Table of contents for February 2022 in Maximum PC

WITH ANY NEW CPU architecture, our first build is always a major landmark. But Intel’s Alder Lake is still something special. Not only is it a radical departure from all previous CPUs, what with its hybrid cores, but it also marks the first step in what we hope is a multigenerational return to form for Intel. As I said in last issue’s Lab Notes, I’m not convinced Alder Lake is the CPU Intel originally planned. Problems with Intel’s 10nm and 7nm nodes put paid to that. But the benchmarks don’t lie and, as our reviews from previous issues and this month’s build prove, Alder Lake puts out the numbers. It was great to unleash Sam on our first Alder Lake build, pairing it with some serious GPU power and that…

ASUS’S LATEST HIGH-SPEC TABLET PC hit my desk recently. Apart from its snazzy box, the most striking thing about the Vivobook 13 Slate OLED was a painfully obvious flaw. And that got me pondering how a fundamentally borked product makes it through the planning process and into customers’ hands. You’d think obvious flaws or configuration errors would be filtered out, these days. But that Asus tablet, well, let’s just say it has friends. We’ll come back to the Vivobook, but first I need to clarify the kind of fatal product flaws we’re dealing with. I’m not talking about unintentional errors and strategic missteps baked in years before a product hits the shelves. Obvious examples involve certain integrated circuits. Most agree AMD’s Bulldozer CPU architecture was a train wreck, but during…

Alder Lake will be the first consumer platform to support PCIe Gen5 devices, but actual support may vary by motherboard and processor. We know that most Z690 motherboards theoretically have support for PCIe Gen5, but we don’t have the hardware to test that support just yet. Both the latest graphics cards and the latest M.2 SSDs are still sitting in Gen4 land, but we should see Gen5 SSDs at least arrive this year. One thing we don’t expect is widespread support for PCIe Gen5 on laptops. In fact, right now most shipping laptops are still using PCIe Gen3 SSDs because the minor gains in normal workloads from a faster Gen4 SSD don’t measure up to the increased power requirements and loss of battery life. It’s an interesting change in position for…

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN famously said that an ounce of preparation is worth a pound of care, but when it comes to troubleshooting Windows problems there’s only so much you can set up in advance. Even with the best backup regimen in the world, you can’t always inoculate yourself against a Windows error, crash, or complete meltdown. Don’t worry though, because armed with a few tips and techniques, you’ll be well-equipped to deal with the worst that Windows can throw at you. We’ll start with the most catastrophic circumstances—a Windows installation that refuses to boot successfully to the desktop. You’ll learn how to combine Windows’ own troubleshooting tools with a powerful (and free!) third-party rescue disc to maximize your chances of fixing the problem. And if you can’t get Windows to boot…

Looking for a tool that provides access to dozens of fixes for common Windows problems? Go to www.tweaking.com and download the free version of Windows Repair Tool. WRT runs best in Safe mode—the quickest way to get there is to press Win + R, type msconfig then hit Enter, then switch to the Boot tab, tick ‘Safe boot’, and select Network. Click OK followed by Restart, and Windows will reboot into Safe mode (you’ll need to log in with your full password, not a PIN number or other form of ID). Once logged in, launch the Windows Repair Tool. After the program has performed its start-up check, click ‘I Agree’ to go to the main screen. Work your way through various health checks, a power reset, plus scans of your…

NEARLY 300 ISSUES OF PURE, PC-driven passion. That’s the landmark we are approaching as Maximum PC prepares to reveal its new editor. You’ll have to wait until next issue to find out more about that. But as the magazine heads into a new era with fresh leadership, now is a good time to look back on where it all began. The first issue of Maximum PC was published in September 1998. But its real origins date back to August 1996 and the first issue of Boot, the magazine that would later become Maximum PC. It’s no surprise to discover the first issue of Boot set the template in so many ways, leading with the “Dream Machine” cover. DIYing our own PC from hand-picked components was the way, the truth, and…

