Custom PC UK 09.2022_downmagaz.net

LOGITECH F310/£23incVAT SUPPLIER currys.co.uk A s one of the cheapest fully featured of analogue F18 HORNET (analogue triggers and thumbsticks) control is better gamepads on the market, the than none, but + Full range of controls - Cheap look Logitech F310 understandably lacks the better-quality for low price finesse of some of the pricier competitors on controllers will - Slightly awkward test this month, but still gets the basics done. give you markedly + Sony DualShock- However, its design certainly leaves no doubt more finesse. style layout shape about its low-cost status. The combination of the two-tone blue and black shell, its generally Along with its full complement of digital + DirectInput and - Clunky analogue lightweight, hollow feel and jewel-like ABXY and analogue controls, there’s also a switch XInput modes buttons have a distinct toy-like quality to them. on the rear for swapping between DirectInput controls The lightness comes in part from the fact and XInput modes. DirectInput is the older that there are no haptic feedback motors, plus standard used for games in Windows, with Conclusion the fact it’s a wired-only controller, so there XInput being the more modern version. As are no batteries adding to its mass. Its cable is such, this otherwise basic controller is an The Logitech F310 is a basic controller, with also tethered and measures 1.8m long, which ideal choice for those seeking a single basic no rumble motors, no wireless mode and is ample for desk use but will be a bit short for controller that they can use with a host of a generally cheap quality to its buttons and sofa use with a living room PC. games old and new. Because of this simple analogue controls. Its shape and colour This is a robustly built controller, though, switch system, installation is completely scheme are also distinctly toy-like. However, with no amount of aggressive gripping and plug-and-play too, so there are no driver it gets the job done, and its analogue controls twisting eliciting the slightest creak or bend. or compatibility hurdles to overcome. It are sufficiently fine-grained to make for an Instead, it’s in the crispness of its buttons and just works. improvement for racing games and flight sims the smoothness of its analogue controls that over a keyboard. Its DirectInput and XInput the F310 shows its cheapness. Meanwhile, a button on the front of the modes also make it quite versatile. If you’re on For example, the analogue sticks are stiffer controller lets you switch between flight a really tight budget, it does the job, but you’d than most and take more force to start moving, and racing modes. This switches the default be better off spending just a few more quid. making it difficult to use them accurately, assignments of the D-pad and left thumbstick particularly around the crucial central area so that the D-pad controls movement, and the VERDICT where accurate small movements are so thumbstick controls POV for sports mode, and Cheap and cheerful, there’s a lot to like about important. The analogue triggers are also vice versa for racing mode. the Logtiech F310, although there are better quite stiff and have a relatively short throw, bargains to be found. again making accuracy an issue. In terms of ergonomics, it’s very The upshot is that the F310 isn’t great for reminiscent of older Sony DualShock 3 DESIGN FEATURES OVERALL SCORE more demanding analogue control such as controllers, with very small, steeply sloped for playing competitive first-person shooters. grips and its two analogue sticks positioned 12/20 20/30 70% They’re an upgrade on keyboard control for in the middle. It works fine if you’re holding racing games and flight sims, where any sort the controller in a conventional manner, with PERFORMANCE VALUE your thumbs on the sticks/D-pad, and index SPEC and middle fingers on the bumper buttons 22/30 16/20 and triggers. Weight 295g However, it’s far from the most comfortable Connections Tethered USB cable pad we’ve used. The deep grooves on the back into which your fingers nestle make Features DirectInput and XInput switch it awkward for alternative grip styles, such as claw grip, for example. The relatively Battery N/A long distance between the top edge of the controller and the ABXY buttons makes using different grip styles more difficult too. 51

L A B S T E S T / GAMEPADS MICROSOFT XBOX ELITE WIRELESS CONTROLLER SERIES 2/£145incVAT SUPPLIER microsoft.com M icrosoft’s Xbox Elite Wireless As for those extras, c ustomP Controller Series 2 offers an across- the D-pad pops off, so the-board upgrade over the you can use a round DPPROVE standard Xbox Wireless Controller. It includes omnidirectional C premium build quality touches, such as a version or a controller that’s more comfortable to hold metal D-pad and rubber grips, and you get conventional and considerably more capable than the basicA extra buttons in the form of rear paddles. cross-style one. Xbox One controller. In a large part, it still feels There are also customisation options, The thumbsticks like an indulgence than an essential upgrade, including swappable D-pad and thumbsticks. also pull off and but those extra paddle buttons could be a deal Plus, if all that isn’t enough, there’s also a you can opt for maker for some games. charging dock, carry case and many standard or classic replacement parts included in the box. designs (which differ Conclusion In terms of the pad’s overall design, it’s only by their surface essentially identical to the conventional Xbox finish). Alternatively, you can opt for a dome The Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 is a Wireless Controller, so any preference for or a tall stick – in theory, taller sticks are better superb-quality, premium gamepad. It delivers DualShock-style or Xbox-style controllers, for accuracy, while shorter ones are better for just about every upgrade you could imagine in terms of shape and button placement, quick movements. Your mileage may vary, but over a standard Xbox controller. It has more applies as usual here. Instead, it’s in the extras the inclusion of these options mean you can buttons, offers customisation options, has an that you’ll notice the difference between the give them a go and see which ones work best internal battery and it looks great too. Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 and the for you. standard pad. That’s all very nice, but there’s no getting For a start, while it’s a subtle factor, the Meanwhile, the paddles on the underside around the price. At £145 inc VAT, it costs clean black and grey colour scheme looks magnetically attach to the buttons and provide almost three times the price of the standard to our eyes just a little bit classier than the true hair trigger response for your middle and controller. If you have plenty of money to multi-coloured ABXY buttons of a standard ring fingers. It’s a really well implemented spend, this is the best wireless PC controller controller. Meanwhile, build quality is system, although the buttons are very easy you can buy, as long as you don’t want the noticeably improved in all areas. to press, and some gamers may prefer customisable colour options of the Scuf The grips have a textured rubber surface buttons that require a slightly more solid Instinct Pro. that provides improved purchase, while the press to activate, such as the ones on the whole device just feels much better-quality Scuf Instinct Pro (see p57). The latter also VERDICT in your hand. The D-pad and additional back offers considerably more colour options than A worthy all-round upgrade over a standard paddles are also made from solid metal, so the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller, which is Xbox controller, but it certainly comes at a price. they have a reassuring heft and a cold, steely basically only widely available in black. feel under your fingers. A headphone jack is included too, along with SPEC a profile switch and hair-trigger switches for each trigger. These shorten the throw of the Weight 435g triggers, making it easier to tap them rapidly. Connections USB Type-C with 2.7m cable and You also get an internal rechargeable charging dock battery that’s good for 40 hours of play time. The overall result of all these tweaks is a Features Swappable D-pad (two included) and thumbsticks (six included), removable rear paddle ELITE ALIGHT DESIGN OVERALL SCORE84%FEATURES buttons (four paddles included), thumbstick tension adjustment + Great build quality - Very expensive 18/20 28/30 + Lots of extra buttons Battery Internal rechargeable (40 hours average + Customisable - Limited colour options PERFORMANCE VALUE per charge) + Rechargeable battery 28/30 10/20 52

MICROSOFT XBOX WIRELESS CONTROLLER/ £50 incVAT SUPPLIER overclockers.co.uk N ow known simply as the Xbox also make almost ustomP Wireless Controller, the official no noise when you c gamepad that ships with Microsoft’s press them, which latest Xbox Series X and S consoles is is another example D essentially the same as the Xbox One of this controller’s C controller that came before it. In many ways, feel of quality. it can be considered the de facto choice for a A PC gaming controller thanks to Microsoft’s Another crucial PPROVE excellent support for it in Windows. You don’t upgrade over have to leap through any of the hoops involved cheaper controllers is reminiscent of the original Xbox green. with hooking a Sony DualSense controller up is the inclusion of a Otherwise, you don’t get any customisation to your PC, for instance. wireless connection, options, with no removable faceplates, Software support aside, though, it’s also with one of the only thumbsticks or other features. The range just a very good controller. Microsoft has been major upgrades of this latest iteration being of colours available is a considerably better steadily honing its controller design and the the inclusion of a USB Type-C port for wired showing than the black or white only options latest update sees almost no change from the connection, instead of the micro-USB port of the Sony DualSense though. Xbox One design – the fact that Sony’s latest that was used before. Moreover, the port can controller looks more like the Xbox controller also be used for charging, as long as you buy Conclusion shape than ever before is testament to the a compatible battery pack (£20 inc VAT from quality of design. It’s just a very comfortable xbox.com). Otherwise, you need to use a pair Microsoft’s de facto standard Xbox controller shape to hold in your hand. of AA batteries, which you install by removing remains a great option for PC gamers. Its The build quality of this gamepad is a compartment on the back. design makes it comfortable to hold, its surprisingly good too, considering its relatively controls are accurate and its compatibility with modest price. It’s a solid unit with smooth, The wireless connection is Bluetooth- Windows games is excellent. There are few reliable control movements and plastics that based, so the controller will also connect frills here, such as custom colour combos, don’t feel cheap, unlike the Logitech F310, to other Bluetooth devices such as mobile replaceable parts or motion controls, but the Thrustmaster Dual Analog 4 and even the MSI phones. There’s a dedicated pairing button core experience is top-notch and you get the Force GC20. The well-dampened triggers on the back for getting it connected to your option of a few different official colour choices chosen device. as well. With solid build quality and a modest TEXTURED SLIPPERY price, it’s easy to recommend if your priorities Other smaller updates include the addition are ease of use and compatibility. + Great Windows - Rechargeable battery of a Share button on the front face for taking compatibility screenshots and captures (although you can is optional extra also reassign it), along with a new circular + Wireless connection hybrid D-pad and a textured surface to the + Range of colour - Few frills triggers, bumpers and back surface. options The textured surface on the back is welcome, but the trigger and bumper surface SPEC changes aren’t game changers – all the other VERDICT gamepads on test make do with triggers with The latest official Microsoft Xbox Wireless Weight 232g without batteries (282g with smooth surfaces and we didn’t find them any controller remains a solid choice for batteries) worse to use. The D-pad change is a welcome PC gaming, with a comfortable design one, though, providing easier diagonal and great Windows compatibility. Connections USB Type-C and Bluetooth movement than the previous controller, and without compromising the clear up/down/ DESIGN FEATURES OVERALL SCORE Features Charge-over-USB, Share button left/right feel of the cross design. 18/20 22/30 82% Battery AA or rechargeable battery pack (40 Microsoft offers its latest controller in five hours average per charge) colour options of black, white, blue, red and PERFORMANCE VALUE a fluorescent green Electric Volt option, which 26/30 16/20 53

L A B S T E S T / GAMEPADS MSI FORCE GC20 V2/£27 incVAT SUPPLIER ebuyer.com T he MSI Force GC20 is a wired on test this month, but they lack that final bit of feel of the buttons, the big caveat here is that alternative to an official wireless crispness that comes with the official options if you’re just after a controller for use with Xbox controller. For roughly half the (let alone the premium controllers). The metal standard PC games, they don’t really add price of the real deal, you lose battery power D-pad feels too slippery as well, although the much. In comparison, the PowerA Spectra and a headset connection, but you gain circular alternative is much better. Infinity does a far better job of providing swappable D-pad covers, rubber grips, genuinely useful features for PC/console multiple input modes and a removable cable Meanwhile, the thumbsticks offer use, plus it has superior build quality and only that also lets you hook up the gamepad to smooth, accurate movement that’s head and costs a few pounds more. Android devices. shoulders above the cheaper options on test, In terms of basic design, the Force GC20 and comparable with the official gamepads. Conclusion is a direct spin on the formula for the Xbox However the analogue triggers lack the 360/One controller, with it sporting the same smoothness of more premium models. The MSI Force GC20 is a decent, low-cost basic shape and button layout. There are wired alternative to an official wireless some subtle differences though. For starters, As we mentioned earlier, if you remove Xbox controller. It’s well made, with decent the grips are slightly shorter, more rounded the main cable, you can alternatively plug in analogue sticks, and a few extra features and don’t come to quite such a sharp point as a supplied micro-to-micro-USB cable that with the rubber grips and multiple connection those of the latest Xbox Series X controller, you can then connect to Android phones, modes. However, it could do with an update so they feel a little like a hybrid between a for example. However, given that most new to use a USB Type-C cable and it lacks the DualSense and an Xbox controller. Android phones are USB Type-C these days, headset connections of some alternatives, The sides also have a patch of grippy you’ll probably need a further adaptor to get which are really handy for sofa gaming. This rubber on their outer edge, where the grips connected, making it feel like a Bluetooth is a solid enough gamepad for the money, nestle into the meat of your palm. Despite controller would be an easier option overall. but for just a little extra outlay, the PowerA being such a small patch, it’s surprisingly Spectra Infinity is a far better bet. effective at helping to keep the gamepad The controller can run in four different secure in your hand. modes, indicated by a row of LEDs on the VERDICT The standard Xbox-style button layout front. The default mode provides standard A clear step up in quality from the very feels pleasantly familiar when you start XInput signals, or you can switch the cheapest units, but you don’t have to spend gaming, but the buttons aren’t as good quality controller to two different DirectInput modes much more to get an even better experience. as those on the official Microsoft controller. and an Android mode. The two DirectInput They’re comfortably a step up from the modes allow you to use either the analogue Logitech and Thrustmaster budget controllers stick or D-pad. You also get vibration motors for haptic feedback, which the cheaper SPEC controllers on test don’t include. Weight 205g While these extra features are welcome at this price, and make up for the disappointing Connections Wired-only with micro-USB socket, 2m main cable and 30cm mobile cable included BANG UP TO DATE BANG OUT DESIGN FEATURES OVERALL SCORE OF ORDER Features Four modes (2 x DirectInput variations, + Decent-quality 14/20 22/30 70% XInput and Android) analogue controls - Lacks finesse of PERFORMANCE VALUE Battery N/A + A few extra features official options + Low price 20/30 14/20 - Dated micro-USB socket - No headset connections 54

