
Slavcho
633,994
269,089,554
johnim
347,196,540
79,749
Lordsoth
571,912
242,663,261
233,984,497
PC_Rich
315,369,267
73,216
The_M2B
567,535
10
Slavcho
269,197,151
32,441
10
Desertbaker
535,464
139,115,477
11
phoenicis
250,044,587
95,660
11
Scorpuk
530,981
561,289,634
12
Lordsoth
242,759,901
91,599
12
coolamasta
464,497
713,079,897
13
The_M2B
234,049,671
55,038
13
apeman556
394,036
101,791,687
14
Wallace
212,477,027
6,204
14
Nelio
367,905
2,346,255,823
15
zz9pzza
211,014,628
15,794
15
Laguna2012
339,567
144,126,321
16
HHComputers
191,649,882
12,999
16
Dickie
306,823
17,256,434
17
TheFlipside
172,381,857
20,323
17
Maglor
293,850
12,625,796
18
Ben_Lamb
166,053,146
2,891
18
KevinWright
254,876
144,071,499
19
Christopher_N._Lewis
152,388,004
35,885
19
TheFlipside
238,823
172,379,833
20
Laguna2012
144,174,857
16,140
20
Wilding2004
222,840
43,744,095
113
OPINION
JA M E S G O R B O L D / HARDWARE ACCELERATED
DESKTOPBROADWELL
ARRIVES
But its too late and too expensive, argues James Gorbold
3 might have playable demos of the latest games and
CESmighthavetheshiniestgadgets,buttomymind,
the Computex show,held in Taiwan every June,with
its barrage of product unveilings is the true highlight of the PC
enthusiasts year. This year has been no exception, with
hundreds of new products clamouring for attention.Last year,
Intel used Computex to unveil its Devils Canyon processors
based on the Haswell architecture,ushering in the companys
first mass-produced 4GHz CPU. This year Intel unveiled two
new desktop CPUs based on the Broadwell architecture.
As you might imagine for a CPU
architecture designed first and foremost for
mobile devices, Broadwell is a lot more
power-efficient than Haswell, so the new
Core i5-5675C and Core i7-5775C have an
attractively low TDP of 65W. However, as
both chips are clocked significantly lower
and have less cache than the Haswell
equivalents, the Core i5-4690K and Core
i7-4790K, the latter remain top dogs, delivering much higher
performance in applications and games.
Broadwell on the desktop may have made sense in the sub400 gaming PC market. Such cheap PCs may sit below the
radar of most PC enthusiasts,but its a buoyant market,thanks
to a growing youth market that plays online games such as
Minecraft and League of Legends. Whats more, its a market
in which AMD can seriously threaten Intel.
Broadwell could have made a good stab at this market
rather than sticking with the woefully underpowered HD
Graphics 4600 GPU, the two new chips feature the Iris Pro
Graphics6200GPU.Thelatterisfarmorecapable,havingmore
than double the number of execution units 48 compared
James Gorbold has been building, tweaking and overclocking PCs ever since the 1980s. He now helps Scan Computers to develop new systems.
114