Table of contents for Holiday 2018 in Maximum PC

KEEPING OLD SOFTWARE and hardware going can be problematic, thanks to Digital Rights Management, but help is at hand from the Library of Congress. Every three years, it carries out a copyright exemptions review; this year, it’s decided that hacking DRM to repair or maintain hardware is legal. The last review, in 2015, included tractors as an example of what could be legally hacked, after farmers complained at John Deere’s tactics to prevent home maintenance. This year, it has widened the scope to include more devices, making it OK to circumvent hardware and software designed to stop you altering your legally acquired consumer electronics. So, you can crack open a smartphone or laptop, bypass the protection, and repair or customize. It applies to software, too, useful to keep abandoned online…

WE’VE BEEN PROMISED flexible phones since 2011, and have seen impressive working prototypes from Lenovo and Samsung, but everyone has been beaten to market by Royole, with the world’s first commercial foldable phone. The company was started in 2012 by engineering graduates from Stanford, and has become a leader in thin and flexible displays. The FlexiPai is a fairly heavy (0.7lb) and chunky device, with one fold in the middle. It transforms from a 7.8-inch tablet with a resolution of 1920x1440 into a dual-screen phone, with a third screen along the spine. Otherwise, it’s a full-featured smartphone, complete with dual high-res cameras. Power comes from a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8150 processor, and it runs Royole’s own Water OS, a fork of Android 9.0. Royole says the screen is “virtually” unbreakable, and…

$2,399 RAZER BLADE 15 Proving gaming laptops don’t have to be big, brash boys’ toys, the Razer Blade 15 offers genuine gaming performance in a sleek, well-built design. Numerous build options are available, but we found the combo of GTX 1070 and Core i7-8750H strikes a great balance between value and performance. Website: www.razer.com Reviewed: Vol 23, No 10, Page 78 Since this time last year, we’ve had new processors, new graphics cards, improved SSDs, peripherals aplenty, and a wealth of nips and tucks to put the PC in as good a shape as it’s ever been. However, not all the changes have been obviously for the better, with some releases being downright confusing in terms of the bigger picture. So, what hardware have we been most excited about over the…

Back in the July 2018 issue, we looked at some easy ways to keep your precious data safely backed up. Part of the rationale of any backup strategy is not to bother with any data that can be easily downloaded again, which is why backups usually ignore boot drives these days. User folders store configuration files, and the general OS files are restored when you reinstall, right? As true as that is, there’s still a couple of arguments for running clone operations; one of the most common is to migrate your boot media, transferring it from an old slow HDD, or perhaps shifting from an outdated SSD to a more modern one. The other argument is backup—while it’s true you can reinstall Windows from scratch, we all know how long that…

It’s worth taking a quick detour to specifically cover drive migration, cloning, or drive-to-drive imaging. With SSD prices currently falling through the floor, if you’ve got an older system still running spinning rust or stuck on an outdated, smaller SSD, this is the ideal time to migrate it to a larger, faster new SSD. Copying system files can be off-putting, but with Clonezilla, it’s a cakewalk. Of course, there are some points we need to cover first. The new drive has to be as large as the original drive, at least in terms of space. You can use the Windows Disk Management console to attempt to shrink partitions, but you may need to delete files to make room, too. Search for “Disk Management,” and select the “Create and format” option.…

YOU’LL NEED THIS A LINUX PC This needs to run OpenVPN. LET’S FACE IT: There’s always a shady organization or overreaching government wanting to hack your system and spy on your life. Keeping your Internet activity secure can be difficult, especially if you’ve got servers you want hidden from everyone except a few trusted individuals. That’s the point of what we’re going to do in this article. We’re going to show you how to access your own web server from anywhere in the world, without anyone knowing about it. There are several ways you can create secure connections between two computers, but for our purposes, we’re going to use OpenVPN. It’s considered one of the best solutions available, because it’s based on sound encryption algorithms, it’s open source, and it’s…

YOU’LL NEED THIS RASPBERRY PI This credit-card sized computer costs around $35. WEATHER SENSOR We used the Maker Life kit, but others are available, or you could build your own. WEATHER, EH? WHO’D HAVE IT? Whether it is the relentless onslaught of that burning gasball in the sky or the incessant gushing of rain, weather never ends—which makes it perfect for a great project, using Linux shenanigans and fancy sensors. We happened to have a Maker Life Weather Station kit hanging around in the office, which means we’re making it (and its Pi Zero W, and included sensors) at least the initial basis of this tutorial. However, you’re not missing out if you don’t have the same gear to work with. This is something you can put together yourself—various Pi-friendly…