TIP OF THE MONTH GOOGLE ACCOUNT PERMISSIONS Privacy is one of the most important things to keep on top of when using a PC. With your photos, contacts, financial details, and much of your life held on there, your PC could be a goldmine for those pesky hackers. If you have a google account, there is a page where you can quickly check to see which apps have access to your account. Type the following into your search bar to have a look: myaccount.google.com/u/0/permissions MAKE – USE – CREATE 60 Make your own Pop Art with Adobe Photoshop 64 Run Windows 11 on a Raspberry Pi 4 Yes, really! 66 Music production for beginners using your PC FACE PALM GTA: The Trilogy Definitive Edition was on the agenda for the…

YOU’LL NEED THIS A COPY OF CLASSIC99 http://harmlesslion.com/software/classic99 THIS MONTH we feature a cult computer that could have dominated the early 1980s but fell short of fame due to bad management decisions. Instead, machines such as Sinclair’s ZX80 and ZX81 and the Commodore VIC-20 became the standard-bearers for a new era of home computing. Nevertheless, the TI-99/4A had a sizeable following, offering retro computing fans a combination of features not found elsewhere and some interesting arcade action. 1 DEVELOPMENT & RELEASE Before the TI-99/4A came 1979’s TI-99/4. When 8-bit microcomputers were just becoming mainstream, Texas Instruments (TI) had the ambition of releasing a 16-bit home computer, based on its own TMS9900 CPU. » As the first 16-bit home computer, this machine had the potential to dominate the home computing scene,…

Gaming laptops suck Tell me I’m wrong GAMING LAPTOPS have always sucked in certain ways, such as limited upgradeability, lower performance than a desktop, and painful pricing. OK, a laptop is currently one of the few ways to get hold of a halfdecent GPU at a sensible price. Forking out for a high-end laptop rather ruins crypto returns, so gaming laptop sales generally go to gamers who want to play games. But when GPU pricing and availability eventually return to normality, gaming laptops will again be poor value in terms of pure performance. But it’s not really those obvious issues that bug me. Over the years, I’ve run something like 10 powerful gaming laptops. It all started when I bought a Dell Inspiron 5000 with a Radeon 7500 Mobility chip…

LAPTOPS WERE DESIGNED as a portable and practical on-the-go alternative to your desktop computer. However, 17-inch laptops tend to fall somewhere between the two. As good as they are at providing you with the equivalent of desktop power or more, plus they often have better cooling solutions and specs than smaller alternatives, what they can’t deliver is the same level of practicality. You can’t sling one of these into a backpack, as they aren’t the easiest nor the lightest devices to carry around. Yet, they offer something pretty cool and if you are unsure whether to get a desktop or a traditional laptop, they are an ideal compromise. MSI is no stranger to 17-inch devices and the GS76 Stealth is certainly a looker, with some pretty hefty specs under the…

HP’S PRO LINE of “Z” monitors is bigger than ever before. The HP Z43 clocks in at a hefty 43 inches, but its size isn’t the only way it differs from other HP Z screens. It’s also more purely productivity orientated than some of the other members of the Z family, thanks to lower color fidelity. At the core of the Z43 is a 42.5-inch IPS panel with full 4K resolution and 60Hz refresh. We’ve seen plenty of superficially similar 43-inch class 4K monitors before. But they’ve tended to have the feel of a cheap TV rebadged as a monitor, maybe with DisplayPort added for more PCcentric connectivity. With that in mind, it’s not surprising to find most of those displays run VA panels, which is what you’d expect in…

ASUS'S TKL RANGE is a compact alternative to the traditional keyboard. With a TKL ‘TenKeyLess’ keyboard, those 10 keys on a standard board that you hardly ever use have been dropped and this comes with a few benefits. If you are tight on desk space, having a keyboard that’s 20 percent smaller than a standard board will give you more room. That larger space for your mouse could be useful when gaming. ASUS has taken the original ROG STRIX Scope keyboard and applied the TKL format to it, so is this a perfect solution for a gaming setup? Straight out the box, this is a nicelooking bit of kit. For a small peripheral, it has a decent weight to it, which is ideal for a keyboard. The last thing you…