POWERA SPECTRA INFINITY XBOX SERIES X/£35 incVAT SUPPLIER amazon.co.uk P owerA has been creating fully but you could get used to ustomP licensed Xbox controllers for many this lighter feel with practice. c years, offering colourful designs, extra buttons and generally more choice than Slide the trigger controls on D the official controllers, while maintaining the underside over one notch and the trigger C impressively low prices. As a case in point, travel distance moves from roughly 10mm this Spectra Infinity Xbox Series X controller to about 7mm, while sliding the control fully A includes three RGB lighting zones, multi-level over results in the trigger travel dropping to PPROVE trigger locks, dual rumble motors, headset about 5mm. The latter still isn’t quite what input with microphone mute and volume we’d called a truly hair trigger feel, but it RESPECTED SUSPECTED control, and extra rear buttons, yet it costs just tightens up the response a bit. £35 inc VAT. + Excellent build quality - Wired only Despite packing such a huge number of Also on the underside are the two extra + Useful extra features features into the package for such a low price, buttons, which fall neatly under your middle + Fantastic value - Micro-USB rather than the Spectra Infinity doesn’t want for anything fingers when using a conventional grip, when it comes to build quality, at least in but are difficult to reach if you’re using any USB Type-C terms of heft. Despite being a wired-only alternative grip. They offer a well-balanced controller, it weighs the same as a standard feel, though, with a small travel distance - Slightest loose-feeling Xbox controller (with batteries) and it feels making for a quick response, but without the like it’s built like a tank, with buttons that have hair-trigger feel of the Xbox Elite Series 2 triggers a precise, crisp feel to them too – they’re a far controller’s paddles. cry from the cheaper-feeling buttons of the Conclusion Logitech and Thrustmaster options on test Meanwhile, the inclusion of a headset this month. socket is a really useful addition that Although we found the analogue triggers The thumbsticks feel good too, with a light elevates this controller far above any of the of this controller a little lacking in resistance, yet smooth resistance. They’re just a touch cheaper units on test this month, while the and the extra RGB lighting wasn’t quite to lighter in use than those on a standard Xbox volume/mute control on the front even adds our taste, there’s also a lot we liked about controller but they still feel relatively easy features that you won’t find on a standard it, especially for the price. It’s packed with to use accurately. The analogue triggers, on Xbox controller. features, including extra rear buttons and the other hand, do feel a bit too light. We find headset volume controls, and it’s very well stiffer triggers make it easier to accurately Really, then, it’s only the fact that this is a built. It’s a touch heavy considering it lacks dial in functions such as accelerator control, wired controller (and a heavy one at that) that wireless, but it’s hard not to be bowled over puts it at all behind official Xbox units. The by the quality of this controller for this price. SPEC micro-USB socket at the back is sunken so that the provided cable stays firm and secure, VERDICT Weight 282g and the cable’s 3m length is ample for most A stunningly low price for the quality and applications. It would be good to have a USB features on offer, even if it’s a touch heavy Connections Wired-only with micro-USB socket, Type-C socket instead of micro-USB though. and lacks a wireless connection. 3m cable included This specific Spectra Infinity model also DESIGN FEATURES OVERALL SCORE Features Three-zone RGB lighting, three-level features RGB lighting that surrounds all the trigger locks, two extra rear buttons buttons and the edge of the controller. It’s a 16/20 26/30 82% bit much for our liking when it’s in full flow, Battery N/A but there are masses of other options of PERFORMANCE VALUE this controller available, including plain solid colour models available in black, red, khaki 22/30 18/20 green, blue and white, to name just a few. 55

L A B S T E S T / GAMEPADS RAZER WOLVERINE V2 CHROMA/£130incVAT SUPPLIER razer.com W hile Razer has produced wireless this feature this it’s certainly not essential to go wireless but gamepads in the past, such as the month though. it’s a slight inconvenience, plus the lack of a DualShock-alike Raiju Tournament The simple vertical stack of one button Bluetooth connection means you can’t use it Edition (reviewed back in Issue 191), the above the other in the centre of the for mobile gaming. reptilian peripheral maker currently only rear feels quite difficult to reach. It’s offers wired gamepads. Moreover, it only good to have them, and they will work Combine this omission with the limitation offers a single model, but which is available well if you have large hands, but other of only two colour options – black or white – in two different variants. The Wolverine V2, implementations feel more natural in and fairly limited options for customisation then, is an official Xbox licensed controller, your hand. elsewhere, and the Wolverine V2 doesn’t with the Xbox logo on its front, and it sports leap out as great value. The RGB lighting strip the standard Xbox thumbstick layout. Another factor that sets both the that wraps around the controller does look However, it actually sports a slightly different standard Wolverine V2 and the Chroma great though. shape from the official controller, and both version apart from the competition is that versions include quite a few extras. both pads have Razer’s ‘Mecha-Tactile’ Conclusion buttons. These feel lighter and more clicky The standard model (currently £70 inc VAT than typical gamepad buttons, giving a more The limitation of being wired-only makes the from currys.co.uk) includes two additional mouse button-like feel. Wolverine V2 Chroma a tough sell given its buttons next to the triggers and bumper premium price. Other high-end controllers buttons. It also has a couple of sliders on They do feel precise and crisp in action that include wireless connections, such as the underside for converting the triggers – although not revolutionary – and Razer the Microsoft Xbox Elite Series 2 and Scuf to a hair trigger mode. Meanwhile, the claims a three million activation lifetime, Instinct Pro, feel better made. Still, there’s Chroma version on test here adds two extra which is impressive. also a lot to like with this controller, thanks buttons on the underside for your middle to its extra buttons, comfortable shape and and ring fingers, along with interchangeable Back to the shape of the Wolverine, and responsive Mecha-Tactile switches. thumbstick caps. it feels a little like a combination of an older Sony DualShock 4 and an Xbox Series VERDICT The extra features are very useful, with X controller. The grips have the same A excellent-quality, wired-only gamepad, the extra bumper buttons being a seemingly thicker, rounder ends of the DualShock, as but it’s a pricey option. obvious addition that few other gamepads compared to the pointy Xbox-style grips. have ever included. The hair triggers aren’t Otherwise, it largely feels as comfortable to quite as precise as the name suggests – like use as a standard Xbox controller, and the most such modes, they just shorten the rubber coating on the grips secures the pad throw of the triggers, so the buttons still feel well in your hand too. quite mushy – but they work well enough. So far so good for the Wolverine V2, but its The extra buttons on the rear are our main drawback is its wired-only connection. least favourite of the implementations of While a plentiful 3m cable is included in the box, for the prices Razer is asking for both SPEC versions, being limited to always using a wire is a significant downside. For PC use, Weight 270g ADAMANTIUM SUBORDINATE DESIGN FEATURES OVERALL SCORE Connections USB Type-C (3m cable included) CLAWS CLAUSE 16/20 24/30 74% Features Hair Trigger Mode with trigger stops, + Good build quality - No wireless two remappable multi-function buttons, Mecha- PERFORMANCE VALUE Tactile buttons and D-pad, four rear buttons + Plenty of extra buttons connection 24/30 10/20 Battery N/A + Cheaper than - Rear buttons premium wireless models awkward to reach - Very high price 56

SCUF INSTINCT PRO/£200 incVAT SUPPLIER scufgaming.com S cuf Gaming hasn’t been around that ustomP long but it’s revolutionised the c gamepad market in this short time. Not only did it bring us the innovation of TRA paddle switches on the back of gamepads – C as seen on this example and the Xbox Elite controller – but it patented them too, meaning EXT any gamepad that uses rear controls has had REME UL to license the idea from Scuf. No wonder Corsair snapped up the company a few Opt for a standard black colour scheme your middle finger and require a reasonable years back. and you’ll get those starting prices, but add amount of travel to activate. Comparatively, The company’s bread and better, then, is different colour options and the price ramps the official Elite controller’s buttons sit under premium gamepads (variants on the latest up. Change the colour of every component your middle and ring fingers and are hair Xbox controller, as well as DualShock 4 and and you’ll add £49 inc VAT to the price, while triggers. The latter is better for the most DualSense versions) that incorporate rear a further £10 inc VAT will get you the removal efficient control, while the Instinct is a little buttons and many other extras, as well as of vibration – a downgrade in immersion more forgiving of accidental finger flicks. fully customisable colour schemes. The result but potentially useful for professionals not is the sort of sky-high price you see at the top wanting to be distracted. In terms of connections, you get wireless of this page. and wired options, with a USB Type-C port The Instinct (Xbox variant) is available in The pricing is a bit alarming, even compared at the rear for the latter. Like the official Xbox either Standard (from £170 inc VAT) or Pro with the price of the Xbox Elite controller, but controllers, it uses AA batteries and doesn’t versions (from £200 inc VAT), with both the cost is largely justified. Build quality is charge them in-device. Also, bear in mind that including four rear paddle buttons – two superb – despite the various interchangeable The Scuf Reflex is one of the few licensed each per side, for use by the fingers of each elements, there’s not the slightest bit of alternatives to the Sony DualSense, if you hand. They also include a profile switch for wobble or flex. Small touches such as the prefer that design of gamepad. switching between three button-remapping magnetic battery cover are great too. configurations, interchangeable thumbsticks Conclusion and a removable faceplate. The Pro version The design is very much akin to a standard adds switchable triggers to swap between Xbox controller, so in terms of comfort and The Scuf Instinct Pro is certainly expensive, long-throw analogue mode and hair-trigger grip styles, it reaches the same heights, but even considering its build quality, features and digital modes and a rubberised grip area. it feels like a serious step up. The Instinct customisation options. As such, it’s hard to Pro’s rubber grips also make for a really really say it its price is fully justified. However, INSTINCTIVE SCUFFED secure purchase that’s ideal for situations it categorically does feel every bit like the best when many of your fingers are engaged gamepad you can buy, and that title comes at + Masses of features - Very high price with operating buttons rather than holding a premium. + Fantastic build quality the controller. + Loads of custom VERDICT Meanwhile, the usefulness of the rear Superb build quality and control accuracy, colour options paddles can’t be overstated for certain loads of features and colour options aplenty, games. While many gamers resort to using for a price. SPEC alternative grip styles to efficiently access more buttons at once, with four extra buttons DESIGN 84%FEATURESOVERALL SCORE Weight 280g on the rear, there’s seldom a need to make such compromises, so your thumbs never 18/20 28/30 Connections USB Type-C and Bluetooth need to leave the thumbsticks. PERFORMANCE VALUE Features Four rear paddle buttons, profile switch, The rear button setup is a little different to interchangeable front panels and thumbsticks, the Xbox Elite controller though. Here, the 28/30 10/20 instant triggers rear buttons are most naturally activated by Battery AA 57

L A B S T E S T / GAMEPADS SONY DUALSENSE /£50 incVAT SUPPLIER scan.co.uk L ike the DualShock 4 before it, the Plus, they only ustomP Sony DualSense immediately work in a handful c bumps up against a major issue of games. when it comes to use on a (Windows) PC, AD E which is that Sony hasn’t produced official When they C Windows drivers to give the controller full do work, though, native support. The controller will work if you they really do PRE just plug it straight into your PC, but instead of elevate this MIUM GR providing support for the modern XInput controller above system used in modern games, it only offers any other. Each step enough to provide good feedback. DirectInput support, as used in older games. your character takes in Deathloop, for instance, Up front is a socket for your headphones, Plenty of games will still support it but many is accompanied by a gentle haptic buzz that others won’t. changes with the terrain or your pace. It which is a really useful addition for sofa Thankfully, there are two workarounds. genuinely adds an extra level of immersion. gaming with your PS5 but this doesn’t work Firstly, you could only play games on Steam. Meanwhile, the changing resistance of the on PCs, sadly. A built-in speaker can also Thanks to Valve adding in native XInput triggers revolutionises the feel of accelerating take over voiceover duties, though, providing emulation, any games it hosts will work and particularly braking in racing games. a further sense of immersion. with controllers that still use the DirectInput system, such as the DualSense. Elsewhere, the evolution of the DualShock A built-in battery means the DualSense The second workaround is to use emulation controller design, from a rather small, is easier to charge than an Xbox controller software such as DS4windows (custompc. uncomfortable shape to a fuller, rounded too, but changing the battery is a pain. The co.uk/DS4Windows) to convert the design akin to that of the Xbox controller, new Xbox controller’s option of AAs or a DirectInput signals to XInput. Just load the continues with the DualSense. The sides have rechargeable unit is more versatile. software, run it in the background and it will filled out and are more rounded compared provide full support for all Windows activities, with the DualShock 4, the grips taper to a Conclusion even enabling you to use the DualSense’s finer point at the back and the top section touchpad as a normal laptop touchpad, so you with the touchpad has grown too. It makes The fantastic adaptive triggers and haptic don’t need a separate mouse in a living room for a supremely comfortable controller that feedback really elevate the DualSense above PC setup. surpasses even the latest Xbox controller for most other controllers for sheer gaming There’s one final caveat to using this general comfort and versatility of grip. immersion. Add in the fantastic comfort levels, controller on a PC, which is that even with full superbly accurate controls and a design that emulation, the haptic feedback and adaptive Build quality is also excellent, with an works well with a variety of grip styles and you triggers (the key additions of this controller attractive smooth plastic on the top surface have a truly fantastic controller. You have to over the DualShock 4) only work when and a lightly speckled pattern on the underside jump through hoops to make it work properly connected via a cable and not via Bluetooth. for better grip. The controls all feel sturdy on your PC but the results are worth the effort. and precise too. You don’t get the absolute SPEC crispness of button response you get on VERDICT premium gamepads but they’re distinct Feature-rich, stylish, comfortable, precise Weight 280g and decent value. It’s a pain to get working COMMON SENSE NONSENSE on a PC, but it’s worth the effort. Connections USB Type-C and Bluetooth + Fantastic haptic - Requires third-party DESIGN FEATURES OVERALL SCORE Features Touchpad, adaptive triggers, built-in feedback and speaker adaptive triggers software to work 18/20 26/30 86% in Windows Battery Built-in rechargeable, up to 12 hours per + Integrated touchpad PERFORMANCE VALUE charge + Great build quality - No option to 26/30 16/20 and comfort swap battery - Headphone socket doesn’t work on PC 58

