Table of contents for October 2020 in Maximum PC

THERE’S NOTHING WE like more at Maximum PC than being presented with a challenge—a concept, a build idea, something grand that requires us to think a little more outside of the box than usual, and over the last few weeks we’ve received two interesting queries from the likes of Vincent Thompson and Tali Kadosh with exactly that. Just how do you go about building a good system for a data scientist or someone interested in statistical analysis? Well this issue I set Christian to task to build exactly that, looking at the parts and process required to build the perfect number-crunching rig for all of your at-home, stat-based desires. We originally set out to build this PC for a price point of around $3,000 to $4,000, but we’ve overshot that…

Memory is one of the most common issues when trying to get a fresh build up and running. But if your RAM is giving you the runaround, don’t despair: There are many possible causes, and it’s generally not too difficult to identify the issue. First of all, go to the motherboard manufacturer’s website and double-check that your mobo definitely does support the capacity and frequency of memory you’re using. If it does, check for a BIOS update; if you’re running an outdated BIOS, that could be the source of your problems. If neither of those are the issue, try testing each stick individually, or moving them to any open DIMM slots. Ensure that you’re using the correct DIMMs; the motherboard manual should explain which slots to prioritize when installing memory. It’s…

NO ONE WOULD HAVE BELIEVED in the last years of the 20th century that the processor world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than Intel’s. Yet across the gulf of the Atlantic in a country called the UK, intellects vast and cool regarded the processor market with envious eyes, slowly and surely drawing their plans against Intel… Apple is dumping Intel processors for its own design of silicon. How did this happen, and what, if any, are the ramifications to the wider PC market? How can a processor design that started life in an obscure, failed British home computer of the 1980s now challenge the entire Intel empire? We’re going to delve into the ARM microarchitecture, have a look at how it’s advanced over the years, how…

About iFixit iFixit is a global community of tinkerers dedicated to helping people fix things through free online repair manuals and teardowns. iFixit believes that everyone has the right to maintain and repair their own products. To learn more, visit www.ifixit.com. BACKGROUND Razer’s new Kishi Universal Controller is here to turn your smartphone into a play-anywhere system, with real buttons and joysticks. Join us as we tear down this stretchy controller to take a closer look at its inner workings. MAJOR TECH SPECS Standard A-B-X-Y buttons, two clickable analog thumbsticks, one eight-way D-pad, plus a shoulder button and trigger button on each side Connectivity to a phone via USB-C or Lightning connector No internal battery, no Bluetooth, and no headphone jack Compatible with Android 8 Oreo/iOS 9 or higher, supporting…

YOU’LL NEED THIS OPEN SHELL And Windows 10. SINCE BRINGING BACK THE START MENU with Windows 10, Microsoft has tweaked and updated its app launcher numerous times. But if it still doesn’t quite hit the spot for you—and if you really miss the old-style Start menu—there is an alternative in the form of Open Shell. This free app brings back the pre-Windows 7 Start menu, giving some retro flavor to your PC. Open Shell gives you lots of different styles to play with, includes several different Start button options, and can even tweak other elements like the taskbar. It spun off from Classic Shell, which ceased development in late 2017. You can still download Classic Shell, but it is better to stick with Open Shell since it is actively updated…

“DO AS I SAY, and it will all make sense,” says Guillermo Del Toro’s character near the beginning of Death Stranding. That might as well be game director Hideo Kojima talking directly to the player, because, as with much of the Metal Gear Solid creator’s latest title, little does make sense. Even if you do as he says. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, Death Stranding at least has a unique apocalypse. The worlds of the living and the dead became connected, rain began making things age (known as "timefall"), and invisible ghosts now wander the landscape, violently exploding any living people they touch. What remains of humanity has retreated underground, but the cities have become disconnected. Your job is to wander roughly from east to west across the US, delivering…

AMD CONTINUES its quest to reach every segment of the PC market with the Ryzen Zen 2 by releasing a new set of processors aimed at one of the few remaining targets: OEM desktops with integrated graphics. AMD’s current crop of 3000-series chips don’t carry graphics, putting them at a disadvantage against Intel’s. The 4000-series offerings are essentially desktop versions of the 4000-series laptop parts, complete with the integrated Radeon GPUs, code-name Renoir. This means it doesn’t follow the 3000-series Chiplet design: It’s a single slice of silicon, and it lacks PCIe 4.0. AMD claims them as the world‘s first and most advanced 7nm x86 desktop processors with integrated graphics. It also boasts of enthusiast-level performance for gaming, with smooth 1080p gaming “right out of the box.” The main consumer…

