Sommaire pour September 2022 de Maximum PC

Team Blue’s ambitious plans ahead of schedule YOU HAVE TO BE impressed with Intel’s ambition. It plans to put itself at the top of CPU development by 2025 by producing five nodes in four years. Given the company dropped the ball so often trying to move away from 10nm, we may scoff. But it appears the first step, the Intel 4 process, is now on track for production this year. The Intel 4 process is analogous to 7nm elsewhere and will debut on Meteor Lake chips, which will be 14thgeneration CPUs. These are Intel’s first tile-based designs and include diestacking to boot. That’s a lot of juicy new Intel technologies in one generation. Reportedly, Intel was to be ready for volume production of the mobile versions before the year’s end, but…

AFTER A HORRIBLE couple of years, the graphics card market has finally settled down. Supplies and prices are nearly back to normal and demand from the crypto mining farms has eased. Even better is the prospect of the next generation of GPU architectures from AMD, and Nvidia this fall. If you’ve delayed upgrading your rig, you will soon have some decent options. From AMD, we have the RDNA 3 architecture featuring AMD’s chiplet design rendered in 5nm silicon. The Compute unit has been ‘rearchitected’, which, we hope, means extra compute pipelines. We also get a “new generation” Infinity cache, with a 384-bit bus on the cards. According to AMD, RDNA 3 will offer a 50 percent increase in performance per watt over version 2. The first 7000-series cards will use…

Samsung has beaten arch-rival TSMC to the 3nm chip and is starting limited production for a Chinese crypto mining accelerator. The headline isn’t the 3nm metric, but rather that Samsung has shifted from FinFET to GAA transistors, the first to do so. GAA stands for Gate-All-Around, which employs nanosheets, and these are a way to construct the transistor gates. Samsung claims a 45 percent reduction in power consumption, and up to a 23 percent speed hike over 5nm chips. Making a new process node is about transistor density, rather than some nominal measurement that you would be hard pressed to identify on the silicon. This would make a more informative and descriptive metric, so can we please start using this instead?…

EVERYONE NEEDS a server—a centralized machine doing what it says on the tin, namely serving the various needs of your network. Whether you’re a media lover (Plex), distrust online services (Nextcloud, self-hosted Bitwarden) or simply want a central shared folder with 24/7 access for everyone, a server has you covered. The obvious thing to do is purchase a dedicated machine for the task—a NAS such as those offered by QNAP or Synology are effectively mini-PCs designed to meet all your needs. So why build your own? Aside from the fact it’s what we do on Maximum PC, building your own server allows you complete control over its spec. You’re also free from manufacturer constraints: instead of a proprietary operating system with a finite shelf life, you get to work with a…

ALIENWARE once dominated the desktop gaming PC market with its unique cases, but now everyone from Razer to HP has distinctive-looking designs. The Alienware Aurora R13, available in both black and white, is a return to machines with the wow factor, thanks to its compact form, glass window, and aesthetically pleasing curves. The only people with cause to complain are those used to balancing their cup of coffee on top of their PC, as it will sadly slide right off. The body of the machine isn’t its only unique feature; the bespoke motherboard sits between microATX and ATX in terms of size. Regarding components, our sample features the best of the best pretty much across the board: Intel Core i9 12900KF CPU, 64GB of DDR5 RAM, and Alienware Cryo-Tech liquid…

YOU’LL NEED THIS RAINMETER Download this free tool from www.rainmeter.net. CAIRO Visit https://cairoshell.com to download this handy app. WINDYNAMIC DESKTOP Grab this gratis tool from https://github.com/t1m0thyj/WinDynamicDesktop. ARE YOU BORED with your Windows desktop? Perhaps the new Windows 11 refresh doesn’t quite grab you, or maybe you’ve decided to cut loose after years of making do with various shades of gray. The good news is that your desktop doesn’t have to remain staid and stale, and we’ve got all the tips and techniques you need to not only make it more attractive but more functional, too. We open with a simple facelift using Windows’ own tools—a wallpaper change, a color scheme update, and a look at combining all your customizations into a single theme. Not radical enough? Check out the box…