THRUSTMASTER DUAL ANALOG 4/£18incVAT SUPPLIER box.co.uk W ith a price of just £18 inc VAT, the The other buttons DUAL WIELDING DUELLING Thrustmaster Dual Analog 4 is mostly fare better, WEIRDLY among the cheapest gamepads you with them at least + Comfortable design can buy that still includes two analogue sticks. offering a more + Very light - Low-quality analogue Drop to a lower price and you’ll be confining defined pressing + Two analogue sticks yourself to controllers with just a D-pad and action than the controls ABXY buttons, and that style of gamepad isn’t D-pad. However, for low price much use for the games that benefit most the bumper buttons - Terrible D-pad buttons from using a pad for gaming on a PC. annoyingly hinge from the outer edge, rather than their inner edge, - DirectInput only Inevitably, such a low price comes with a so it’s not enough to simply tap the outside few compromises. For a start, the Dual Analog edge to activate them. Instead, you have to have to use a remapping app to make it work 4 lacks analogue triggers. We omitted the reach further, over the hinge point, in order to with more modern games. Nintendo Switch Pro controller from our tests press them. for the same reason but that’s because it’s Conclusion a £60 inc VAT controller that commits the Meanwhile, the all-important analogue same sin, whereas an £18 price tag makes thumbsticks are usable, providing a With its two analogue sticks, the Thrustmaster it a more acceptable compromise for this basic amount of fine-grained control for Dual Analog 4 delivers the bare minimum for modest option. mimicking steering a car or controlling the a gamepad that you might want to use with a flight stick of a plane, but they’re not great PC. However, its lack of analogue triggers, poor Elsewhere, you also miss out on any for more demanding control. Trying to play D-pad quality and odd bumper button design buzzing-motor haptic feedback, making this a first-person shooter was not fun with means it struggles to make a convincing case a particularly light gamepad at just 132g not this controller. for itself. You only have to spend £10-£15 including the cable. The cable itself is also fixed more to get a vastly better experience, so it’s and measures a modest 1.9m long, so while The overall design is quite compact, well worth saving for a little longer. it will easily reach the back of a PC at a desk, it with small hand grips that require you to wrap will struggle for living room duty on the sofa. your fingers much further round them than the VERDICT fuller designs of more premium controllers. Cheap but not very cheerful, you’re better Other issues include the D-pad feeling off spending a touch more to get a much mushy and indistinct. The buttons lack a clear It’s better than the Logitech F310 in better controller. click or step when pressed, instead offering a this respect, though, with that controller’s stiff, linear movement. This makes it very bad particularly short, steep grip design. DESIGN FEATURES OVERALL SCORE for games that require rapid, precise button The modest size, slim shape and button mashing, such as in beat ‘em ups, or even in layout that has the buttons quite near the 12/20 18/30 62% complex boss battles. It will just about do the edges also works surprisingly well for job for adjusting your point of view in a flight alternative grip styles. PERFORMANCE VALUE sim, though, for instance. Build quality is also perfectly sturdy enough, 18/30 14/20 SPEC with no flexing or creaking when stressed. The textured plastic surface also feels quite Weight 132g without cable (243g with cable) good in the hand. It’s certainly not a premium feel, but there are no sharp edges or obvious Connections Tethered USB cable other such concerns you may have with a very cheap unit. Features Two analogue sticks, two bumper buttons, two digital triggers, D-pad and four action One final point of caution is that this buttons controller only supports the older DirectInput system so, as with the Sony DualSense, you’ll Battery N/A 59

Elite Ourchoiceofthebesthardwareavailable Core component bundles The fundamentalspecifications we recommendfor various types of PC. Justadd yourpreferredcaseandpowersupply,anddouble-check there’s room in your case for your chosencomponents, especiallytheGPU coolerand graphics card.We’velargelystoppedreviewingpowersupplies,asthe 80 Pluscertification scheme has noweffectively eliminated unstablePSUs.Instead,we’verecommended thewattage and minimum80Plus certification you should considerforeachcomponentbundle.Youcan thenchoosewhetheryouwantaPSU withmodular or captivecables. 8-core system with 1,920 x 1,080 gaming integrated graphics 6-core CPU, 1080p gaming 8-core CPU, basic gaming Needs an ATX case. We recommend a Needs a micro-ATX or ATX case. We recommend 500W 80 Plus power supply. See Issue a 450W 80 Plus Bronze power supply. See Issue 224, p76 for an example build guide. 218, p76 for an example build guide. PRICE PRICE COMPONENT NAME SUPPLIER ISSUE inc VAT inc VAT COMPONENT NAME SUPPLIER ISSUE CPU Intel Core cclonline.com #227 £164 i5-12400F p51 CPU AMD Ryzen 7 scan.co.uk #218 £280 5700G p20 CPU COOLER ARCTIC scan.co.uk #224 £20 Freezer i13X p76 CPU COOLER AMD Wraith air N/A #218 £0 cooler included with CPU p20 GRAPHICS CARD AMD Radeon overclockers.co.uk #228 £360 RX 6600 XT p90 AMD Radeon RX N/A #218 £0 MEMORY 16GB (2 x8 scan.co.uk #224 £62 GRAPHICS CARD Vega 8 integrated p20 GB) Corsair scan.co.uk p76 Vengeance LPX into CPU DDR4 3200MHz (CMK16GX4 M2B3200C16) 16GB (2 x 8 GB) #218 MOTHERBOARD Gigabyte B660 #224 £141 Corsair p78 Gaming X DDR4 p50 MEMORY Vengeance LPX scan.co.uk £62 (ATX) Pro 3200MHz (CMK16GX4M 2B3200C16) STORAGE 1TB WD Blue scan.co.uk #222 £73 SN570 p20 Asus TUF (M.2 NVMe) B450M-PLUS II MOTHERBOARD (micro-ATX) with awd-it.co.uk #218 £90 BIOS flash p78 Total £820 STORAGE 500GB WD Blue scan.co.uk #222 £44 UPGRADES SN570 (M.2 p20 NVMe) SWAP Nvidia GeForce nvidia.com #228 £469 cclonline.com p90 GRAPHICS CARD RTX 3070 Total £476 SWAP STORAGE 1TB ADATA XPG #215 £103 GAMMIX S50 p43 Lite 60

2,560 x 1,440 Mid-range gaming system gaming system 10-core CPU, 2,560 x 1,440 gaming and 10-core CPU, smooth 2,560 x 1,440 gaming ray tracing and ray tracing, some 4K gaming Needs an ATX case. We Needs an ATX case with room for a 240mm all-in-one liquid recommend a 550-600W 80 cooler. We recommend a 750W 80 Plus Bronze power supply. Plus Bronze power supply. COMPONENT NAME SUPPLIER ISSUE PRICE COMPONENT NAME SUPPLIER ISSUE PRICE inc VAT inc VAT CPU Intel Core cclonline.com #227 £269 CPU Intel Core cclonline.com #227 £269 i5-12600K p56 i5-12600K p56 CPU COOLER ARCTIC Liquid scan.co.uk #226 £80 CPU COOLER ARCTIC Liquid scan.co.uk #226 £80 Freezer II 240 p49 Freezer II 240 p49 RGB (240mm RGB (240mm AIO liquid AIO liquid cooler) cooler) GRAPHICS CARD Nvidia GeForce nvidia.com #228 £469 GRAPHICS CARD Nvidia GeForce overclockers.co.uk #228 £740 RTX 3070 p90 RTX 3080 10GB p90 MEMORY 16GB (2 x 8GB) scan.co.uk #221 £71 MEMORY 16GB (2 x 8GB) scan.co.uk #221 £71 Corsair p76 Corsair p76 Vengeance RGB Vengeance RGB Pro 3200MHz Pro 3200MHz DDR4 DDR4 (CMW16GX (CMW16GX 4M2C3200C16) 4M2C3200C16) MOTHERBOARD Gigabyte Z690 scan.co.uk #222 £200 MOTHERBOARD MSI MAG Z690 scan.co.uk #222 £240 Gaming X DDR4 p46 Tomahawk WiFi p48 DDR4 STORAGE 1TB ADATA XPG cclonline.com #215 £103 STORAGE 1TB ADATA XPG cclonline.com #215 £103 GAMMIX S50 p43 GAMMIX S50 p43 Lite Lite Total £1,192 Total £1,503 UPGRADES UPGRADES ADD SECONDARY Western Digital #166 ADD SECONDARY Western Digital ebuyer.com #166 £86 p54 p54 STORAGE Blue 4TB ebuyer.com £86 STORAGE Blue 4TB 61

ELITE / THE BEST KIT Core component bundles cont … 4K gaming system Content creation system 12-core CPU, 4K gaming and ray tracing 16-core CPU, 1,920 x 1,080 gaming Needs an ATX case with room for a 360mm all-in-one liquid cooler. Needs an E-ATX case with room for a 360mm all-in-one liquid We recommend an 850W 80 cooler. We recommend a 750W 80 Plus Gold power supply. Plus Gold power supply. COMPONENT NAME SUPPLIER ISSUE PRICE COMPONENT NAME SUPPLIER ISSUE PRICE inc VAT inc VAT Intel Core #227 CPU Intel Core cclonline.com #227 £556 i7-12700K p59 i9-12900K p62 CPU cclonline.com £380 CPU COOLER Corsair iCUE scan.co.uk #226 £250 H150i Elite LCD p78 Corsair iCUE (360mm AIO H150i Elite LCD #226 liquid cooler) (360mm AIO p78 CPU COOLER liquid cooler) scan.co.uk £250 GRAPHICS CARD AMD Radeon RX overclockers.co.uk #220 £360 6600 XT p53 GRAPHICS CARD Nvidia GeForce nvidia.com #226 £1,050 32GB (2 x 16GB) RTX 3080 Ti p78 Corsair Dominator MEMORY Platinum RGB scan.co.uk #221 £290 5200MHz DDR5 p76 (CMT32GX5M2 16GB (2 x 8GB) B5200C40) Corsair MEMORY Vengeance RGB scan.co.uk #226 £71 Pro 3200MHz p78 DDR4 (CMW16GX4M2 MOTHERBOARD MSI MEG Z690 scan.co.uk #222 £520 C3200C16) Unify p50 MOTHERBOARD MSI MAG Z690 scan.co.uk #226 £240 2TB WD Black #215 Tomahawk WiFi p78 SN850 p49 £230 DDR4 STORAGE scan.co.uk STORAGE 2TB WD Black box.co.uk #226 £220 Total £2,206 SN770 p78 UPGRADES Total £2,211 SWAP GRAPHICS Nvidia GeForce #221 p48 CARD RTX 3080 Ti nvidia.com £1,050 UPGRADES #166 ADD SECONDARY 4TB Western ebuyer.com #166 £86 p54 p54 ADD SECONDARY 4TB Western ebuyer.com £86 STORAGE Digital Blue STORAGE Digital Blue 62

Mini PCs Our favourite components for building a micro-ATX or mini-ITX PC. Always double-check how much room is available in your chosen case before buying your components. Some mini-ITX cases don’t have room for large all-in-one liquid coolers, for example, or tall heatsinks. You’ll also need to check that there’s room for your chosen graphics card. Mini-ITX Micro-ATX Motherboards Motherboards CATEGORY NAME SUPPLIER ISSUE PRICE CATEGORY NAME SUPPLIER ISSUE PRICE inc VAT inc VAT Intel Z690 Gigabyte Z690I box.co.uk #228 £280 (LGA1700) Aorus UltraPlus p46 AMD B450 Asus TUF #218 Intel B660 Gigabyte B660I #228 (AM4) B450M-PLUS II awd-it.co.uk p76 £80 (LGA1700) Aorus Pro DDR4 p47 Asus ROG Strix scan.co.uk #228 £200 AMD B550 MSI MAG B550M scan.co.uk #204 £130 AMD X570 (AM4) X570-I Gaming cclonline.com p40 £288 (AM4) Mortar p42 cclonline.com £180 AMD B550 Asus ROG Strix #228 Cases (AM4) B550-I Gaming p39 CATEGORY Cases BUDGET CATEGORY NAME SUPPLIER ISSUE PRICE PRICE scan.co.uk inc VAT inc VAT overclockers.co.uk #206 NAME SUPPLIER ISSUE scan.co.uk p18 £100 ALL PURPOSE Cooler Master quietpc.com Kolink Citadel #218 MasterBox #225 £100 Mesh RGB overclockers.co.uk NR200P SUPPLIER p51 £120 £63 scan.co.uk #225 £203 p26 Ssupd overclockers.co.uk p45 TOWER Meshlicious #214 PRICE HIGH AIRFLOW p51 inc VAT PREMIUM Fractal Design Torrent Nano ISSUE £55 Streacom DA2 £130 V2 #219 p54 Other components #228 Networking p74 CATEGORY NAME CATEGORY NAME SUPPLIER ISSUE PRICE currys.co.uk inc VAT LOW PROFILE Noctua NH-L12S BUDGET Belkin CPU COOLER Phanteks Revolt ROUTER RT3200-UK SFX POWER SFX 750W SUPPLY ATX cases #216 £130 p52 ROUTER Asus scan.co.uk #216 £177 RT-AX68U p51 CATEGORY NAME SUPPLIER ISSUE PRICE cclonline.com inc VAT BUDGET RGB Antec DF700 scan.co.uk #214 £80 MESH ROUTER Asus ZenWiFi AX amazon.co.uk #226 £266 SUB £100 FLUX scan.co.uk p26 £90 Hybrid XP4 p59 AIRFLOW scan.co.uk Corsair 4000D scan.co.uk #222 WI FI ADAPTOR TP-Link Archer #196 £60 COMPACT Airflow scan.co.uk p56 TX3000E overclockers.co.uk Fractal Design scan.co.uk HIGH AIRFLOW Meshify 2 #215 p58 Compact p20 SUB £150 Fractal Design £100 PREMIUM HIGH Meshify 2 AIRFLOW #212 £140 DUAL BAY NAS Synology DS220j box.co.uk # 200 £154 LUXURY Fractal Design p45 £147 BOX p22 Define 7 £220 #204 DUAL BAY Synology box.co.uk #174 £202 Fractal Design p18 box.co.uk p34 Torrent RGB TG MEDIA NAS BOX DS218play #225 Corsair iCUE p20 2.5 GIGABIT 5000T RGB DUAL BAY #224 £350 NAS BOX QNAP TS-231P3 #212 £240 p22 p25 63