THE GRAPHICS CARD market is in a mess. and that won’t change any time soon. Supplies are tight, and every available card is sold the moment it appears. Scalpers scour outlets for stock, and buy everything, only to resell them at inflated prices. And crypto miners are bagging GPUs in bulk. Things have calmed down a little since the summer, but markups of 150-200 percent still sting. According to Nvidia’s website prices for a GeForce RTX 3090 should start at $1,399. Currently, the average on auction sites is $1,000 more than that. Finding anybody with stock is another matter. The latest graphics card launch was a refreshed Nvidia RTX 2060 12GB and aimed at relieving pressure on the market. It uses a 12nm GPU so doesn’t compete with the newer…

LIFE360 CLAIMS TO BE the world’s leading family safety service. Essentially, it uses your smartphone’s GPS to track your movements and sends alerts under specified conditions to designated people. Naturally, this creates a lot of location data, which is quite an asset. Two former employees have revealed that Life360 has been selling it to leading data brokers for years. It transpires that Life360 is one of the largest providers of location data in the country, part of a $12bn phone tracking business. The privacy policy on the Life360 website says it may share collected data with partners for “tailored advertising, attribution, analytics, research, and other purposes”. You can opt out, but by default, it is on. Founder and CEO of Life360, Chris Hulls, said that “we see data as an…

> USB drive disaster > PC overwhelmed > Old password tool PCIe 4.0 glitch I’ve been building PCs since the first 386 I put together, so I’m no stranger to PC problems. I recently bought a new computer from CyberPowerPC rather than build my own, thanks to the video card situation. I had three Seagate external drives connected to my old computer—two 3.5-inch drives with their own PSUs, and a USB-powered Backup Plus Portable. I connected all three to the USB ports directly on my MSI MPG X570 Gaming Plus motherboard. I had no problems with the two larger drives, but the portable drive kept disconnecting every few minutes. In Event Viewer, the System logs were filled with errors for that drive. I didn’t think the drive could go bad…

THE GLOVES ARE OFF and Intel has deployed what is arguably its biggest and most ambitious CPU architecture overhaul. Its Alder Lake, 12th-Gen Core processors include major enhancements to improve performance and efficiency, with Intel’s first 10nm class (now Intel 7) process technology in a desktop chip. With two new CPU architectures, Golden Cove and Gracemont, this will be the foundation of the next generations of mobile, desktop, and data center processors. For the past seven years, Intel has watched its processor leadership deteriorate. AMD’s Zen 3 architecture boasts high core counts, high instructions per cycle (IPC), high clocks, and efficiency, thanks to a manufacturing process at least a generation ahead of Intel’s 14nm parts. Alder Lake aims to change all that. Intel now offers a legitimate 16-core CPU for…

Overclocking is far more satisfying with Alder Lake than we’ve seen on many other recent CPU launches. Make no mistake, Alder Lake can use a lot of power and thus needs good cooling if you want to push beyond stock speeds, and there’s not a massive amount of headroom at the top. However, unlike AMD’s Ryzen CPUs, it’s possible to tweak clocks based on how many cores are active, and there are a lot of other knobs to tweak. The E-cores, as you’d expect, tend to benefit less from pushing higher clocks. The P-cores meanwhile can generally hit 5.3GHz on a good motherboard without batting an eye. Compare that to AMD’s overclocking, which often requires you to reduce maximum single-core clocks to hit higher all-core overclocks. What’s more, there are a…

Windows’ built-in repair tools can only do so much, so if you find that they are falling short, then it’s time to call in the cavalry. Lazesoft Recovery Suite is our go-to tool when it comes to taking on stubborn boot problems. Not only does it offer a wider range of repair tools, but there are also tools for recovering data from crashed (but readable) drives as well as the option of taking a fail-safe image of your entire corrupted Windows installation. This ensures that you won’t lose any files, even if you end up with no other choice but to hit the nuclear option. In an ideal world, you’ll have a Lazesoft recovery disc or USB flash drive ready to go but if not, you’ll need access to a…