LENGTH OF TIME: 2-3 HOURS LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY: MEDIUM THE CONCEPT LOOKS AREN’T EVERYTHING, but they do play a big part in this build. We can’t really start without first mentioning how cool this mini DIY PC setup is. A huge part of building computers is the customization scene and this Teenage Engineering computer-1 fits right into that. It’s full of quirkiness and comes flat-packed, which certainly gets rid of those bulky case boxes that sit around your house for years on end. Of course, size limitations within this case also result in power limitations—that’s just the way the cookie crumbles—but we aren’t going to let that weigh us down. Chances are, if you’re building a machine like this, you’re not after a lightning-fast liquid-cooled gaming monster sent down from…

REMEMBER THAT THING we were saying last month about Asus and world-beating laptop innovation? Well, Asus is at it again. Last time around it was the 14-inch Zenbook Pro 14 Duo OLED with its OLED tech and dual screens. This month, get a load of the new Asus ROG Flow X16, a 16-inch gaming beast that’s also a two-in-one tablet, has a big old battery, an incredible mini-LED touchscreen, a monster AMD CPU, and support for Asus’s ROG XG Mobile external graphics. It feels like a full-time job keeping up with Asus’s laptop output of late, let alone the rest of the industry. Anyway, let’s dig into this beauty in a little more detail. It’s running AMD’s hot new Ryzen 9 6900HS CPU, an eight-core and 35W variant of AMD’s…

THE TUF LINEUP from Asus is often seen as a budget-focused alternative to its ROG range. Unfortunately, this casts a negative judgment on TUF models before they’ve had a chance to show off what they can do. The TUF F15 has some interesting specs at a reasonable price, so does it deserve to be in the spotlight or should you opt for a premium ROG laptop? The most noticeable difference between the TUF and ROG laptop lineups is visual. We prefer the cleaner designs offered by ROG machines, however, the F15 appears to be a step up from previous TUF laptops. As more generally budget-friendly alternatives, they often seem heavily ‘gamer focused’ and while it has a gamer utilitarian aesthetic, it’s not too in your face. The lid features an…

WE CAN’T START this review without first confronting the elephant in the room: that price tag. The words “expensive” and “audiophile” have a tight-knit relationship, so are we truly shocked by the $1,299 cost? Audeze is well known for its high-end planar magnetic headphones and is well respected by the audiophile community. These aren’t the brand’s first in-ear headphones, but do the Euclids live up to Audeze’s reputation? When spending over $1000, you’d hope that at least part of that money would go toward the unboxing experience, though sadly, it’s underwhelming for the Euclids. They come in a flimsy cardboard carton that belies what lurks within. When you’ve gone past this cheap packaging, you are met by a clear hardshell carry case showcasing the brand’s logo. We have to hand…

PUBLISHING A PERSONAL website was once costly and complicated. But not any longer. User-friendly platforms such as WordPress and Wix enable you to publish online for free—you might not even need to pay for hosting. They give you everything you need to design and populate your site, maintain it, and interact with visitors. It’s estimated that nearly half a billion sites are built on WordPress, while upward of 200 million people use Wix. If you want to get started for free, WordPress enables you to host a site as a subdomain of WordPress.com which means you don’t need to worry about configuring databases or keeping your site up to date. The downside is that by default your site lives within a subdomain, such as http://mysite.wordpress.com. If you want your own…

Red vs. Blue Two new chip families get ready to go head-to-head THIS FALL we have the pleasure of two new processor architectures landing pretty much simultaneously. First up, Red team. AMD is preparing its 7000-series Raphael chips using the new Zen 4 core architecture and a 5nm process. This is a whole new chip, motherboard, socket, and GPU. We get integrated RDNA 2 graphics, DDR5 memory (no DDR4 support), PCIe 5.0, and a new AM5 socket. There’s even a new 6nm I/O chip, replacing the older 12nm example with enhanced low power modes, which is responsible for most of the improved energy efficiency. AI is improved by support for AVX-5112 instructions. AMD says it will “try to make a big splash with overclocking” too. Those Zen 4 cores bring an…