ELITE / THE BEST KIT F = FREESYNC, G = G SYNC, W = ULTRAWIDE Monitors Up to 25in Over 28in CATEGORY NAME SUPPLIER ISSUE PRICE CATEGORY NAME SUPPLIER ISSUE PRICE cclonline.com inc VAT inc VAT #214 24IN, 144HZ, IPS, AOC 24G2U box.co.uk p28 £159 31.5IN, 60HZ, VA, iiyama ProLite scan.co.uk #205 £370 1,920 X 1,080, F, G ebuyer.com #209 3,840 X 2,160, F XB3288UHSU scan.co.uk p43 £345 Acer Predator p57 £205 overclockers.co.uk £350 25IN, 240HZ, IPS, XB253Q #212 32IN, 144HZ, VA, iiyama overclockers.co.uk #224 £450 1,920 X 1,080, F, G p20 £659 2,560 X 1,440, F, G G-Master overclockers.co.uk p30 £650 Asus ROG Swift GB3266QSU overclockers.co.uk £1,200 25IN, 360HZ, IPS, PG259QN scan.co.uk #220 £3,299 1,920 X 1,080, F, G p38 32IN, 165HZ, IPS, LG UltraGear #206 2,560 X 1,440, F, G 32GP850 p53 Up to 28in 34IN, 144HZ, IPS, iiyama #206 3,440 X 1,440, W, F G-Master p55 GB3461WQSU PRICE #208 CATEGORY NAME SUPPLIER ISSUE inc VAT 34IN, 144HZ, IPS, LG UltraGear p30 3,440 X 1,440, W, 34GN850 F, G #218 27IN, 144HZ, IPS, #201 p54 1,920 X 1,080, F, G AOC 27G2U overclockers.co.uk £180 38IN, 144HZ, IPS, LG UltraGear £276 3,840 X 1,600, W, 38GN950 27IN, 240HZ, IPS, Asus TUF p53 £249 F, G, HDR 1,920 X 1,080, F, G Gaming VG279QM ebuyer.com #209 32IN, 144HZ, IPS, 27IN, 165HZ, VA, p60 3,840 X 2,160, F, G, 2,560 X 1,440, F, G AOC HDR Asus ROG Swift CQ27G3SU #223 PG32UQX p45 box.co.uk 27IN, 240HZ, TN, AOC AG273QZ overclockers.co.uk #202 £570 Non-gaming 2,560 X 1,440, F, G p27 27IN, 240HZ, IPS, Alienware dell.com #212 £699 CATEGORY NAME SUPPLIER ISSUE PRICE 2,560 X 1,440, F, G AW2721D p21 amazon.co.uk inc VAT 28IN, 144HZ, IPS, AOC U28G2XU amazon.co.uk #221 £569 27IN, 75HZ, IPS, LG 27QN880 #210 £340 3,840 X 2,160, F, G p29 2,560 X 1,440, F p26 Peripherals and audio Gaming keyboards Gaming mice CATEGORY NAME SUPPLIER ISSUE PRICE CATEGORY NAME SUPPLIER ISSUE PRICE inc VAT inc VAT BUDGET TKL SteelSeries #221 BUDGET GAMING NZXT Lift scan.co.uk #226 £40 OPTICAL Apex 3 TKL p59 p32 ESPORTS currys.co.uk £40 MECHANICAL Asus ROG Strix #209 FIRST PERSON Glorious PC overclockers.co.uk #215 £50 TKL Scope RX p43 SHOOTER Gaming Race p57 amazon.co.uk £70 Model O MECHANICAL MMO NZXT Function #226 AMBIDEXTROUS Razer Viper 8K currys.co.uk #215 £50 MiniTKL p32 roccat.com p59 £80 PREMIUM TKL cclonline.com £100 currys.co.uk £63 MECHANICAL #225 Corsair K95 RGB scan.co.uk #164 £180 MULTI BUTTON Roccat Kone XP p60 PREMIUM Platinum p26 MECHANICAL WIRELESS Razer Viper #217 PREMIUM Ultimate p54 WIRELESS PREMIUM Razer MECHANICAL Corsair K70 scan.co.uk #214 £150 WIRELESS DeathAdder scan.co.uk #210 £96 RGB TKL p31 V2 Pro p28 ULTRA Asus TUF Corsair K70 RGB overclockers.co.uk #225 £160 LIGHTWEIGHT Gaming M4 Air overclockers.co.uk #227 £38 Pro p30 £180 PREMIUM p36 LIGHTWEIGHT Logitech G Pro X Razer overclockers.co.uk #208 WIRELESS Superlight currys.co.uk #217 £109 BlackWidow p60 p52 V3 Pro 64

Peripherals and audio cont … Game controllers Gaming headsets CATEGORY NAME SUPPLIER ISSUE PRICE CATEGORY NAME SUPPLIER ISSUE PRICE inc VAT scan.co.uk inc VAT RACING WHEEL Logitech G29 currys.co.uk #202 BUDGET STEREO Roccat Elo X Stereo amazon.co.uk #210 Driving Force amazon.co.uk p50 £241 ebuyer.com p56 £40 BUDGET £35 STEREO Epos | Sennheiser scan.co.uk #210 GAMEPAD PowerA Spectra #228 £50 GSP 300 p54 £50 MID RANGE InfinityXbox Series X p55 £200 WIRELESS #204 GAMEPAD £36 PREMIUM Corsair Virtuoso p50 £146 PREMIUM Sony DualSense scan.co.uk #228 WIRELESS RGB Wireless #211 GAMEPAD p58 £115 p26 £162 BUDGET FLIGHT Scuf Instinct Pro scufgaming.co.uk Razer BlackShark STICK currys.co.uk #228 V2 Pro Logitech Extreme scan.co.uk p57 FLIGHT STICK 3D Pro Joystick Speakers Thrustmaster #207 T.16000M FCS p52 CATEGORY NAME SUPPLIER ISSUE PRICE HOTAS inc VAT #207 overclockers. #224 p56 co.uk p59 £110 Non-gaming keyboards STEREO Edifier R1280DB CATEGORY NAME SUPPLIER ISSUE PRICE Niz Mini 84 Pro keyboardco.com inc VAT WIRELESS 84 KEY Unicomp New Model M keyboardco.com #220 ELECTRO CAPACATIVE p29 £165 BUCKLING SPRING #219 MECHANICAL p26 £129 PCs and laptops Pre-built PC systems CATEGORY NAME CPU GPU SUPPLIER ISSUE PRICE AMD APU PC inc VAT Wired2Fire Ultima Ryzen AMD Ryzen 5 5600G Integrated AMD Radeon custompc.co.uk/W2F #222 £709 BUDGET GAMING Gamestation Intel Core i5-12400F RX Vega 7 p36 £1,136 QUIET GAMING Wired2Fire Phoenix Intel – Nvidia GeForceRTX3060 custompc.co.uk/Phoenix #224 Powered by MSI p38 £1,799 MID RANGE GAMING Gladiator Nocturnal Intel Core i5-12600K Nvidia GeForceRTX3070 custompc.co.uk/Nocturnal #225 £1,899 4K GAMING p36 WATER COOLED ULTIMATE £2,499 PERFORMANCE CCL Horizon 5 Intel RTX 3080 Intel Core i5-12600K Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 custompc.co.uk/CCL3080 #228 Gaming PC Intel Core i7-12700K 10GB p28 £4,699 Intel Core i9-12900KS PC Specialist Magnus Pro Nvidia GeForce RTX custompc.co.uk/ #225 K500 3080 Ti MagnusPro p34 CyberPower Hydro-X Nvidia GeForce RTX custompc.co.uk/CPHX #228 Infinity RTX 3090 Ti p26 Laptops CATEGORY NAME CPU GPU SCREEN SUPPLIER ISSUE PRICE inc VAT BUDGET GAMING Lenovo Legion5Pro AMD Ryzen 7 5800H Nvidia GeForceRTX 16in, 2,560 x 1,600 IPS custompc.co.uk/ #222 £1,499 3070 Laptop 165Hz G-Sync Legion5Pro p32 £2,120 ULTRA PORTABLE Razer Blade 14 AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX Nvidia GeForceRTX 14in1,920 x1,080 IPS custompc.co.uk/Blade14 #220 GAMING 3070 Laptop 144Hz p40 £2,399 Asus ROG Strix Scar15 MID RANGE GAMING G533ZW Intel Core i9-12900H Nvidia GeForceRTX 15.6in 2,560 x 1,440 custompc.co.uk/ #227 £3,184 3070 Ti Laptop IPS 240Hz AsusScar15 p40 HIGH SPEED GAMING Alienwarex17R2 Intel Core i7-12700H Nvidia GeForce RTX 17.3in 1,920 x 1,080 IPS custompc.co.uk/ #227 3080 Ti Laptop 360Hz G-Sync AlienwareX17 p38 65

Games RICK LAN E / INVERSE LOOK FIFA FALL OUT EA’s split from FIFA marks the end of an era, but its significance is superficial, says Rick Lane F IFA is one of those games that’s so massive it exists includes exclusive partnerships with the Premier League, inside its own orbit. Like Minecraft, Fortnite and LaLiga, Bundesliga, Serie A, the MLS – and more to come.’ League of Legends, you don’t hear it discussed much In addition, the competition is no longer there. Konami’s in general games discourse, because it’s always been there. Pro Evolution series has spent at least the past five years It would be like having a conversation about the sky – it isn’t in a relegation battle, culminating in one of the biggest going anywhere, so what’s the point? embarrassments in recent video game history. Last year, Today we’re having a conversation about the sky, Konami ditched the Pro Evolution brand and launched however, because it appears to have fallen in. After 30 years, ‘eFootball 2022’, which released in such an unfinished state publisher Electronic Arts has cut ties with FIFA, after the two that it was the worst-reviewed game on Steam for months. organisations came to loggerheads in negotiations over the FIFA, meanwhile, isn’t perfect by any means, but it’s leaps renewal of the licence. EA will continue to publish annual and bounds ahead of eFootball, even after a year of updates. football games, but now under the (awkward) The split is more an indicator of EA’s confidence name of EA Sports FC. FIFA, meanwhile, intends The split is more than anything else. The company is able to rely to create its own line of football games. an indicator of on the strength of its own branding in EA Sports On the face of it, this is momentous. FIFA has EA’s confidence and Ultimate Team – the hugely profitable club- building element of EA’s football games that’s now dominated sports games for three decades, despite frequently offering an inferior play experience as recognisable as FIFA itself. to Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer. The official branding has The biggest challenge is marketing the name change, carried the series through many difficult times, making it which EA can presumably do with the money it saves from fair to ask ‘What is FIFA without, well, FIFA?’. ditching the FIFA licence. It’s likely that EA Sports FC will be It turns out the answer is ‘quite a lot’. For EA, the main safe in its dominance of sports gaming for the next few years. advantage of the FIFA licence wasn’t the brand itself, but the The question is whether FIFA’s rival plans are a threat. FIFA access it provided to all the other official licences for teams, claims it’s ‘engaging with publishers, studios and investors’ cups, leagues, players and so on. Over the years, however, to create a ‘major new simulation football title’ by 2024. the publisher has built its own relationships with these That’s extremely ambitious, and FIFA’s first stab is unlikely individual organisations. to match the quality of EA’s output, as Tracy King discussed As EA said in its statement regarding the split:‘Our unique in Issue 227. The obvious gambit is to partner with Konami licensing portfolio of more than 19,000+ players, 700+ teams, and attempt to reverse the fortunes of eFootball under the 100+ stadiums and 30 leagues that we’ve continued to invest FIFA brand. If it would work is debatable, but it would be in for decades will still be there, uniquely in EA Sports FC. That another fascinating twist in this decades-long rivalry. Rick Lane is Custom PC’s games editor @Rick_Lane 66

King Arthur: Knight’s Tale /£31.99incVAT DEVELOPER NeoCoreGames/ PUBLISHER NeoCoreGames T hemostinterestingaspectofKingArthur:Knight’s yourwarriors, wizards and roguestohidebehind.Instead, KNIGHT’S TALE Tale isthat it’spossiblythegreyestgameever yourunits mustrely on theirarmourtoprotectthem. Mordred made. A real-timetactics experience that sees you and other warrior-class unitsareabletowithstand significant + Novelarmour play asArthur’s nemesis Mordred, it pitchesitself as a grim amounts of damage,therebyactingas mobilecoverfor your mechanic and gruelling dark fantasy takeon Arthurian Legend. ranged units. Thegame takes placeafterthemythicalBattleofCamlann, + RebuildingCamelot during which Arthur and Mordredkilleachother ina duel. In Alongsidethisare a coupleof otherdecentideas. isa nice idea Knight’sTale,bothmenarereturnedtolife by theLadyof the RebuildingCamelot involves upgradingthecastletounlock Lake, but Arthur’s resurrectiongoeswrong,turninghimintoa trainingandhealingfacilities foryour knights,aswellas KNIGHT’S FAIL disfigured monster who blights the landofAlbion. The Lady shopstofurnishthem withsuperiorequipment.There’salso then turns to Mordred,taskinghimwithrebuildingCamelot a built-in choiceandconsequencesystem thataffectsyour - Visuallyugly and re-establishing the Round Table in order to take down the relationshipwith othermembersof theRound Table. - Badlywritten now evil Arthur. - Sluggishpacing Knight’sTaleis strongest in itstactical combat.Unlike most Sadly,thewholeendeavour is undermined by alitany tactics games, Knight’s Tale’s battlefields have little cover for ofbroaderdesignissues.Stylistically, Knight’s Taleis /VERDICT astonishingly dull. NeoCore conflates ‘dark’with‘drab’, painting its world in a sickly blend of greys, browns and greens. The only Knight’s Tale Pacing isalsoan issue. Every aspect ofthegame,from worth your individual actions tothequeststhemselves,takestoolongto time is the film resolve,withNeoCore padding out questlengthbymaking with Heath you repeat everyobjective three times. Moreover,theentire Ledger in it. first act – around15hoursinlength –seesyou fighting bandits andzombies in an identikit seriesof swamps. Occasionally,it OVERALL SCORE sendsyoutoacastle ora village, butthey’restill wrapped in the game’s oppressively dun aesthetic. 48% What’s more, the story falls completely flat due to a truly insipid script. Every character is written with the subtlety of an advertising billboard. TheLadyoftheLake, for example, comes offasacomplete idiot rather thanascheming mastermind. Mordred,meanwhile,canbeplayedeitheras a redeemedheroor an enduring villain, but there’s noarcto either ofthosechoices. He’s either thenoblestknightwho everlived,ora bloodthirstymaniac. If anyoneofthese problems werefixed,theremight be enough to King Arthur: Knight’s Tale to make it worth investigating at a discount.As itstands,however,thereare toomanybettertactics gamestomakethisdismalmedieval slog worth your time. RICK LANE 67