YOU’LL NEED THIS PROCESSOR DELIDDING TOOL ($43, for Delid Die Mate, or $102, for Delid Die Mate-X) LIQUID METAL OR THERMAL PASTE (Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut, or Noctua’s NT-H1). + extras AH DELIDDING, THAT OLD, TERRIFYING PROCEDURE, usually only recommended for the elite. For the uninitiated, delidding is the act of separating the integrated heat spreader (IHS) from the top of the processor, and then replacing the stock thermal paste that the manufacturer has used with something a little more premium—usually liquid metal or a better thermal paste. Once upon a time it used to be quite the daunting procedure, involving all sorts of razor blades and torture devices, with a myriad of techniques used to carefully splice your processor away from its IHS, hopefully without damaging the silicon underneath (or…

WE SHOULD STOP reviewing Blade laptops, because we never want to give them back. The Blade Pro 17 is no exception; just a few days with this laptop and we’re already in love. We’ve got the top-spec model of the Pro 17, which comes with a gorgeous 4K touchscreen at 120Hz, ideal both for gaming and creative endeavors. This particular Blade retails at an eyewatering $3,799.99, but you definitely get a lot of bang for your buck. The processor is a shiny new 10th-gen Intel Core i7 chip, the 10875H—a speedy eight-core mobile CPU with 16 threads thanks to Intel’s Hyper-Threading technology. Backing that up is 16GB of SODIMM memory and an Nvidia RTX 2080 Super with 8GB of video memory, and a Max-Q design that makes it smaller and…

TWO GREAT TITANS enter the arena. Only one will leave triumphant. These kinds of multi-camera, effects-laden scenes are precisely what Adobe’s Premiere Pro and Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve were designed to cope with, and it also neatly describes the battle between pro-level non-linear video editing apps. There must be a word for that. There’s room in this arena for both contenders, however. Nobody has to get hurt. In the red corner we find Premiere Pro, the shinobi from Adobe, famous for work such as Deadpool, Terminator: Dark Fate, and Sharknado 2: The Second One. Meanwhile, in the blue corner sits Australia’s finest, DaVinci Resolve, fresh from working on Deadpool 2, The Last Jedi, and 35 films at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival you’ve never heard of. This month we’re comparing…

LOGITECH G603 THERE’S A VAST ARRAY of IT systems we use to send every issue of Maximum PC. We use our in-house servers, Adobe’s CC suite, and a bespoke piece of folio software called Future Studio. However, to access any of that, you need to have a company-issued corporate Mac device. So I’m stuck with a MacBook. It’s portable at least, and the build quality is nice, but it is frustrating to use. The trackpad is annoying, the keyboard is horrible, the screen is tiny, and I’m not even going to mention the OS. I’ve wall-mounted an old 32-inch monitor, and have hooked that up to it using a USB-C to DisplayPort dongle. That’s great for the screen, but I really wanted a normal mouse back as well, so I’ve…

Over the past few months, the internet has been a lifeline for us all, keeping us connected to each other, our places of work, friends and families. However, nearly 70 percent of remote workers face technological challenges when working from home, according to Independence Research. Compounding that is the fact that M-Lab data indicates more than three-fourths of US states have actually seen slower internet speeds during the pandemic. So, how can you maximize every ounce of internet you do have? Here are 19 handy ways to help improve your Wi-Fi connectivity. Read the full article here: https://bit.ly/MPCWiFiBoost…

INTEL’S PROBLEM going beyond the 14nm Skylake processor to 7nm parts shows no sign of ending, as the company has pushed the release date back another six months, to late 2022, or early 2023. The project is now a full year behind schedule. Apparently the yield rates are terrible, although Intel says that it has analyzed the situation and that there is no “fundamental roadblock.” It can fix this. It also said that it has “contingency plans.” This means more stress on 10nm parts (lackluster, and way behind schedule too), and the “backport” of 10nm designs to 14nm for the desktop. Intel’s CEO, Bob Swan, said that the company will be “pretty pragmatic” about who makes its chips in the future. If Intel can’t get its own fabrication plants working…

> Test For Corrupt RAM > Ventoy Gets Blocked > Laptop Won’t Boot Random Freeze Part 2 Hi Doc, regarding my earlier email about random freezes, by the time you responded, the whole PC had broken down: When I power on, the fans light up, and so does the RGB, but nothing else lights up, and the ROG logo does not light up when the machine is off. It was supposed to be on all the time. About the corrupt RAM, I have seen several blue screens with the stop codes "SYSTEM_THREAD_NOT_ HANDLED" and some other memory management error. I mainly play Terraria and Geometry Dash on the PC. I could try buying a new set of RAM from a different manufacturer, or is it the mobo? Finally, to answer…

Yes, we know: This machine is monstrously expensive. So let’s talk about some more affordable alternatives. First up, you can eliminate RGB altogether and cut down to less memory; 32GB is a safe minimum for a system like this, but 64GB kits are also becoming more affordable. Sticking with Corsair, the Vengeance LPX is slightly more basic but a bit cheaper. Alternatively, you could opt for a lower-price brand, like G.Skill. Making the change from AIO cooling to air cooling is always an option, but sTR4-compatible air coolers aren’t common and tend to be fairly expensive. A more realistic money-saver would be to downgrade the SSD, either to a 3rd-generation M.2 drive or a 2.5-inch SATA. Depending on how often you need to move large files around, a SATA SSD could…