There you are, clicking or typing away and things suddenly grind to a halt, the screen loses focus and the dreaded “not responding” message appears. Step one is to be patient: if you have lots of programs running, then Windows can get in a temporary jam while it attempts to juggle resources. After a short period, things free themselves, at which point, you can save your file and continue. But sometimes, the freeze doesn’t end. If Windows hasn’t already invited you to either close or restart the program, then try clicking its red close button once or twice. Again, be patient, but if nothing happens, try pressing Ctrl + Alt + Del and wait for the screen to blank before selecting Task Manager from the list of options When Task Manager…

YOU’LL NEED THIS A RASPBERRY PI 4 (4GB OR 8GB RAM) Internet connection Spare flash drive Infinite patience THERE’S NOTHING WRONG with the Raspberry Pi OS. But it is a bit basic and smells of Linux. So why not replace it? There are desktop options, such as Ubuntu, RISC-OS, and RaspBSD; gaming options such as RetroPie and Lakka; and media center choices such as OpenELEC or OSMC. And then there’s Windows. Or rather, there isn’t. While a version of everyone’s favorite operating system exists that will run on the Pi’s ARM architecture, it’s neither readily available nor officially compatible. However, you can still get it to run on the accommodating little board. With Windows 11 bedding in, it’s time to upgrade both software and method to get Microsoft’s latest and…

HOORAY for HDMI, the friendliest of display interfaces. Who needs anything else, especially now HDMI 2.1 supports both 4K@120Hz and 8K@60Hz? Well, you might if you want even faster refresh at 4K or daisy-chaining. And that might not be an entirely unrealistic expectation when AMD and Nvidia’s nextgen GPUs arrive later in 2022. Rumors suggest an even bigger step forward in performance than last time around. 200Hz-plus gaming at 4K? Don’t rule it out. But I digress. There’s no question HDMI 2.1 is a good thing for PC users. As well as supporting lots of pixels and high refresh rates, it’s also adaptive-sync capable and includes support for low-latency display connections. This is enabling a new generation of HDTVs that play nicely with the PC—if you have an HDMI 2.1…

GIVE IT UP FOR the new Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Alan Walker Special Edition. It’s a new version of the second iteration of what was already a great laptop. The original Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 was something of a genre buster when it arrived last year with its compact 14-inch proportions, awesome AMD CPU, and great gaming performance. This second-generation Special Edition model carries over that basic proposition but adds an unusual twist, namely collaboration with the DJ and musician Alan Walker. As we write, Walker currently has the 19th most popular video on Youtube with no fewer than 3.2 billion views, not to mention over 10 billion channel views. Not bad. Anyway, Walker has collaborated with Asus to produce a version of the G14 that fuses music with gaming.…

WHEN YOU THINK about creating a new build, you may naturally concentrate your efforts on the most interesting parts, such as the processor or graphics card. While these are two of the most important components for performance, it’s no good running a zippy PC if it heats your case up like an oven. An AIO cooler is vital to keep everything running smoothly and temperatures as low as possible whilst maintaining those performance speeds. The ROG Ryujin II 369 AIO is ASUS’s flagship cooler designed to keep even the hottest performing machines running nice and cool. If you are tight on space, there is also a smaller 240mm version. It's an impressive component, but should it become a part of your rig? Design-wise, this is a sweet-looking AIO cooler. Beginning…

WITH CREATIVITY-BASED software, many of the most popular and market-leading programs have several alternatives that carry out the same tasks, whether that’s graphic design, photo-editing, or music production. There may be lots of reasons to pick one over the other, including price, features, or accessibility but familiarity with the program, suite, or company you are currently using may be a powerful reason to stick with what you know. While alternatives may offer a similar or superior product, that decision often comes down to what you feel most comfortable using. This applies to digital audio workstations (DAWs) too. A DAW allows you to compile a variety of different sounds, samples, and instruments together to complete a polished final track. Both Image-Line’s FL Studio 20 and Avid’s Pro Tools are capable programs…