YOU’LL NEED THIS ADOBE PHOTOSHOP Subscribe to a suitable package at www.adobe.com. PHOTOGRAPHS Lots and lots of them. THE ROMANS DID A LOT FOR WESTERN CIVILIZATION, but one thing that never made it across the Atlantic was the mosaic. The tradition of creating an image from tiny pieces of stone, each one the kind of picture element that could, perhaps, be called a pixel, can be traced back to a couple of millennia BC in Mesopotamia—the area we would come to know as Iraq. The ancient Greeks and Romans would take the technique to great heights, and it has continued being used across Europe ever since, particularly among the early Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religious traditions, where it was used to portray saints and popes, or intricate geometric patterns. What…

AFTER SMASHING a personal target in a Cinebench overclocking push, it’s hard to ignore the sensation of victory hovering overhead. Over 5,000 points in Cinebench, competitive gaming scores, low idle power draw, x264 over the 81fps mark—it’s all there. A kick-ass processor, and we haven’t even stepped out of the opening paragraph. That said, the 2970WX isn’t for the faint of heart, and it’s not aimed at gamers either. It’s a finely honed tool, tempered to maximize your efficiency in any and all workloads. There are 24 cores thumping away at the heart of this chip, six per CPU die, each die communicating with one another to break up those application processes across the 48 threads. Those zeros and ones are catered for by a huge 78.25MB of cache (64MB…

HOT DIGGITY, is this board something else! From the extravagant styling, to the power phase design, the RGB LEDs, and the expansive connectivity, this mobo has it all. It’s a beast, and in our eyes, MSI has created something truly remarkable. Threadripper’s always been an odd one when it comes to motherboards; it benefits massively from improved power delivery systems. As most of the I/O navigates its way directly to the processor itself, as opposed to going through a chipset, connectivity has usually been a bit of an afterthought, so the premium boards are typically less about “What can you plug in?” and more “How well does it handle current?” Back in the early days of 12 and 16-core processors, that was particularly evident when overclocking, especially as the VRMs…

GAMERS ARE VERY particular people. They want specific things, certain features, particularly when they’re told they want them. On the box, consummate gamer and Fnatic esportsist “JW” says his life literally depends on this keyboard, and we care deeply for his safety, so it had better be good. It’s certainly considered. Fnatic has not been shy about ladling gimmick after gimmick on to this unashamedly esports-centric keyboard. If you want to be the best, by gosh you’re going to need a specific on-keyboard button to mute your mic (providing you’re also using Fnatic’s OP software, and a compatible headset). You’re going to wonder how you ever lived without the “competition mode,” which immediately dims the lights to a subtle orange and, again in conjunction with Fnatic OP, cuts down on…

APPLE DOESN’T have a particularly hectic release schedule—some of its gear is untouched for years—but when it does make a major revision, people take notice. Whatever your views on Apple, it makes tantalizingly desirable stuff. It’s just launched a refreshed MacBook Air and Mac mini, but the star of the show is a brand new iPad Pro. It’s thinner, lighter, and much faster. The new iPad Pro comes in two sizes—11 and 12.9-inch—and the display goes that little bit closer to the edge. Its Liquid Retina screen first appeared on the iPhone XR. It’s not OLED, but as LED screens go, it’s good, boasting the most accurate colors of any in the business, and a 120MHz refresh rate. A 12MP camera faces outward, capable of 4K 60fps video, and a…

A DECENT SCREEN has traditionally been one of the best, if not actually the very best, long-term investments you can make for your PC. In the past, that’s reflected the fact that screen technology has ambled along at a leisurely pace. Back in 2006, for instance, Dell rolled out its 30-inch 3007WFP. It wasn’t cheap at about a thousand bucks, but it took the better part of a decade for monitors to appear that made it truly redundant. Divide that $1,000 upfront investment by seven or eight years of use, and the annual price of having a fantastic display doesn’t look bad. More recently, the monitor market has gone more or less mental. Over the last four or five years, the innovations have come thick and fast. Most obviously, the…

We’re the first to admit that Clonezilla isn’t the prettiest thing to look at, nor the easiest in terms of understanding what it’s asking you half the time. In the past, both www.easeus.com and www.macrium.com have offered solid free imaging tools, and certainly sell excellent commercial solutions. If you’re looking for a free option, Macrium Reflect Free Edition is probably your best bet. Once installed—there’s an initial 5MB installer download, followed by a 800MB main download—you can simply select “Backup > Windows,” and it backs up your full boot drive (boot, Windows, and recovery partitions) in a simple fashion. It also supports differential backups, so once the main imaging is finished, further backups take much less time. Unlike Clonezilla, which has to be run off a bootable device, you need…