TRIUMPHS ✓ BIG BOUNTY Apple is offering a $2m bounty to anyone who cracks its Lockdown Mode security system. ✓ DIABOLIC SUCCESS Diablo Immortal may have an unpleasant pay-to-win vibe, but it’s still made over $49 million in its first month. ✓ SMART EYES Mojo Vision has built a prototype of a smart contact lens, using a minuscule 14,000 pixel LED screen and medical batteries. TRAGEDIES ✘ GIVE US YOUR DATA Oculus VR users no longer need a Facebook account but they will need a Meta account and a Horizon World account. ✘ GAME SALES DOWN The US video game market is predicted to contract to $55.5bn this year, down nine percent. ✘ APPLE HITS META Apple’s latest privacy policy, which allows you to stop apps tracking your activities, will…

⟶ Quick Privacy Tips ⟶ A New Browser ⟶ PortableApps Tighten Privacy In the July issue, you had a news article titled “FBI Searches Data Without Warrants”. They aren’t just spying on people, they act on it, too. Thousands of arrests are made every year due to the FBI or other alphabetsoup government agencies invading our privacy. Hacking and ransomware attacks are at an all-time high. My suggestion to you is to have a full feature on privacy and how to keep your data secure. I believe Nick Peers has done this before, maybe a few years ago now, but he did a great job. It could cover how simple it is to have your data monitored (or stolen) if you’re not being careful, and how to prevent it from…

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THE NEAR-ICONS ACORN ATOM (1980) The Atom was the predecessor to the BBC Micro, and with 2022 goggles on, looked much more stylish than its successor. Neat fact: The manual for the computer was called Atomic Theory and Practice. DRAGON 32 (1982) We love the story of the Dragon 32—a Welsh toy company deciding to build a computer was so mid-1980s—but it was really just a copy of the Tandy TRS-80. ACORN ELECTRON (1983) Acorn’s attempt to build a cut-down BBC Micro was beset with difficulty, leading to long delays. By the time it was available, the demand had gone. SINCLAIR QL (1984) This could have been the British Mac, based around a 16-bit Motorola processor, and with a brilliant multitasking OS. Plus a full suite of office software. But…

YOU’LL NEED THIS VICE https://vice-emu.sourceforge.io You do not need any Commodore system ROMs—the emulator comes pre-loaded with a BIOS. THIS MONTH, WE COVER a historic pillar of personal computing. Alongside the Apple II and Tandy TRS-80, the Commodore PET is one of three major computers (aka The Holy Trinity) that are credited with starting the home computing revolution, and its architecture would later underpin Commodore’s most popular machines. As you might expect, the PET is full of quirks and can present some technical headaches to a modern user, so after taking you on a brief history tour that goes all the way back to the mid-1970s, allow us to guide you through emulating the Commodore PET. –JOHN KNIGHT 1 DEVELOPMENT AND LAUNCH The PET’s story begins in 1976. In an attempt…

THE THING WITH LUXURIES is that, once you’ve experienced them, it can be difficult to go back to the mundane. Whether it’s fine wines, high-end hi-fi, or expensive motors, experiencing the good stuff often means that nothing else comes close. That’s why this Acer Predator XB323QK 4K gaming monitor should come with a warning, lest people are tempted to spend $2000+ trying to get a machine powerful enough to drive it. If money’s no object though, this monitor has everything going for it. It’s a 4K display with an IPS panel, a huge 32-inch screen, a 144Hz refresh rate, and support for both AMD FreeSync and Nvidia G-SYNC. Those stats make it a dream monitor for gamers, offering the most premium of experiences short of an 8K television or an…

THERE STILL AREN’T many soundbars available for PC gamers, but the original Razer Leviathan made an impression when it launched. It produced great sound, had lots of connectivity options, and had the usual Razer sense of style. That was eight years ago though, so it’s probably time for a refresh. The Razer Leviathan V2 makes some interesting changes, adding some key new features while dropping some previously popular ones. For example, both the soundbar and sub are larger for fuller audio, and there’s now gamerfriendly Chroma RGB lighting as well as THX Spatial Audio. But we’ve lost the 3.5mm and optical connectivity, which limits the flexibility of this speaker for use with anything other than a PC. The headline improvements are good news for those who care about audio quality,…