GAMES / REVIEWS customP AD EMIUM GR Dorfromantik / £10.99 incVAT C DEVELOPER Toukana Interactive / PUBLISHER Toukana Interactive PRE G ames can be exciting, spectacular, challenging, It’s essentially a jigsaw puzzle that you make up as you go complex, frightening, emotional, amusing and along. Each game starts by offering you a pile of hexagonal creative, but they’re rarely designed specifically to tiles, representing little chunks of landscape. Taking each tile be relaxing. By their very nature, they rely on attention and in sequence, you can place them on the board however you reaction to work. Relaxation, meanwhile, generally doesn’t choose. Ideally, however, you want as many sides of the tile involve attending or reacting to anything, unless it’s a waiter as possible to match with its surroundings. You want fields bringing you another pina colada, or the press of a to connect to fields, forests to forests, buildings to buildings masseuse’s palm into a particularly tight knot of muscle. and so on. If you can match all six sides of the tile with its Dorfromantik is different. This light and fluffy blend of surroundings, the game adds an extra tile to your stack, strategy and puzzling is the closest you’ll get to virtual letting you play for longer. relaxation without someone giving you a shoulder rub as you play. It combines a gentle yet surprisingly involved The ultimate goal of Dorfromantik is to get the highest tile-building game with gorgeous artwork and serene score possible, trying to keep the game going as long as audio design. you can by adding extra tiles to your stack. This may seem difficult, as placing a perfect tile isn’t easy, but there are several other factors at play in a round of Dorfromantik. First, it’s rare you’ll have to match all six sides at once. Typically, you’ll only need to match two or three sides at any given time, as most tiles are placed at the edge of the 68

board (which automatically generates additional spaces to surprise just how much larger your board has become since JIGSAW place new tiles). Moreover, alongside gaining single tiles you started playing. for perfect placements, you can also earn extra tiles by + Gentle, captivating completing quests. It’s remarkable how much pleasure Dorfromantik puzzle design squeezes out of such simple ideas, although there are a There are two kinds of quests in Dorfromantik. There are few pieces in its puzzle that don’t fit so well. On some of the + Gorgeous pastoral standard quests, which task you with clustering together busier tiles, it can be hard to discern which type of landscape aesthetic a certain number of tile objects in an area, such as houses lies along each edge, for example. Similarly, the highlights or trees. Then there are ‘flag’ quests, which require you for where you should place tiles to close off flag quests are + Extremely chilled to close off an area with non-matching tiles so no further often too subtle, and it’s annoying when you waste a tile vibes matches can be made. Completing either of these quest- closing off a flag quest, only to discover there are more gaps types rewards you with five additional tiles, making them the you need to fill. HACKSAW easiest way to bulk out your tile deck and extend the game. More broadly, there’s a case to be made that the end of - Some minor In this way, what appears to be a simple tile-matching your game is too dependent on luck. You have no choice game gradually evolves into a more elaborate puzzle. over which tiles you place, and the game sorts them UX issues The layers of complexity don’t end there either. You can randomly. This means a run of bad tiles can end some also group quests together so that, for example, all of the games in a way that feels premature. This isn’t a massive - No control over trees on the map contribute to one big payoff. But beware! problem, as the game isn’t about creating one massive map, Although some quests require a minimum number of newly but it could also easily be resolved by giving the player a few tile dispensation placed trees, others demand a precise amount, and going chances to pick specific tiles from the stack. over that number will result in you failing the quest. /VERDICT All the above applies specifically to Dorfromantik’s Classic Then there’s the shifting nature of the tiles themselves. mode, but there are several other modes designed for More relaxing Early game tiles tend to be uniform blocks of fields, trees, more tailored experiences. These include Creative mode, than a long bath, houses and so on. However, as the game progresses, a which gives you infinite tiles, Quick mode, which challenges Dorfromantik is single tile can have multiple landscape types on it, meaning you with getting the highest score out of a small handful a beautiful light you need to think more carefully about where to place it. In of pieces, and Hard mode, which ups the complexity of strategy puzzler. addition, certain tiles, such as river or railway tiles, can only individual tiles for a sterner puzzling challenge. be placed next to other river or railway tiles, limiting your OVERALL SCORE building possibilities in certain areas. However you choose to play, Dorfromantik is a delight, capable of fitting neatly into a lunchtime play session, or 88% This may sound like a lot to think about, but in practice, eating up entire evenings with its gentle self-perpetuating it’s a straightforward set of rules to remember, and jigsaws. What’s more, it only costs just over a tenner, a Dorfromantik carefully guides you through them with a bargain price for arguably the best puzzle game of the year, comprehensive tutorial level. Moreover, you quickly learn an essential counterpart to the thrill and bombast of bigger- to intuit where tiles should be placed, which tiles should be budget titles. used to contribute to quests, and which should be used to provide a perfection bonus by filling gaps in the board. RICK LANE Dorfromantik also constantly provides a drip-feed of rewards. Not only do you get extra tiles for completing quests, but there are also broader challenges tracked across multiple games, the completing of which earns you brand new tiles, such as windmills, river boats and castle ruins. These tiles don’t massively alter the game, but they do broaden your opportunities for placing tiles, and contribute to the more aesthetic pleasure of creating a pastoral landscape. Indeed, it’s common to lose yourself in Dorfromantik for long stretches of time, only to notice with 69

GAMES / REVIEWS GALACTIC CIVILIZATIONS 4/£39.99 incVAT DEVELOPER Stardock/ PUBLISHER Stardock GARDEN A s with every other game in the series, Galactic galactic equivalent of motorways. Meanwhile, you no longer WORLD Civilizations 4 sees you attempting to wrest need to directly manage every planet you colonise. Instead, control of the galaxy as the spacefaring race of you only assume direct control over a planet to which you + Visually impressive your choice, through a turn-based mixture of colonisation, assign a governor, letting you prioritise the most resource- + Lots of variety conquest, trade and diplomacy. While it looks superficially abundant planets as Core Worlds. Colonies left ungoverned + Many refined similar to its predecessors on the surface, however, Stardock will then funnel their resources to the nearest Core World. has made a bunch of changes to how this new game plays. systems Firstly, victory is no longer bound to a specific condition. These changes have varying significance on the game, Instead, every activity you do in the game contributes to but none of them could be described as a killer feature that LIFELESS ROCK an umbrella victory condition known as Prestige. This make it a must-play game. It lacks a distinctive hook to pull in means you can dabble in a bit of everything on offer, from players, such as Stellaris’ focus on questing and storytelling, - Nokillerfeatures researching new tech to building your interstellar military. or Crusader Kings’ emphasis on character interrelationships. - Poor tutorial You can also earn big prestige points by completing specific - Annoying story quests, which replace the set campaigns seen in There are also a couple of new features that don’t previous games. This lets you experience the ‘story’ with completely work. The newly added tutorial (in the form of a research system any race you like. robot known as Space Clippy) is woefully inadequate for a Changes have also been made to how planets and the game this complex. Moreover, the way research gives you a /VERDICT galaxy as a whole works. The map is no longer a single random selection of technologies from which to choose can group of stars, but is split into clusters connected by the make it difficult to pursue the specific tech you actually want. With lots of minor changes but little That said, nothing in Galactic Civilizations 4 is especially that’s radically broken either. It’s a perfectly adequate and enjoyable new, Galactic Space 4X game, offering a huge number of interesting Civilizations 4 technologies to discover, a robust diplomacy system, is a serviceable intriguing colony expansion and development, and loads of universe simulator. different ship types to build. OVERALL SCORE It also looks tremendous and features countless races to play, ranging from evil squirrel pirates to sentient robots 68% that don’t require food to proliferate. Galactic Civilizations 4 might never go supernova, but this also means it doesn’t collapse into a black hole that sucks everything around it into oblivion. Like the space shuttle, it may not be as exciting or innovative as more modern rockets, but it’s a dependable workhorse nonetheless. RICK LANE 70

c ustomP AD E MIUM GR THE STANLEYPARABLE: C ULTRA DELUXE/£19.99 incVAT PRE DEVELOPER Crows Crows Crows/ PUBLISHER Crows Crows Crows T he Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe is an expanded path self-referentially explores the dreaded cash-in PARABLE reimagining of 2013’s The Stanley Parable, which expansion pack phenomenon, while another muses on the itself was an expanded reimagining of the 2011 treacherous power of nostalgia, and the gulf between critic + Afantastic mod, The Stanley Parable. If that sounds ridiculous, then and user reviews. One of the funniest paths focuses entirely comedy game you’re in the right frame of mind to read a review of this on the humble ‘skip dialogue’ button, transforming a simple magnificently irreverent comedy caper. quality-of-life feature into an apocalyptic time-hopping epic. + Ingeniously The premise and overarching structure of Ultra Deluxe expanded is broadly the same as the 2013 version. You play a man Alongside introducing whole new paths, Ultra Deluxe named Stanley, whose life working in a nondescript office also adds alternative endings to all existing paths, via a new + Freebucket building is subject to a running commentary by an unseen item – the Reassurance Bucket. Equipping this bucket and narrator. One fateful day when Stanley’s co-workers carrying it through the game changes the story threads PARASITE disappear, Stanley takes it upon himself to discover their of each path, with the narrator switching focus from his fate. Coming to a room with a pair of parallel doors, the relationship with Stanley, to Stanley’s relationship with - Cangetrepetitive narrator instructs Stanley to take the left path, whereupon the bucket. you can choose to follow the narrator’s instructions, or /VERDICT defy them. It’s an amusing gag, but it doesn’t quite succeed in The rest of the game follows this pattern, giving you eliminating The Stanley Parable’s biggest problem, which The Stanley branching choices that lead to increasingly bizarre situations. is that seeing all the different paths and endings involves Parable’s second The narrator responds to your decisions in wildly different replaying a lot of the same content. The game tries to tackle overhaul is so ways, variously acting as your friend, nemesis, business this issue in other ways too, such as slightly changing the good, we can’t partner, therapist, co-conspirator, victim and so on. Defy him opening area and the narrator’s starting lines every time you wait for the next at one point in the story, and he might try to reconcile with revert to the beginning, but this isn’t quite enough to stave one in 2031. you, attempting to create a game more suited to his tastes. off a creeping sense of repetition. Defy him at another, and he might simply try to kill you. OVERALL SCORE The Ultra Deluxe version significantly expands the Still, The Stanley Parable more than makes up for this with number of story permutations, all of which are as chaotic, its creativity, humour and remarkable ability to seemingly 90% hilarious and wryly allusive as the original game. One anticipate every action you can possibly take. It remains one of the finest comedy games ever made, and the additions in Ultra Deluxe only make it more enjoyable. RICK LANE 71

GAMES / VIRTUAL REALITY REALITY CHECK Rick Lane brings news of virtual assassins and has space school lessons in this VR roundup REVIEW COSMONIOUS HIGH DEVELOPER Owlchemy Labs / PUBLISHER Owlchemy Labs Cosmonious High is a VR sandbox with Almost every object in the game’s world In other words, the whole game feels tonnes of sand, but not enough box. will respond to your actions. If you spray designed for an audience that’s technically Owlchemy Labs’ colourful VR adventure water at a character’s face, for example, not allowed to play it. Moreover, Owlchemy sets a new standard for dynamic VR they’ll spit it back out. Liquids can also be already nailed entry-level VR experiences interactions, but it struggles to structure them placed into beakers, mugs and other vessels, through its previous games, Job Simulator into entertaining challenges. The result is a and carried around. Indeed, any object and Vacation Simulator. Not only were game that, while undeniably fun, ultimately or power discovered in one room can be they brilliantly fun, but they also made squanders its considerable potential. transported to other areas of the school to better use of their built-in systems than help solve puzzles. Cosmonious High. Cosmonious High puts you in the role of Prismi, a cheerful alien creature embarking on The problem with Cosmonious High It’s a shame, because Cosmonious High its first day of space school. The game sees is that those puzzles simply aren’t that has the potential to be one of the best VR you visiting various classrooms throughout interesting. You’ll use your water powers to games ever made. As an exploration of VR’s the school, undertaking different activities put out fires, and your size-altering abilities interactive possibilities, it’s unparalleled – no under the watchful eyestalks of your extra- to unblock passages, but the challenges other VR game is this inventive. But it simply terrestrial teachers. never extend beyond one or two steps. doesn’t do anything with those inventions, Worse, many of the game’s systems are resulting in a fun, but ultimately frivolous By far the most impressive aspect barely used at all. All those cool materials missed opportunity. of Cosmonious High is its wide array of you create in Chemosophy have little practical interactions. At a base level, Prismi can function whatsoever. LESSON LESSEN conjure multiple powers from its hands, such as the ability to shoot water, fire and wind, Combined with the game’s kaleidoscopic + Incredibly interactive - Sorely lacks structure and even a power that lets you alter the size colour scheme, soft-play environment world of objects. designs, and cheerful-verging-on- - Juvenile presentation patronising characters, Cosmonious High + Experimentationisfun In addition, each classroom brings its own feels overwhelmingly like a game designed - Made for an audience myriad abilities. For example, Chemosophy for small children as an entry-level VR class sees you creating various compounds experience. There’s nothing inherently wrong that can’t play it out of base liquids, producing materials with this idea, but VR headsets across the such as Bouncium, which makes any object board aren’t rated as suitable for children VERDICT OVERALL SCORE springy, and Stickium, which causes items to under 12 years of age. attach to one another. Cosmonious High is a 60% VR nursery with lots of cool toys but no real point to any of it. 72

NEWS NEWS WALLACE AND GROMIT: ASSASSIN’S THE GRAND GETAWAY CREED: NEXUS Stop-motion icons Wallace and Gromit are coming to A build of Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed VR project has Meta Quest 2 next year, in a collaborative project between reportedly leaked online, revealing a game called Assassin’s Aardman, Meta and developer Atlas V. Dubbed a VR Creed: Nexus, which will apparently offer a time-hopping ‘experience’, Wallace and Gromit: The Grand Getaway adventure across many different historical periods. sees Wigan’s most famous duo off on that most British of excursions, the summer seaside holiday. Footage showed an interactive menu framed around the game’s in-fiction Animus machine, essentially Assassin’s Like all beach holidays in Britain, it’s doomed to go Creed’s own VR device that lets its characters access wrong, as Wallace gets his dates mixed up and must cross their ‘genetic memories’. The footage also includes a the country in just half an hour, resulting in a calamitous description of one of the game’s missions, The Sword of malfunction of his latest invention, the Auto Caddy. Ezio, which sees Assassin’s Creed II’s protagonist return to his family home of Monteriggioni to help his sister Claudia There’s little specific information about how The Grand with a problem. Getaway will play, but the framing of it as an ‘experience’ implies it will be a fairly light affair. What is certain is that The broader game will apparently see players inhabiting Wallace will be voiced by Ben Whitehead, who replaced multiple assassins from across the series. The specific the late Peter Sallis after he retired from the role in 2010. characters aren’t confirmed, although given the game’s reported 16 missions, Ubisoft could potentially include all the Aardman’s Managing Director Sean Clark says the major characters from the series, as well as making Nexus a game will combine ‘engaging storytelling with emerging substantial VR offering. technologies to offer fans a totally immersive experience’, adding that ‘for loyal fans of Wallace & Gromit, this will be The game also seems to be mechanically varied. Combat real-wish fulfilment territory’. will be a familiar timing-based affair, with players using weapons such as swords, throwing knives, crossbows and It’s difficult to know how to feel about seeing Wallace the series’ signature hidden blade. Other systems include and Gromit in VR. While we’d never say no to another pickpocketing, lock picking, climbing and, of course, stealth. Wallace and Gromit adventure, the idea of seeing a life- sized Wallace is faintly terrifying. In any case, you’ll be able Ubisoft hasn’t confirmed or denied the authenticity of the to traumatise yourself with the sight of a human-sized leak, but one source of the leak, the gaming website Exputer, plasticine northerner sometime in 2023. has reported credibly on leaks in the past, including a build of the PS5 game Horizon: Forbidden West, which leaked several weeks ahead of the game’s debut. 73