TIP OF THE MONTH POWER USER START MENU Ever needed to get to the Power menu in the Start menu? It’s certainly a quicker way of shutting down, that’s for sure. For a quick, digestible Start menu, move down to the Windows icon, and simply right-click. Windows then opens up the Power menu, allowing quick access to a number of features, including better shutdown options. $Free WITCH HUNT Despite the fact that many of us are competitors, you’ll often find us journos working together to get to the bottom of hardware issues, news, and rumors. And it’s important we do, because not only do we learn by riffing off each other, but it also informs our content, and provides you with better-balanced coverage. Lately, though, we’ve been seeing some journalists…

WE’VE BEEN SPOILED by the past several generations of Nvidia graphics cards, particularly with the GTX 970 and GTX 1070. The 970 was faster than the previous generation, and even came close to the Titan Black, with a price of only $330. The 1070 proclaimed superior performance to every prior card, including the Maxwell Titan X, with a starting price of $380. Those were good times. The RTX 2070, and the Founders Edition in particular, make us long for the days of previous Nvidia GPU advances. To be fair, the RTX 2070 packs a lot of new technology into its beefy package. The TU106 chip is only slightly smaller than the GP102 in the 1080 Ti, and includes the new Tensor and RT cores, which help to accelerate machine learning…

DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER AGAIN? Yup, it’s another Optane drive from Intel. It’s an intriguing contradiction that Optane has us at one and the same time wondering how on earth the company can put out yet another spin on its Optane product line so soon, and also considering whether, with this particular drive, Optane is finally going to absolutely, unambiguously deliver on its immense hypothetical promise. Optane drives, of course, are based on Intel’s 3D Xpoint tech. We’ve covered its technological underpinnings before ad infinitum, and in some detail. Suffice to say for now that the basic idea is a brand new type of non-volatile memory that seemingly has it all. More sheer speed than conventional NAND flash memory. Lower latency. Even greater endurance. The numbers Intel originally claimed were…

DRY-STONE WALLS are built using a method that dates back to the stone age, and one that takes a lot of skill to get right. It seems a shame, therefore, to destroy quite so many of them. Unfortunately, it’s so easy to. Slide off the road as you speed through the UK (gaming’s British period continues unabashed), and chances are you’ll hit a dry-stone wall at an oblique angle, rocks flying into the air as your hugely expensive supercar ploughs through, largely undamaged. You’ll see the AI opponents doing the same—something about being unused to driving on the left, maybe? As you can tell, we’re not in sim racing territory here. The only naturalism comes in the seasonal changes to the forests and fields you blast past at 90mph. Comparisons…

> Hardware Obsolescence > CPU Temperatures > The End of PC Gaming City Building General question: I have a system with Win 10 64-bit, an Intel Core i5-4460 @ 3.2GHz, 16GB RAM, and Intel 4600 Graphics. I would like to play Cities: Skylines. I believe I need a video card; which one would you recommend? Do I also need to upgrade anything, such as my PSU? Thank you! –Peter H EXECUTIVE EDITOR ALAN DEXTER RESPONDS: If you take a quick look at the minimum hardware requirements for Cities: Skylines, you’ll discover one interesting caveat under video card support, and that is that the game specifically doesn’t support Intel Integrated Graphics. This is unusual, because while there are plenty of games around that barely run on integrated GPUs (we know, we…

> Metered Connections > SSD Solutions > Buffering Bother Ultra HD Blu-Rays Dear Doctor, I’ve been trying to get Ultra HD Blu-ray discs to play on my system for some time, and finally realized I need a hand from a professional. CyberLink’s UHD Blu-Ray Advisor says I don’t have an HDCP 2.2-compatible GPU/display, but Nvidia says otherwise. Perhaps it’s the monitor? The utility reports no Advanced Protected Audio/Video Path (GPU). Again, though, Nvidia’s specs say my graphics card has this. The CyberLink website claims I need to have my display connected to onboard Intel graphics. Again, if Nvidia already supports the protected path, why would this be necessary? My hardware includes an Intel Core i7-8700K, an EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, a Pioneer PIO-BDR-211UBK MAIN-16374 optical drive with Ultra HD…