THE HS65 SURROUND is the cheapest of three newly-released Corsair headsets. Corsair has proven over the years that it knows how to put together a solid gaming headset, but how does this $80 offering sit in its line-up? Could the HS65 be your main gaming companion or should you opt for a more expensive option? Picking it up for the first time, the HS65 certainly feels more expensive than the price tag may imply. Although it’s a mainly plastic construction, it’s soft to the touch and contrasts well with the other materials used. We’re reviewing the white version and if we had to choose, we’d opt for this over the carbon black alternative. The white with gray accents looks more premium in our eyes. Talking of the gray accents, these…

> Apple Affection > Gift Guides > Linux on Blueprints More bites of the Apple I know that what I’m about to say is sacrilege but, frankly, the PC fanboys can get off my back about it. Basically, I love how awesome Apple’s integrated ecosystem has become, and I’d love to see more coverage of it in Maximum PC. I have an iPhone, iPad, Macbook, and Airpods, and as the old Apple marketing tagline goes, they simply just work. Don’t get me wrong, I still love my custom built PC. It’s my favorite non-lifestyle thing in the world, for sure, but I don’t treat it like a tool—it’s a hobby, something I’m always improving, upgrading, and investing in. However, Apple devices are different, I see them as tools. Apple devices…

IS YOUR RIG RUNNING PCIE 5.0? Then it’s tasty stuff, as version 5.0 is only just about to become properly mainstream. Version 6.0 only recently reached its final specifications, and you won’t find hardware around yet. The PCI-SIG (the Special Interest Group that manages the format’s standards) has announced that it is “on track” to finalize PCIe 7.0 by 2025. The gap between this and the first hardware being available is just over a year. Each iteration of PCIe doubles the data rate of the previous generation. PCIe 5.0 offers 128GB/s bidirectional transfers on a x16 link, so PCIe 7.0 will take us to 512GB/s. PCIe’s impressive bandwidth, right from the original specifications, has given us more than we could ever easily flood with data, which is not something you…

The new M2 chip made its debut in the MacBook Pro in mid-July, and early tests found its cooling is struggling to cope. The 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro has a single fan and, under extended load, the M2 chip can reach over 100 degrees, triggering thermal throttling. This saves your silicon but leaves you with a sluggish rig. The 13-inch M1-powered MacBook Pro gets toasty under similar loads, but at least avoids being held back. Some were also disappointed by the slower SSD speeds. The base model has a single SSD chip, rather than the predecessor’s two, pushing you to spend another $200 for the two-chip 512MB version or lose half your data transfer speed. Let’s see if the M2-powered Macbook Air, with no fan, can keep its chip cool.…

GAMING LAPTOPS are a contentious issue here at Maximum PC, with some of our writers loving them and others loathing them. Regardless, they remain a common entry point to PC ownership for many, thanks to their versatility, portability, and generally highpower performance. These are the best gaming laptops out there right now across a range of sizes, styles, and budgets, so you can get your game on no matter where you are or what you’re doing. 5 HP VICTUS If you’re looking for a good value gaming laptop, HP’s Victus line is a good place to start. They still feature luxuries such as a 16-inch display, but save money with modest specs that still pack a punch, such as a Ryzen 7 processor, RTX 3050 Ti GPU, and 16GB of RAM.…

As we again reach the point where cryptocurrency mining using GPUs stops delivering an acceptable return on investment, a deluge of used graphics cards is landing on the second-hand market. Depending on the card and the miner, some of these might be in great shape; others might be covered in dust and run at higher temperatures than normal, leading to reduced performance. Or perhaps you’re simply the owner of a card that’s been kicking around for a couple of years. If you’ve had it in your PC for a while and haven’t bothered to give it a thorough clean, it might be running hotter and louder than when it was new. Whatever the source, any used graphics card can benefit from routine maintenance. More importantly, Nvidia’s RTX 30-series cards that…