F E AT U R E / CUSTOMISATION BUILD A MINI PC THERE’S NEVER BEEN A BETTER TIME TO BUILD A MINI ITX PC. ANTONY LEATHER GIVES YOU HIS TOP TIPS ON HOW TO PICK THE BEST HARDWARE AND BUILD THE PERFECT MINI SYSTEM, AND HOW TO PUT IT ALL TOGETHER W ith more great compact cases than wasting a lot of desk space. It’s also true that cases have decent water-cooling support ever before, along with a huge you don’t need to skimp on gaming or content too, allowing you dip your toes into the world range of CPUs, graphics cards and creation performance when you’re building of AIO liquid coolers or custom water cooling small SFX PSUs from which to choose, a mini-ITX PC any more. There are plenty of despite not having a massive ATX case. there’s never been a better time to downsize powerful graphics cards that fit in small cases, your desktop and build yourself a little PC that and many of the latter cater for chunky triple- This month we’ll not only be showing can do it all. slot graphics cards too. you how to build a mini-ITX PC from start to finish, but we’ll also be offering our top If your only expansion card is a single Not only that, but the latest small SFX PSUs tips on choosing the right hardware, taking graphics card, and you use on-board audio now offer well over 700W of power, which is you through the differing case designs and or an external audio device, then you’re likely plenty for a high-end system. Most mini-ITX covering both air and water-cooled options. 74

WHY USE MINI ITX? Even two sandwich-style cases can look completely are more expensive than their full-sized different, as we can see here with the Phanteks Shift counterparts. This can be true, but not There are a variety of reasons why people XT and NZXT H1 V2 throughout the industry. At the time of writing switch from ATX systems to mini-ITX. The this feature, the Asus ROG Strix B660-F key benefit is, of course, the reduction in been solved with current hardware or have Gaming WiFi cost £250 inc VAT, while the volume of a mini-ITX case compared with vastly improved. ROG Strix B600-I Gaming would set you an ATX tower. They not only occupy less back £245 inc VAT, for example. space, but they also have significantly smaller The first myth is that you can’t build a footprints on your desk. This means you mini-ITX PC that’s as powerful as an ATX Yes, you get more ports with the larger can reclaim desk or floor space, and without PC. This is wrong in nearly every way. All board, but in terms of how much you need to sacrificing performance either. If you don’t current mainstream desktop CPUs, and even spend to get a ROG Strix motherboard with need any discrete expansion cards beyond Intel’s LGA2066 high-end desktop CPUs, otherwise similar features, the two boards your graphics card, there really isn’t any are compatible with at least one mini-ITX cost the same price. Downsizing in this case reason why you can’t opt for mini-ITX. motherboard. Even a GeForce RTX 3090 won’t cost you more money, and if you want Ti card can squeeze into many mini-ITX to go with mini-ITX, you’ve already made the Variety is another reason why some cases, and can be powered by the latest decision to live with two DIMM slots and a enthusiasts prefer mini-ITX. By its nature, SFX PSUs too. single PCI-E slot anyway. it’s a challenging format in terms of case and motherboard design, and for these reasons, There are exceptions, of course. For We’ll admit, though, that SFX PSUs there tends to be far more variation between example, most mini-ITX cases will struggle generally bag you less power for the same case and motherboard designs than you see to house large CPU air coolers. Mini-ITX cash, and mini-ITX cases are rarely cheaper with typical ATX hardware. Motherboards cases are generally limited to 280mm than ATX cases in a similar range. tend to have heatsinks in different locations, radiators or smaller too, simply because have a wide variety of specifications and making room for a 360mm radiator would Even the largest graphics cards can fit inside some even trade off cooler compatibility, make the case too large. Otherwise, though, mini-ITX cases, such as this GeForce RTX 3090 so they can squeeze more hardware onto a mini-ITX PC can be every bit as powerful as Ti installed in a Ssupd Meshlicious the PCB. an ATX system. The NZXT Cases are especially varied too, with a Another myth is that mini-ITX PCs are H1 is one of huge array of designs and sizes, ranging from more difficult and time-consuming to build. the easiest designs that are friendly to both air and water This can be true in some cases, but recent cases to cooling, to ones that specifically focus on one additions to the mini-ITX scene mean this is use for mini cooling method or the other. Some cases largely a non-issue. For example, if you want PC building offer super-small footprints, while others an easy mini-ITX ride, working with NZXT’s focus on minimising volume. Plus you also H1 V2 is easier than with any other mini case get the usual mixes of glass, aluminium and we’ve tested. Its cables are pre-routed, steel panels, and the impact of ventilation and its AIO liquid cooler is preinstalled and its airflow design can be particularly pronounced included SFX PSU is already installed as well. in such a small case. Basically, mini-ITX makes PC building interesting and fun, and Cable tidying can be an issue in some perhaps more of a challenge. smaller cases too, but the shorter cable sets included with SFX PSUs help here, and some MINI ITX MYTH BUSTING manufacturers even offer extra short cable kits to cater for situations where the PSU There are plenty of naysayers when it is planted right next to your hardware. You comes to mini-ITX systems, but a lot of their can also create your own cables to custom claims are rooted in the past, and have either lengths using companies such as CableMod (cablemod.com). Motherboard designs vary wildly, which in turn has an impact on cooler compatibility It’s easy to forget that mini-ITX is still a niche form factor, despite its increased popularity, but another myth that ties into this fact is that mini cases, PSUs and hardware 75

F E AT U R E / CUSTOMISATION If you’re noise-sensitive then you’ll need to think about ways to keep the decibels to a minimum. Make sure your CPU cooler and graphics card PCI-E riser cables are used to connect a LOW PROFILE CPU COOLERS fans will be located near mesh panels graphics card to your motherboard’s PCI-E slot in sandwich-style cases, or in cases with The biggest issue mini-ITX system owners vertical graphics card arrangements face is cooler compatibility, and not just when it comes to cases. Motherboard heatsinks BE WARY most ATX cases. In fact, many fall well short have become larger over the years, in order of even this height, meaning that in many to cope with ever more powerful CPUs and While there are plenty of unfair mini-ITX cases, you’ll need to opt for liquid cooling to chipsets. Combine these large heatsinks with myths doing the rounds, it’s still not a perfect cope with high-end CPUs, and pay careful all the elaborate ways of cramming as much form factor. In addition to cooler compatibility attention to CPU cooler height limits if you onto the PCB as possible, such as vertically and limited hard disk space, which we’ll want to use a low-profile cooler. stacked audio and M.2 arrangements, and discuss in more detail in a moment, there are space around the CPU socket can end up a few issues that anyone taking the plunge Graphics card clearances can vary wildly being pretty tight. with a small PC needs to consider. between cases too. You’ll need to check that your chosen case has room for enough The main issue here is with low-profile Firstly, the limited volume in mini-ITX cases slot brackets if you card uses more than air coolers. The CPU socket on a mini-ITX means that there’s very little margin for error two. Also, the maximum supported length motherboard sits closer to the memory and when it comes to cooling. You need to pay of graphics card can vary, not just between I/O shield than on ATX motherboards, and careful attention to airflow and where your cases, but also between the same case’s while the resulting shorter PCB traces can CPU and GPU coolers will be getting their air different configurations. be beneficial – for instance, with memory supply. For this reason, unless you’re water- overclocking – it can result in some low- cooling your hardware, glass panels sat next For instance, the popular Ssupd profile CPU coolers not being able to fit. to your GPU or CPU coolers are a bad idea, Meshlicious has several internal which is why most new mini-ITX cases are configurations that can allow for better What’s more, compatibility varies between equipped with mesh panels, or at the very water-cooling support, but can drastically motherboards, so one low-profile cooler least, have mesh panel options. You’ll need reduce graphics card length limits. could work on one motherboard, but not on to be prepared to make sure every fan mount another, depending on how many heatsinks is occupied in order to ensure sufficient Another potential issue is PCI-E riser and other bits and pieces sit around the airflow too. cables. These are often used in sandwich CPU socket. Thankfully, some CPU cooler style cases, where the graphics card sits back Other issues with cooling include limited to back with the motherboard, linked to the An example of the CPU cooler compatibility lottery clearances. Few mini-ITX cases offer support PCI-E slot via a ribbon cable. is Noctua’s NH-L12S, which fits fine on Gigabyte’s for CPU air coolers taller than 150mm, for X570i Aorus Pro WiFi (top), but doesn’t stand a example, which is the starting point for Unfortunately, many cases that use these chance on ASRock’s X570 Phantom Gaming ITX/ setups only include PCI-E 3 riser cables, and TB3 (bottom) If you useashortgraphicscard,the Ssupd using one of these if your motherboard and Meshlicious can house it horizontally instead of graphics card are PCI-E 4-enabled can result vertically,makingroom inthebaseforharddisks in system instability. You can either upgrade to a PCI-E 4 riser cable or force your motherboard into PCI-E 3 mode in the BIOS. Finally, you need to be wary of noise. A mini-ITX case typically sits on your desk, while many ATX cases end up on the floor under your desk. Also, due to their size and shape, mini-ITX machines often bring their innards closer to you than an ATX tower, so you can still access its front I/O ports and so on. This means that, to your ears, even if the same hardware were inside it and every other factor was equal, it would seem to be louder than an ATX case in the same location. 76

Slim fans can squeeze into places full-sized fans can’t Using an M.2 SSD is a great way to cut cable due to it fouling the I/O panel shroud or SFX PSUS numbers, as it connects straight to the motherboard, chipset coolers. Reddit and PC forums are and 2TB models can now cost under £150 also a good place to check which coolers are Many mini-ITX cases support ATX PSUs; compatible with which boards. The key factor at first glance, these might seem like an manufacturers, such as Noctua, have made here is that if you intend to use a low-profile attractive idea, given it will save you having the effort to see which of its coolers are air cooler, you’ll need to make sure it fits your to invest in a smaller SFX PSU if you already compatible with specific motherboards. chosen motherboard before buying it. have a decent PSU in your ATX system that you can transplant. However, there are The low-riding NH-L12S, for example, WHAT ABOUT ALL MY several reasons why doing this is a bad idea. shows up as not being compatible with any HARD DISKS? of Asus’ recent Intel-based mini-ITX boards, Firstly, space is at a premium in mini-ITX In general, mini-ITX cases aren’t great for cases, and having a PSU that occupies more Using an SFX PSU (top) will free up a those of us that need plenty of hard disks. than is necessary will make your life harder. considerable amount of space compared Many cases offer at least one 3.5in mount, An SFX PSU is significantly smaller than an to using an ATX PSU (bottom) which isn’t bad considering there are usually ATX model, and your PC will be tidier, cleaner just two in many ATX cases these days. and easier to manage as a result of using it. However, there are plenty of cases that offer support for two or more hard disks. This is SHORTENED PSU CABLES often as a compromise for other hardware, but if housing multiple hard disks is a priority Opting for SFX PSUs comes with another then they do exist. benefit too. They typically include shorter cables than ATX power supplies, as you However, there are good reasons to ditch simply don’t need lengthy cables in such a your hard disks, and even 2.5in SSDs too. small case. Using an ATX PSU with standard The latest M.2 SSDs are not only quicker than cables will only result in a huge amount of SATA SSDs and hard drives, but they also slack to tidy away in a case that’s already require no cables, making your cable tidying suffering from limited cable stowage space. easier and improving airflow. Flash storage still isn’t great value for mass storage, but we There are also shortened cable sets spotted several 2TB NVMe SSDs available available for some SFX PSUs, further for just £140 at the time of going to press, reducing slack in particularly small cases. meaning you could get 4TB for under £300. SFX PSUs usually come with shorter cables than The best option for those that need more their ATX counterparts storage is to use a NAS box. This will allow you to add as much storage as you like, but will also cut noise levels (and heat) from hard disks’ spinning platters and seeking heads, while also cutting down the number of cables cluttering up your mini PC’s interior. 77

F E AT U R E / CUSTOMISATION Glass side panels look great, but you need to ensure which can make the difference between Small combined pump and reservoir units, such as there’s enough airflow to deal with the heat being able to fit a fan in your mini system or EK’s FLT 80, are ideal for water-cooling systems in not. They’re available in 120mm and 140mm mini-ITX cases CableMod (cablemod.com) is a custom PSU flavours, and can look neater than standard- cable manufacturer that offers shorter cables height fans too, although they typically offer means you can mount it vertically to show off for a variety of PSUs, but its most useful slightly reduced airflow and static pressure. through a glass side panel, or it can just make feature is its custom cable service, where you your PC quieter in games. can specify the length of individual cables, so CUSTOM WATER COOLING they fit your case and hardware perfectly. Water cooling can deal with heat more With mini-ITX cases often suffering from effectively than air cooling in such tight SLIM FANS reduced CPU cooler clearance, and glass confines. Low-profile air coolers, and most panels hampering air-cooled graphics cards graphics cards, tend to dump heat into the It’s important to use every fan mount in your next to them, water-cooling your mini-ITX case, relying on its airflow system to get rid of mini-ITX case in order to maximise airflow hardware can actually be very beneficial. It the warm air. Conversely, AIO liquid coolers and get the heat out of the case. This may be can result in high-end CPUs being cooled and custom loops will transport the heat to a tricky in some situations, as some hardware more effectively, as radiators offer more radiator that can then expel it straight out of configurations will get in the way of fan cooling capacity than low-profile air coolers. the case. mounts, while standard-height fans can look In the case of your graphics card, it also unsightly and end up fouling cables. There are plenty of water-cooling components that are specifically designed This is where slim fans come in. They’re to make your life easier in small form factor around 10mm thinner than standard fans, systems too. Slim radiators work in much the same was as slim fans, in that they’re thinner than standard radiators. Typical radiators are usually around 30mm thick as a minimum, but slim radiators are just 20mm thick, shaving a centimetre off their required clearance. Combined with slim fans, you need just 35mm of clearance to actually fit an actively cooled radiator into Alphacool’s new line of slim radiators can are Using a slim radiator and slim fan shaves 2cm off the available in sizes for both 120mm and 140mm fans clearance compared with standard-height models 78

your case, opening up the world of water Thunderbolt can be useful for adding Thunderbolt accessories include cooling to cases that would otherwise have features to mini-ITX motherboards 10 Gigabit Ethernet adaptors to be air cooled. Being able to combine a pump and are a couple of options here, including M.2 In addition, they may allow you to install reservoir into one space is also clearly adaptors such as the Innodisk EGPL-T101, additional radiators to boost your system’s very advantageous when water- which can turn an M.2 port into a 10 Gigabit cooling capacity and reduce noise as a result. cooling a mini-ITX PC, and the likes of Ethernet port. Only two manufacturers make slim radiators EK’s FLT reservoirs and Alphacool’s – XSPC and Alphacool, and the latter has just Rise Flat models take up barely any However, an easier way to add devices released a range of new models that not only more space than a couple of 120mm fans, such as this to your mini-ITX PC is with include 120mm variants, but 140mm variants and they use powerful DDC or D5 pumps Thunderbolt. It’s still a rare feature on too, giving us the first 280mm slim radiators. mounted to compact reservoirs. EK’s FLT 80 mini-ITX motherboards, but thankfully, is our pick of the bunch, being the smallest ASRock offers it on its Z690, B550 and EK’s new Quantum Velocity 2 combines a pump, combo yet and offering plenty of inlets X570 Phantom gaming motherboards, and reservoir and waterblock in one unit, making it much and outlets. Gigabyte’s Z590i Vision D supports it too. easier to water-cool any PC Another very useful gadget is a combined Using a Thunderbolt 3 or 4 hub enables pump, waterblock and reservoir. These you to add a host of adaptors and extra ports are rare, but BarrowCH’s LRC 2.0 and EK’s to your PC. For example, OWC’s 10 Gigabit recently announced Quantum Velocity 2 adaptor plugs straight into a Thunderbolt Kinetic DDC 4.2 combine all these features port should you need a networking upgrade. into a single unit, meaning you only then have There are plenty of Thunderbolt-based to find a place for your radiators if you’re just external storage options too. cooling your CPU, which makes your tube runs far simpler too. THUNDERBOLT SAVES THE DAY The main drawback of mini-ITX is the lack of expansion slots. If you’re using a discrete graphics card then you won’t easily be able to add a second PCI-E device. There 79