THERE’S NO MOTHERBOARD series in existence today that commands as much respect as Asus’s Maximus Formula lineup. Tech Porn has often played host to these heartstoppers, and with good reason. If you’re looking for innovative feature sets, brand-new design directions, and a motherboard that puts pure performance above absolutely everything else on this mainstream Intel platform, the Formula is the one for you. It has historically been a liquid-cooled masterpiece. A juggernaut of a board fitted with PCB-shielding armor, a rigorously designed backplate, and enough connectivity to saturate any Intel platform it found itself on. Time and time again, the Formula continues to demolish the competition. Fast-forward to Sky Lake, and we also finally see the introduction of its non water-cooled brother, too, the Apex, for those not so bothered…

YOU’LL NEED THIS WINDSCRIBE Download the free version of the VPN from https://windscribe.com. THERE ARE TWO PRIMARY REASONS for wanting to use a VPN. The first is to increase the security of your Internet connection, and the second is to make it appear as though you are located somewhere else in the world. Both of these benefits are due to the fact that when using a VPN, your web traffic is encrypted and routed through secure servers. A VPN can make it seem as though you are browsing the web from another country by assigning you a foreign IP address—which is great if you want to access, say, the British version of Netflix, or sites that are blocked in your country. Both free and paid-for VPNs exist, and their quality…

THE BELLIGERENT TIRADES against Nvidia’s mad marketing ploys have to end. The company’s been plagued with everything from increased failure rates to a torrent of abuse from journos. And with good reason. The insane price jump and repositioning of the brand, in conjunction with a lack of a significant performance increase, was a bitter pill to swallow, all in the name of ray tracing and DLSS antialiasing, which we’ve still yet to see. But we can only rail against the company for so long. Despite it all, Nvidia is still very much king of the hill when it comes to graphical performance. There is no competition at the high end at all. Vega is a flop in comparison to the GTX 1080. And this? This card is pure power. Let’s…

A QUALITY PANEL with plenty of pixels. This is what a decent PC monitor is about. For sure, there are various features and frills that can amp up the experience, but get the basics right, and you’re well on the way to the proverbial good PC monitor. Enter Philips’s 349P7FUBEB. In an age of 144Hz refresh, HDR capability, and quantum dot enhancement, it’s a pretty straightforward proposition that majors primarily on a quality 34-inch panel. It’s not pitched as an out-and-out gaming monitor, nor is it specified for content-creation professionals. Instead, it’s intended as a high-quality all-arounder. Of course, this is 2018, so that “straightforward proposition” still makes for some appealing speeds and feeds. For starters, we’re talking 3440x1440 pixels, and a panel that’s both superwide, with a 21:9 aspect…

FOR THOSE WHO don’t want to partake of Adobe’s subscription model of software ownership, the Elements suite has always offered great value. You get functional photo and video editing tools, with a lot of new-user-friendliness and automation, and plenty of templates and tutorials thrown in, too. The pricing for Photoshop is starting to look like less of an issue, however. Elements is on an annual release schedule, buying a new version is the only way to get updates, and Photoshop Elements 2019 costs $100. A year’s subscription to Photoshop CC, which also bundles the raw processing and organization app Lightroom, costs $120, and you get a constant flow of updates. Video editor Premiere is a different matter: The Elements bundle, which nets you both Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements, costs…

UBISOFT QUEBEC DESERVES extra turkey this holiday season, for releasing something so accomplished just a year after Origins began a series revamp that made it a must-play. Odyssey moves the series back in time to ancient Greece, and opens during the battle of Thermopylae, which you may remember from the comic book and movie 300. King Leonidas thankfully keeps his armor on, but the game has shed some of the layers that keep out curious players. There’s a choice of heroes, for one thing. There’s not a huge difference—either is a refugee Spartan living in Kefalonia, making a living as a mercenary, with the same dialog options—but there are bigger changes afoot. Exploration mode is new, and billed as the expected way to play. It dispenses with map markers, giving…

I am on cable Internet using a cable modem. I recently had an experience where my Internet would stop working, and I would have to power cycle both my cable modem and my router. I noticed the cable modem was very hot to the touch, and my router was also very warm. I decided to add my own cooling to both of these. I wanted to share my story for anyone else who may be experiencing the same thing. It was fairly easy to cool these using standard 120mm computer case coolers. I was able to use a standard 12V power supply, the kind that is used for video security cameras. All of the parts are available from Frys Electronics, and are reasonably priced. Now, both my cable modem and…