TESLA IS IN TROUBLE with the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration after a software update allowed owners to play games whilst driving. Normally only usable in Park, the update removed this restriction for the pre-installed games. You can now play Sky Force Reloaded and 18 other games while driving. Click through a warning message saying “Use of Tesla Arcade while the vehicle is in motion is only for passengers” and to “check local laws,” and off you go. Teslas are still a long way from self-driving, despite Elon Musk’s promises, and if there is one thing you need to do when driving it is to pay attention. This sort of loose play with regulations looks sloppy at best, some would say irresponsible. A software update or recall is expected shortly.…

AT THE ANNUAL GAME AWARDS, we got a glimpse of Arc Alchemist in action, Intel’s first serious discrete graphics card. We saw a handful of top titles running at 1440p, and also saw a 3D rendered card which sported an 8-pin power connector (enough for 150W, so a maximum of 225W with the PCIe power). Whilst Intel is tight on details, there are plenty of engineering samples around and we have some solid details on the GPU dies. There are two: the DG2-SOC1 and DG2-SOC2. The bigger die is the DG2-SOC1 (about the size of an Nvidia GA104) and comes in versions with either 512, 384, or 256 Execution Units. The 512 version sports 16GB of GDDR6, with 32GB being considered for ‘professional’ cards. The 384 EU card gets 12GB,…

Music production no longer involves just a guitar and a microphone. These days it is often carried out on a PC with the aid of a digital audio workstation (DAW). This allows the user to mix, tune, stitch and compile recordings together to produce a final, polished piece of music, whether that’s music, sound effects, or game sounds. Like all programs, there are many variants of DAWs available, each with their own pros and cons. Here, we list our top five favorites. 5 ACOUSTICA MIXCRAFT 9 www.acoustica.com Apple fans rave about how easy Garage Band is to use – it’s a fun application that can be used in both a casual and professional way. But what about Windows users? That’s where Acoustica Mixcraft 9 comes in. It’s ideal for beginners,…

Intel’s Alder Lake uses the same Xe Graphics (Gen12 GPU) that we’ve already seen in 11th Gen Tiger Lake and Rocket Lake processors. This is still Xe LP DG1, in other words, not an updated DG2 with additional features like ray tracing hardware and matrix cores. It’s been scaled down to the Intel 7 node from Rocket Lake, with clock speeds reaching up to 1.55GHz. That’s 250MHz higher than the 14nm Xe Graphics used in Rocket Lake, but it’s not going to compete with any competent graphics card. Intel provides up to 32 EUs (execution units), with a theoretical compute rate of just 794 GFLOPS—yes, it’s so slow that we’re back to GFLOPS instead of TFLOPS. The relatively anemic GTX 1050 should be about three times as fast, while a…

Sometimes, you can’t fix your Windows problem following any number of tools or steps. At times like these, it’s tempting to reach for the ‘nuclear’ option and reinstall Windows from scratch, but sometimes you can get away by ‘upgrading’ your Windows installation by installing a fresh version over the top of your current build without wiping data, settings, or applications. This ‘repair’ installation requires you to create Windows installation media—you can download the tool for burning a DVD or writing to a spare, unused 8GB flash drive from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11 or www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 depending on your version of Windows. Alternatively, Windows 11 users can download the ISO file directly, then double-click it to mount the file as a virtual DVD in File Explorer. From here, open the drive and double-click setup.exe, then…

Noblechairs EPIC Copper Limited Edition UNLESS YOU HAVE ONE of those fancy lifting electric desks, adding a chair to your setup is a necessity. It’s scary to think about how much of your week you spend sitting down. Whether that’s at your workplace or your home, or both, the bottom line is that we spend huge chunks of our day sitting on a chair, so it makes sense to care for your rear and treat it to a nice place to rest. Noblechairs is no stranger to providing quality seating solutions for many setups over the years. The company’s range includes the Epic, Epic Compact, Hero, and Icon series chairs, each offering different characteristics and sizes. The one we are trying out here is the rather tasty limited edition Epic series…