F E AT U R E / CUSTOMISATION CASE LAYOUT VARIATIONS There’s a huge variety of mini-ITX case Phanteks’ Evolv Shift XT from above Ssupd’s Meshlicious layouts available, and they all serve different purposes. It’s important to realise that while panel than in an ATX case, again meaning FLEXIBLE LAYOUTS you may find some styles of designs more mesh panels are a good idea for air-cooled attractive than others, the style of case you systems. AIO liquid coolers and custom Due to the above designs being quite choose will have a significant impact on a water cooling loops are often much better inflexible, focusing on improving one feature case’s ability to house certain hardware, options than air cooling in these cases, at the expense of another, a popular party and can also affect cooling. especially for your CPU. The motherboard trick of many modern mini-ITX cases is to is often inverted too. Popular cases here have multiple layout options. These options TRADITIONAL LAYOUT include the Lian Li Q58, Raijintek Ophion might allow a graphics card to switch from series, and those from Sliger, Geeek and being directly connected to a motherboard, With a graphics card facing the bottom of the Dan Cases. to using a riser cable to sit in a different case and connected directly to a vertically orientation. Or they might be able to use more mounted motherboard, traditional layouts VERTICAL SANDWICH LAYOUT storage devices by boosting the number of usually offer the best CPU air cooler clearance 2.5in and 3.5in mounts, or shift hardware of any mini-ITX design. Popular cases here These cases are similar to the standard around to make more space for radiators. include the Cooler Master NR200P, which sandwich layout, but with the graphics card offers more than 150mm of CPU cooler mounted vertically and the motherboard I/O For example, the Cooler Master NR200P clearance. The downside is that their radiator panel usually located in the top or bottom comes with a riser cable that allows the support can be limited unless, like the of the case. This style of design can result in graphics card to sit vertically, clearing space NR200P, it has a flexible layout with a vertical extremely small case footprints, as well as in the base of the case for a radiator and graphics card mount as an option. They flexible case designs. Popular cases here allowing additional fans to be fitted in the roof, also tend to be quite wide, with much larger include the Phanteks Shift series, Ssupd with the option of mounting the radiator in the footprints than some designs. Meshlicious and NZXT H1, with some cases side of the case too. offering decent water-cooling support, thanks to their large mesh panels and the The Ssupd Meshlicious goes even further. use of small SFX PSUs. It supports both ATX and SFX PSUs, and if you use the latter, you can install a graphics Cooler Master’s NR200P card up to four slots wide. It has both vertical and horizontal graphics card mounts, with the SANDWICH LAYOUT NZXT’s H1 V2 latter requiring short cards that, combined with the use of an angled riser cable, clears With a PCI-E riser cable connecting the space for two hard disks to be installed motherboard and graphics card, which sit beneath it. back to back, a sandwich layout frees up space above and below the core components for radiators, and also allows the graphics card to sit vertically. This means the graphics card can be placed close to mesh panels, or offer a more aesthetically pleasing look from the side, but using glass panels with this type of case can negatively impact cooling. CPU cooler height is also very limited, as the motherboard sits far closer to the side 80

10 TOP TIPS FOR BUILDING A BETTER MINI ITX PC 1 KEEP CABLES TO A MINIMUM cooling this way will enable you to increase SFX PSUs are considerably smaller than ATX PSUs your system’s capacity to deal with heat and A fully modular PSU, whether it’s SFX or can also make it quieter. can foul heatsinks, I/O shrouds and other ATX, is highly recommended to keep cable components, so research which coolers are numbers to a minimum. We also recommend 4 PUT CASE LAYOUT AHEAD compatible with your motherboard before using M.2 SSDs rather than 2.5in models OF AESTHETICS you reach for your wallet. or 3.5in hard disks, as this will cut cable numbers, potentially improving airflow, Mini-ITX cases are often very specialised, 7 WATCH OUT FOR PCI E 3 reducing the clutter in your interior and and with the exception of highly flexible RISER CABLES making cable tidying easier. models, you should pick the best case for your hardware. For example, if you don’t want If your motherboard and graphics card are 2 REDDIT AND FORUMS ARE any form of liquid cooling, but want a high- PCI-E 4-compatible then you need to make YOUR FRIENDS end CPU and GPU, it’s inadvisable to opt for a sure the riser cable included with your case, if sandwich-style case with limited CPU cooler it has one, is PCI-E 4 too. If it isn’t, your PC will The Internet can be a huge help when clearance, or one that has a glass panel sitting suffer stability issues unless you force your building a mini-ITX PC. Compatibility right next to your graphics card’s cooler. system to operate in PCI-E 3 mode in the EFI. with coolers, radiators and graphics cards isn’t very well documented with 5 AVOID GLASS PANELS 8 USE AN SFX PSU many manufacturers, but you may well Glass gives you a great view of your Even if your case has ATX PSU compatibility, be able to find someone who has tried hardware, but while ATX cases can make it’s still worth using an SFX PSU. They save the same combination of components do with large front and roof vents to provide valuable space, making the building process you’re considering and has either failed or airflow, side ventilation is also extremely much easier. They also have shorter cables, been successful. important in small cases, in order to lower so you don’t have miles of slack to tidy later. internal temperatures and allow vertically The small form factor PC subreddit is mounted graphics cards to breathe. Nearly all 9 SLIM FANS AND RADIATORS CAN a great place to start and we can highly mini-ITX cases have mesh panels on at least MAKE A DIFFERENCE recommend the mini-ITX case list there one side panel, and some manufacturers also (custompc.co.uk/itx-reddit). offer optional mesh panels to replace glass or If you’ve ever wanted to install a radiator in a otherwise solid panels. tight spot, but found there’s just not enough 3 CONSIDER LIQUID OR CUSTOM clearance, slim fans and radiators are really WATER COOLING 6 BEWARE OF MOTHERBOARD AND handy. Combining the two can shave up COOLER COMPATIBILITY to 20mm off the total height of a fan and If your dream mini-ITX case has limited CPU radiator combination, making them far more cooler clearance, or airflow-killing glass Low-profile coolers come in all shapes amenable to squeezing into small gaps than panels next to your graphics card, all is not and sizes, and unfortunately many haven’t normal-sized models. lost. Liquid cooling can remove the need been designed with modern high-end for masses of airflow, and instead shift the mini-ITX motherboards in mind. They 10 FILL EVERY FAN MOUNT cooling requirements to a radiator that can be A vacant fan mount is heresy in a mini-ITX positioned in the case’s fan mounts. Boosting You can occasionally case, as it’s vitally important to make use of install slim fans all of them to boost airflow. More fans don’t and radiators in necessarily mean more noise either. In fact, places that can’t shifting more air with several low-spinning accommodate fans sounds quieter than one fan spinning at normal-sized high speed shifting the same or less airflow. If models your hardware makes using standard fans in some mounts impossible, slim fans can often enable you to occupy every fan mount in your case to maximise airflow. 81

F E AT U R E / CUSTOMISATION HOW TO BUILD system that makes overclocking difficult A KILLER MINI anyway. As such, we’ve chosen Gigabyte’s GAMING PC B660I Aorus Pro DDR4 motherboard, which costs just £200 and uses DDR4 memory, WE TAKE YOU THROUGH THE COMPONENTS NEEDED TO ASSEMBLE A CRACKING which is much cheaper than DDR5 memory 2,560 x 1,440 GAMING SYSTEM, AND SHOW YOU HOW TO PUT IT ALL TOGETHER and has little impact on performance. This board will also still enable our chosen CPU to boost to its full turbo speeds. However, bear in mind that this board only has one M.2 port, so you’ll want to consider an alternative board if you need more than one M.2 drive. CASE Phanteks Evolv Shift XT £160 inc VAT overclockers.co.uk OUR MINI ITX which offers huge gaming and content With decent airflow, support for a 240mm SHOPPING LIST creation performance, thanks to its eight AIO liquid cooler and achingly good looks, performance-focused P-Cores and four the Phanteks Evolv Shift XT is a droolworthy CPU power-efficient E-Cores, but isn’t quite as mini-ITX case, even if it’s not the smallest or Intel Core i7-12700K power-hungry and hot-running as the top- most flexible mini chassis available. end Core i9-12900K, which is overkill for £ 377 inc VAT most people’s needs anyway. Handily, it also has a PCI-E 4 riser cable included in the box, so it’s already compatible cclonline.com MOTHERBOARD with the latest motherboards and graphics Gigabyte B660I Aorus Pro DDR4 cards without having to force them to run in Building a mini-ITX PC doesn’t have to be PCI-E 3 mode. about compromise, but equally there’s £200 inc VAT no point opting for overly hot-running Alternatively, it’s also well worth hardware that’s hard to cool in the confines scan.co.uk considering the Ssupd Meshlicious and of a small case. For this reason, we’ve opted Cooler Master NR200P for your mini-ITX for Intel’s Core i7-12700K Alder Lake CPU, Manual overclocking doesn’t benefit the high- build. These cases have more flexible end CPUs in Intel’s line-up, so there’s little designs than the Phanteks Shift XT, and point opting for an expensive motherboard are also water-cooling-friendly, while also with a Z690 chipset, particularly for a mini offering smaller footprints. 82

GRAPHICS CARD looks fabulous, offers stunning performance CPU COOLER Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3070 Ti in games at 2,560 x 1,440, has decent ray- EK EK-AIO 240 Basic Vision OC 8G tracing performance, and can even manage smooth frame rates at 4K in some titles, £83 inc VAT £690 inc VAT especially with DLSS enabled. scan.co.uk scan.co.uk Rather than opt for a low-profile air cooler, Our chosen Phanteks Shift XT chassis has POWER SUPPLY due to the restricted CPU cooler clearance ample room in its interior to accommodate a Phanteks Revolt SFX 750W 80 in the Phanteks Shift XT, we’ve picked an large graphics card, so there’s no need to be Plus Platinum AIO liquid cooler with the biggest radiator restricted to a graphics card with a small PCB we could fit into this case. The EK-AIO 240 and single-fan cooler. £130 inc VAT Basic offers enough cooling to keep our Core i7-12700K in check, and it will get rid of the In fact, in this situation, it really pays to get overclockers.co.uk heat straight through the case’s roof vent. Its a graphics card with a large cooler, in order to compact pump is small enough to fit on even keep your card’s temperatures in check in the There are plenty of high-power SFX power the most space-cramped CPU sockets too, close confines of a mini-ITX case. supplies available at the moment, and which can’t be said for the ARCTIC LF II 240 we’ve chosen Phanteks’ new 80 Plus RGB or NZXT Kraken Z53 RGB. However, we advise against using an Nvidia Platinum-rated Revolt SFX 750W unit for Founders Edition RTX 3000-series card our build this month. SOLID STATE DRIVE in a mini system, unless you’ve thoroughly 2TB WD Black SN770 researched your case’s airflow system, as It has plenty of connectors, it runs these cards’ flow-through coolers are often quietly and its excellent efficiency rating £170 inc VAT at odds with the specialised airflow systems will minimise the contribution of gaming found in mini-ITX cases. sessions to your electricity bill. Importantly, ebuyer.com it has plenty of power on tap for our chosen We’ve chosen the triple-fan Gigabyte components, as well as some headroom for Our chosen mini-ITX motherboard only GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Vision OC 8G, which future upgrades has one M.2 port, so we’ve gone with a 2TB solid state drive, in the form of the WD Black SN770, in order to maximise storage capacity. With its PCI-E 4 interface, it offers blazing sequential read and write speeds of around 5,000MB/sec, and its M.2 interface means it won’t clutter the interior with extra cables. 83

F E AT U R E / CUSTOMISATION BUILDING THE PC IF YOU’VE ONLY EVER BUILT ATX PCS BEFORE, DOWNSIZING CAN PRESENT SOME CHALLENGES. HERE’S OUR STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO BUILDING OUR GAMING PC, WITH THE ASSUMPTION THAT YOU ALREADY KNOW THE BASICS OF PC BUILDING 7 14 8 5 9 2 3 10 6 1 INSTALL CPU, MEMORY AND 4 REMOVE CASE PANELS 8 INSTALL GRAPHICS CARD COOLER MOUNT The Phanteks Shift XT allows you to remove The graphics card slots neatly into its own its exterior panels in order to get better compartment, but needs to slot into the You need to always aim to install as much access to the interior. This is especially useful other end of the PCI-E riser cable. Ensure hardware as possible on a mini-ITX for installing the motherboard and AIO liquid the two are properly connected by looking motherboard before you fit it into your case. coolers, so do it now. underneath the graphics card. You’ll have limited room to work once it’s installed, so fit the CPU, memory and cooler- 5 INSTALL MOTHERBOARD 9 FIT FANS TO RADIATOR mounting components now. Now install the motherboard into the You want to mount the fans so that they Phanteks Shift XT. Use the screws provided push air through the radiator and out of the 2 INSTALL M.2 SSD with the case, lifting the PCI-E riser cable out roof, with the fans positioned as shown. The The solid state drive needs to sit under the of the way for now. screws included with the cooler need to pass motherboard’s heatsink, which will help to through the fan mounting tray in the top of the keep it cool. Remove the protective wrap on 6 CONNECT FRONT PANEL CABLES case, which is removable, and then through the thermal pad, fit the SSD and then reinstall The front panel header is thankfully easy to the fans before securing to the radiator. the heatsink on the motherboard. access, so you can leave this alone until the motherboard is installed. You only need to 10 SECURE FAN MOUNT 3 CONNECT 8 PIN EPS CPU deal with the power switch, USB 3 and USB With the radiator installed, replace the fan POWER CABLE Type-C headers in this case. mount on the roof of the case. It’s a tight squeeze for one of the tubes, but there’s Accessing the motherboard’s 8-pin EPS 7 CONNECT PCI E RISER CABLE a small recess in the motherboard tray that CPU power connector can be tricky once the Now connect the PCI-E riser cable to the allows it to fit. motherboard is installed in the case, so grab motherboard. In this case it’s pre-installed, so the cable from the PSU box and plug it into you just need to plug it into the PCI-E slot on 11 CONNECT COOLER CABLES your motherboard now. You’ll then just need the motherboard. The cooler has a single 4-pin PWM to hook up the other end to your PSU later, once the rest of the system is built. 84