IF THE RUMORS and roadmaps are to be believed, the PC is about to enter a new golden age of innovation. Intel and AMD are prepping epic new processors, while Nvidia and AMD are tooling up to recalibrate expectations when it comes to generational performance increases with their next graphics cards. It’s going to be explosive. Yet there’s so much more to the PC than just CPUs and GPUs. The PC platform itself and the peripheral technologies around it are just as important. Imagine storage tech hadn’t advanced in the last 20 years. Or memory speeds. Or platform interlinks. Good luck gaming at 4K and 144Hz with that fancy GPU running over an AGP interface, your DDR memory chugging along at 100MHz, an 80GB magnetic HDD that cranks out less than…

YOU’LL NEED THIS GIMP 2.1 OS: Windows 7 or newer USING WORDS TO CREATE AN IMAGE can be a visually striking way of displaying a brand name and also illustrating what the brand represents—two for the price of one, if you like. We can achieve this effect by bringing in a silhouette, usually a side profile, and adding text inside this to create a logo. In this tutorial, we will be doing just that and showing you how to spice up a plain text design into something artistically exciting. Before we start, we need to have a brand name in mind, an item that relates to the brand, and a silhouette of said item. The letters from your brand will essentially form the silhouette, therefore, creating an image from a…

WHEN AMD ANNOUNCED the RX 6500 XT and RX 6400, it said the latter would be exclusive to pre-built OEM PCs. Several months later, AMD changed its mind and the Radeon RX 6400 is now available as an add-in board from several graphics card vendors. The PowerColor RX 6400 ITX perhaps isn’t the ideal model, since the biggest selling points for the RX 6400 are that it doesn’t require any extra power connectors and it can fit in a single-slot, half-height form factor. If you happen to have a slim PC, about the only other options besides the RX 6400 are extremely weak solutions such as the old GT 1030 or RX 550 from five years ago. The Navi 24 at least brings some features up to the modern era.…

ASK A GAMER to describe their ideal gaming monitor, and they’re likely to say “4K”. The problem, of course, is that driving a 4K monitor requires a high-end graphics card that can add a significant amount to your budget. For most, a realistic sweet spot is a 1440p monitor that can be driven by a more modest GPU. HP’s X34 appears to hit this sweet spot while offering lots of additional features for a reasonable price. The headline feature is its 34-inch ultrawide display with a large amount of screen real estate. It also has a high 165Hz refresh rate, supports AMD’s FreeSync Premium (and unofficially Nvidia G-SYNC), and has a 1ms response time. All great things to have on a monitor under $500. The X34 makes a good first…

PRACTICALLY OUR FIRST SHOT in Sniper Elite 5 goes through a luckless enemy soldier’s testicles. We were aiming for his head, but that doesn’t really matter right now. The WWII stealth-action series has long been known for its gory X-ray camera, a ‘reward’ for a nicely placed shot that shows the bullet smashing its way through skin and bone on its way out the other side. But we didn’t expect so many all at once. They were set up for it, of course. Those soldiers manning the searchlights that night didn’t stand a chance, and neither do their compatriots who stand on ledges just asking to be pulled over, or investigate strange whistles coming from tall grass with not a thought for their personal safety. Having taken us around northern…

AFTER A RECENT OVERHAUL, our budget Intel build sees only two changes to its lineup this issue. A change in price on the previous Seagate Constellation ES 7200 HDD meant that we exchanged it for the Seagate ST4000NM0024 on both builds. With the same 7200rpm and 4TB of capacity, it is a close match but it has a $20 hike over the price from the previous issue. There’s a $5 increase on the 500GB MSI Spatium M450 SSD, which now features in both PCs—it’s not an ideal start, but both are solid components. The G.Skill Ripjaws V sticks marginally rise in price too, but thankfully, there is one price difference on the Intel budget machine that works in our favor—a $20 drop from the previous $140 price tag on the ASRock…