SO, THIS WAS CERTAINLY a tough one. We have built countless machines and rigs here at Maximum PC throughout the years and despite some spectacular end results, it’s not all as glamorous as it may seem. There have been plenty of head-bashing moments, close calls, and blank screens on boot up. Fitting issues have occurred and last-minute parts swapping has happened more than once. However, that’s all part of the passion and love we have for these builds. Every single one of them has been a journey of its own and that’s what we love about working here at Maximum PC. Building PCs is part of our DNA. Every single build has been so special to us and each one has a specific motive behind it. Whether that is for…

YOU’LL NEED THIS ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CC 2020 https://www.adobe.com IN THE WORLD OF ART, there are many different styles, ranging from abstract to modernism, and surrealism to cubism—and that’s not forgetting what was thought to be the first modern art movement, impressionism. There have been many art styles since and each has contributed toward the main framework of art as a whole. Styles and genres come and go, but some seem to stick around for good reasons. Rising to fame in the late-1950s, the pop art movement is a bright and bold form of art, pioneered by artists such as Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol. Now considered one of the most significant art movements of the 20th century, pop art inspired many different sub-art forms and the influence of its bright,…

YOU’LL NEED THIS WINDOWS 8.1, 10 OR 11 At least 4GB RAM, at least 4GB free disk space OVER THE PAST DECADE, the way we listen to music has fundamentally changed. No longer tied to physical forms, such as vinyl discs, cassettes, or CDs, downloading and streaming services have taken music collections away from our shelves and placed them on our desktops. The rise of digital audio is largely responsible for this change. Products such as the original Sony Walkman and the Apple iPod delivered music on the go, but these were eventually superseded by the smartphone, which can now deliver many thousands of music tracks all day, every day, from your rucksack or pocket, making music more accessible than ever. The same can be said for music production. Whereas…

GIGABYTE’S RTX 3070 TI GAMING OC follows the typical path of custom AIB designs, rather than trying to blaze any new trails. You get a larger card, improved cooling, a slight factory overclock, and some other cosmetic differences. It’s a conservative approach, though Nvidia doesn’t allow for much more than that. Unfortunately, the biggest concerns with the RTX 3070 Ti remain; higher power use, minor performance gains, only 8GB of memory, and it’s sold out and overpriced at most retailers. We’ve seen it all before and we will see it again in the next round of GPUs. The Gigabyte overclock only improved performance by about two percent on average compared to the reference clocked Founders Edition, though that’s not the only difference. Power use also increased by about 20W over…

IN THEORY, the new Dell S2722DGM is pretty much the perfect affordable gaming monitor. It’s fast, cheap, has plenty of pixels, decent panel spec, and doesn’t bother with frills and features that add little to the gaming experience. It’s built around a 1440p 27-inch VA panel with decent specifications. VA tech tends to be cheaper than IPS and with that come pros and cons. The most obvious advantage is static contrast. Dell rates this monitor at 3,000:1, which is almost three times better than any IPS monitor. However, despite the strong contrast, this is a straight-up SDR display with no HDR support. We’re fine with that, given most so-called HDR PC monitors are nothing of the sort. Brightness is pegged at 350nits, which is fine for an SDR display. The…

WERE THE HORIZON FESTIVAL real, we can imagine the bulk of its profits would be lost to lawsuits, its standing army of lawyers larger than the cadre of drivers it employs. This motor-racing circus turns up in your country—presumably invited in by someone in government not averse to acquiring large amounts of used notes in brown paper bags—and proceeds to make the lives of the residents absolute hell for the next year or so. We saw this last incarnation when the festival rocked up in an oddly-shrunken version of Great Britain, smashed the place up, destroyed infrastructure that was hundreds of years old, ran old ladies off the road, ruined beauty spots unspoiled since the last ice age, played obnoxious music late into the night, then left again. This time…