OVERCLOCKING boosts your performance, but what about your street cred? You can boast about your achievements to friends, but when you’re ready to show the world your skills, there’s competitive overclocking. Competitors enjoy a vast community online and at events worldwide. There are also prizes for winning competitions and breaking records. Competitive overclockers’ ultimate destination is HWBot, which hosts global overclocking competitions and maintains a database of world records. Place near the top of one of its ranking boards, and you’ve made it. Sound exciting? For those new to overclocking or interested in competing, we’re here to help. Here are successful professional overclockers’ best tips for getting started. Start with CPUs or RAM, not graphics cards. Premium graphics cards are usually more expensive than CPUs or RAM kits, so you’ll…

YOU’LL NEED THIS WORDPRESS SERVER Any reputable web host will do, or you can host it yourself on your own server. SO FAR IN THIS SERIES, we’ve helped you set up your own self-hosted WordPress website, populate it with pages and posts, and protect it in the form of added security and automated backups. With these nuts and bolts in place, it’s time to look at your site’s appearance. Content may be king, but if your site isn’t easy to read or—sad to say—attractive to look at, you’ll put off potential readers. Thankfully, changing the look and feel of your site to match its content is a relatively straightforward task thanks to WordPress’s support for themes. Each WordPress theme is a customizable template of design elements, spanning everything from your…

THIS IS ONE of my favorite builds of all time. The Hydra case is a ridiculously affordable ITX chassis that has such potential. I’ve seen liquid-coolers do crazy things with this, albeit with significant modding, and even as a stock build it looks impeccable. There isn’t official support for AIO liquid-coolers or radiators on it, but you could prop one up to the side, or drill some holes in the Hydra Mini and make your own bracket for one. Combining the Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB memory with the Asus ROG Strix Z490-I Gaming motherboard and that black Noctua cooler gives it a stealthy vibe, and works well with the subtle lighting elements. When configured, it’s very classy. The Capellix LEDs in the Corsair memory are seriously bright, and the swathe…

WE KNOW WHAT you’re thinking: $1,000 for a 34-inch ultrawide 1440p monitor? And it doesn’t even have local dimming? At least, that’s what first struck us about the new LG UltraGear 34GN850. It ticks an awful lot of boxes, which you’d expect at this price point. But surely that much money buys you proper HDR support? Hold that thought for a moment while we consider what the LG UltraGear 34GN850 does give you. First up there’s 160Hz refresh. That’s enough for the vast majority of semi-pro esports aficionados. It ties in neatly with the claimed 1ms response of the LG’s Nano IPS panel. LG is one of the few monitor makers that actually produces LCD panels. In fact, it’s the world’s leader in IPS production, and thus has the pick…

ANYONE WHO’S BEEN playing PC games for 26 years will have come across Beneath a Steel Sky, the cyberpunk adventure from 1994 that set the scene for so much that came after it. At the peak of mid-'90s puzzling, Beneath had a wise-cracking robot, a totalitarian regime, and much to say about divisions in society. That a sequel should come along after so much time had passed is unexpected, but certainly not unwelcome. It’s come with some upgrades too—an Unreal 4 makeover that allows Dave Gibbons’s comic book art to really shine, and the change from point-n-click to WASD controls is the right decision, but what’s really surprising is how fresh and relevant this return to Union City is. Robert Foster is from the Gap, the red Australian desert outside…

LAST ISSUE I SPOKE about dropping the amount of gaming I was doing to just one day a week. I’m glad to say, I’ve actually managed to do it. Language learning is going well, and my future wife is happy I’m spending more time with her too. We’ve been watching more TV together, particularly The Expanse on Amazon Prime. It is a very good, gritty space action drama set in the solar system, but it got me hankering for some good sci-fi gaming. I’ve been a Star Citizen backer since 2017, but I’ve not really played it since then, as there wasn’t much there. But I thought I’d give it a shot again. I jumped into Alpha 3.10, and oh boy have things changed. There’s multiple planets, moons, cities, mining,…

Sponsored by BUDGET SATA SSD STORAGE has never been cheaper. TeamGroup has further reduced the price of its GX1 2.5-inch drive, and we couldn’t be happier about it: 120GB of SSD storage for under 20 bucks? A few years ago, that would’ve been impossible to find. Both budget builds have stuck with their drives this month, as the HDD kept its price and the SSD was cheaper. We’ve made changes elsewhere, though: A good deal on MSI’s RX 5600 XT GPU saw us making the switch from ASRock’s Challenger D model for our AMD machine, and we also swapped out the previous XPG memory for some fresh Z1 memory in bright gold, which was heavily discounted. Overall, we’ve made a modest saving on the AMD system. The Intel build is…