RESULTS 11 78,629 924,785 335,828 343,421 GIMP IMAGE HANDBRAKE H.264 HEAVY MULTI SYSTEM EDITING VIDEO ENCODING TASKING SCORE 12 ASSASSIN’S CREED: VALHALLA 13 2,560 x 1,440, Ultra Settings, High AA 14 CPC mini PC 30 58fps 79fps 120 0 60 90 120 cable providing power to the pump and 120 fans, so attach this to the CPU header on CYBERPUNK 2077 600 your motherboard. 12 INSTALL PUMP SECTION 2,560 x 1,440, Ultra preset, no ray tracing With the radiator and fans secured, and the cooler’s cables connected, apply thermal CPC mini PC 58fps 64fps paste to the CPU in a thin cross-shape from 30 60 90 corner to corner, and then install the cooler’s 0 pump/waterblock section. Position it so that the tubes are under the least amount WATCH DOGS: LEGION of stress, which in this case has the tube connectors facing the I/O panel. 2,560 x 1,440, Ultra settings 13 INSTALL PSU Connect the SATA, PCI-E, 8-pin EPS and CPC mini PC 61fps 74fps 24-pin ATX connectors to the PSU, and fit it into the case so that the PSU fan faces 0 30 60 90 towards the side panel. 14 CONNECT POWER CABLES 99th percentile Average Connect the power cables to the motherboard, graphics card and, finally, the TOTAL SYSTEM POWER CONSUMPTION SATA connector for the case’s RGB lighting if you’re using it. CPC mini PC 109W 200 439W 0 400 Idle Load Our mini PC managed to produce a and not completely playing ball with the RealBench system score of 343,421, pass-through fan on our RTX 3070 Ti GPU. which was actually atad faster than the The CPU temperature topped out at 81°C same CPU in our 4K gaming PC in Issue with an ambient of 24°C when running 226. It also managed a silky-smooth 99th Cinebench R23, so it’s well away from any percentile frame rate of 58fps at 2,560 thermal throttling and you’ll see much x 1,440 in Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, the lower temperatures than this in games. same in Cyberpunk 2077 and 61fps in Watch Dogs: Legion. Finally, the peak power consumption in games was 439W, so there’s plenty The peak GPU temperature of 72°C of headroom for upgrades and, as this was a tad on the warm side compared figure represents less than 60 per cent of with an ATX case, but that’s mostly due to our PSU’s maximum output, the PSU fan the case having a sandwich-style design doesn’t spin up too much either. 85

FEATURE / DEEP DIVE INSIDE AMD FIDELITYFX SUPER RESOLUTION 2 AMD HAS REWORKED ITS FSR UPSCALING TECHNOLOGY, BRINGING IMPROVED IMAGE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE IN ORDER TO COMPETE WITH NVIDIA’S DLSS. EDWARD CHESTER TESTS OUT THE NEW TECHNOLOGY W iththevisualdemandsofmodern That’sthetheoryof resolution scaling, but notjust the visual informationfromthe current gamesgettingevergreater, and there are manydifferent techniques.Fora long rendered frametoupscaletheimage– known screen resolutionsgoing ever while, most ofthemoffered fairlypoorimage as spatial scaling –but also information from higher, the brute force approachtographics quality–thestepdownfromrunning atnative past frames. rendering is becoming less viable for many resolutionwasveryobvious –but thearrival situations. That’s why in recent years we’ve of Nvidia’sDeepLearning Super Sampling By combiningthepast frames withobject seen a significant increase inthe use of (DLSS) changed allthat. movement data fromthegame, therenderer resolution scaling (upscaling) to allow games can essentially addback informationthatis to stillshow all the latesteyecandy,such as ray The firstiterationof DLSS wasn’t all that lostbyinitiallyrendering atalow resolution. tracing,without frame rates plummetingwhen successful, butDLSS2 hasbeenarevelation. Thisuseofpastdataforupscaling is known running on high-resolution screens. It offers impressiveimagequalityin many generally as temporal scaling/upscaling. instances, andathighqualitysettings caneven Scaling new heights improve imagequality over runningatnative DLSS 2 isn’t perfect, as the temporal resolution, thanks to it replacing and doing a comparison canbreakdownif theplayer Resolution scalingis where a game engine better job than the temporal anti-aliasing (TAA) movestooquickly.Plus,like anyresolution rendersthe 3D portionof the gameat a lower usedin manygames tosmoothout jagged scaling,it worksbestat high resolutions. resolution than the one set in thegame, edges.Itmanagesthisfeat thankstoitusing Nonetheless,it’sstillavery capabletechnique. and stretches that image to fill ahigher- Theonlymajorproblemisthat it’sexclusiveto resolutionscreen, beforethen applying post-processing effects–such as film grain, chromatic aberration and on-screen blood splatters –and adding the game’sheads up display (HUD). It’sbasicallylike runninga game at a lower resolution, butwithout ending upwith a blocky-looking, oversizedHUD andmenu system. Andbecause the latteraregenerally onlyrendered in2D,they requirea fraction of theprocessing powerof the3Dscene behind them, despitebeing renderedat fullresolution. The ability toapplysome post-processing effects at the higher resolution also helps maintain a sharper-looking image compared withjust running a game at alower resolution. Native resolution without AA (left) vs native resolution with TAA (middle) vs FSR 2 at its Quality setting (right) 86

FSR 1 (left) on Ultra Quality mode looks far worse than FSR 2 (middle) and DLSS 2 (right) on Quality mode replacesthe needforTAA. Theoldertechnique dealt with the fullyrendered frameafter any AA–whether TAAorotherwise–had already beenappliedto it,leavingonlythe very finalpost-processingand HUDtobe added after upscaling. The lack of a reliance on specialised processing cores,suchasNvidia’sTensor cores,exposesthefactthatFSR 2 doesn’trely onanysortof machinelearningtoinformits upscaler. However,even Nvidiahas admitted that DLSS 2doesn’t really doany machine learningon thefly–as itdidwithDLSS1–the Tensor corerequirementismainly down to Nvidia simply choosing to use them rather than needing tousethem. Nvidiagraphics cards,andonly RTXcardsat algorithm howfar everypartofthe image Using FSR 2 that.All of which hascompelledAMDto come has moved.Crucially, though,whereDLSS2 up with its own resolution scaling technique takesadvantage of the Tensorcores inNvidia’s As withotherresolutionscalingtechniques, calledFidelityFXSuperResolution (FSR). RTXgraphics cardstoacceleratethescaling FSR 2 needs to be baked into the game you’re process,makingitexclusiveto those cards, playingandcan’tbeenabled viaagraphics FSR 1 FSR2worksonconventional graphics stream driver. However, given the widespread processors, using any GPU architecture. support for FSR 1, we expect FSR 2 to receive a AMD’s first attempt to create a rival to DLSS similarly speedy uptake. At the time of writing, wasn’t reallyadirectcompetitor,as itdidn’t Anotherkeydistinction betweenFSR2(and three games have already implemented includethe temporalcomparison ofDLSS 2. DLSS) and FSR 1 is that the new technique FSR2(Deathloop, Godof WarandFarming Instead, FSR1 is a spatialscaling technique that operates earlier inthe graphicspipelineand Simulator 22) and a further 16 games have first stretches the image thenusesan edge- support incoming. detection algorithm toselectivelysharpen certain portions of theimage. EACH INITIALLY RENDERED FRAME IS COMPARED WITH THE PREVIOUS FRAME AND COMBINED WITH Itworks surprisingly well,outperforming more basic scaling techniques in some games MOTION VECTOR DATA wetried. Moreover, it gainedsignificant tractionthankstoitbeingacompletely cross- platformsystemthat canworkonany graphics card. Over 75gameshadimplemented it ,or announced upcomingsupport for it,between its June 2021 arrivaland theannouncementof FSR 2 in March this year. Nonetheless, the stage wasset for AMDto comeupwithaneven bettertechniquethat could truly rivalDLSS 2, which it’s hoping to achieve with FSR 2. FSR 2 FSR2 isa complete rework of FSR that now includes a temporalcomparison element, just likeDLSS2. Each initiallyrendered frame is comparedwith theprevious frame and combined withmotionvectordatatotell the FSR 1 looks terrible on its Performance mode (left) but FSR 2 (middle) and DLSS 2 (right) look remarkably good 87

FEATURE / DEEP DIVE Within games that support FSR 2 you’ll Thischanges the degreetowhichtheupscaler find there are up to four detail levels available applies a 2Dsharpeningfiltertothe final – Quality, Balanced,Performance andUltra image.Justtherightamountof sharpening Performance.These willrender the game at can be crucialtotighten up theimage,but too an ever-lower starting resolution as you move much and there can be an unnatural quality to from the highest setting to the lowest. thefinal image.In Deathloop,thesharpening slider wasset toitsmaximumbydefault The exact resolution willvary depending andwedid find it alittleaggressive.Turning it on theoutput resolution (theresolutionof downtofive outof tenfelt alittlemorenatural yourmonitor),sofora4Kscreen theQuality looking butwe’vestuckwith thedefault 10 setting will render at 2,560 x 1,440, while for a settingforourtest shots. 2,560x 1,440 screen,the game will render at 1,706 x 960.Using the Performance setting, FSR 2imagequality a 4Kscreen will render at 1,920x 1,080and the 2,560x1,440 screenwillrender at just We used DeathlooptotestFSR2,as it’s 1,280 x 720. These are almost identical ratios not onlythefirstgametoimplementthe FSR 2 COPED SLIGHTLY BETTER THAN DLSS 2 FSR 2 (top) copes better with fast motion than AT MAINTAINING A SHARP IMAGE AND DLSS 2 (bottom) in our tests, with less ghosting and MINIMISING GHOSTING a crisper image toequivalentDLSS 2settings,withjust the technology,butitalsosupports DLSS 2,FSR Images werecapturedinitiallywiththe Balanced settingofeachtendingtodiffer 1 and has optional TAA for use when gaming playerstoodstill,then wealso testedfor any slightly (sometimesDLSS 2uses a slightly at nativeresolution –somegames forceTAA visual artefacts whilemoving. Wecaptured higher render resolution, sometimes FSR 2 is on when gaming atnative resolution,which screenshots forthelatterwhilewalking slightly higher). canmake someimage quality comparison forward with a fixed view (see above) and tricky.TAAis forced onin thisgamewhen using moving the mouse side to side (see below). In general, anyupscaling algorithm works FSR 1 though. best when starting with as high arender Starting off with a comparison of FSR 1 and resolution as possible,so it’sforthis reason Our test system included an AMDRyzen 5 FSR2,it’slike nightanddayevenat thehighest that the FSR 2 Ultra Performance setting 3600X,16GBof CorsairDominator3600MHz quality setting. The amount of detail FSR 2 will often not be implemented, and it’salso DDR4RAMandanNvidia GeForceRTX manages toretain inthearmofthecranein why Nvidia recommendsthe DLSS 2Ultra 2060.Usingthelattercardenabled us to test ourtest shotsis somuchhigher.Meanwhile, Performance mode is onlyusedinconjunction DLSS andFSRonthesame card,andit also theanti-aliasing on the wired fencesis with 8Koutput resolutions. represents a good example of the sort of card muchsmootherwithFSR2. If bothoptions that could potentiallybenefit fromupscaling are available, it’s clear which to use from a FSR 2 adds onefurther option with which withagamesuchas Deathloop. Atnative visual perspective. userscan tinker, whichisa sharpnessslider. resolution with all in-game settingsset to maximum,it delivered a just-about-playable Trying thePerformancemodes reveals DLSS 2 suffers considerably from horizontal framerate of31fps. astarkerdifference.Thedetailin therocks ghosting, while FSR 2 seems to cope better. Native behind the crane is almost completely lost resolution without TAA is the sharpest though withFSR1andthefences look acomplete mess,but withFSR2theystilllook impressively smooth. Native resolution Native resolution FSR 1 Quality FSR 2 Quality DLSS 2 Quality (no TAA) (TAA) 88

Upscaling mode Performance comparison Maximum (fps) thefixed3,440x1,440resolutionof ourtest Minimum (fps) Average (fps) monitor, and our results were interesting. The moststriking takeaway was therelatively Native resolution 25 31 33 modest performanceuptickof allthe upscaling modes. FSR 1 Ultra Quality 30 34 35 Withastartingpointof 31fpsatnative FSR 1 Quality 32 37 38 resolution, themaximumframe rate,we achieved without dropping to a lower FSR 1 Balanced 28 39 40 resolutionorchangingin-game detailsettings was 40fpsusingtheterrible-lookingFSR1 FSR 1 Performance 32 40 42 Performancemode. Meanwhile,FSR 2and DLSS 2were allbut tied on 37fpsand39fps FSR 2 Quality 28 34 35 using their respective Performance modes. FSR 2 Balanced 17 37 38 That’s still aroughly20 percentgainin frameratebut consideringthe Performance FSR 2 Performance 29 37 38 modes usearesolution halfthatof native resolution,it’s notquite theperformanceuplift DLSS 2 Quality 28 37 38 forwhichyoumight havehoped. However, these are early tests on just one game, and DLSS 2 Balanced 29 37 39 we fully expect to see greater variance inframerateacross differentgamesat DLSS 2 Performance 30 39 40 different resolutions. DLSS 2 and FSR 2 have very similar performance realisticsmoothness. Thisgeneralimpression LookingmorecloselyathowDLSS2 and characteristics, but DLSS 2 holds a small lead held up in movingimages too, with DLSS2 FSR 2 compared, there was an average 4.6 better minimising the pixel flicker from the percenthigherframeratefor DLSS2 over Moving on to comparingFSR2against fences as youmovearound. FSR2.This seemstotallywiththefactthat native resolution and there are two key factors DLSS 2can takeadvantageoftheotherwise to note. The first is just how little detail you lose These broader points largely held true in unused Tensor cores in an Nvidia RTX GPU to whenopting forFSR 2 on itsQualitysetting. Performance modetoo, with bothDLSS2and acceleratesome oftheDLSS2processing, Thereareonly merehintsof detailloss here FSR 2 looking very similar and both proving whereasFSR 2istakingupmoreperformance and there, although certainlythe aggressive impressiveatretainingdetail.However,DLSS 2 from the main stream processors. sharpeningalgorithm helpsto provide the pulled further ahead in its ability to reduce pixel illusion of more detail. flicker onfinedetail,such as overheadwires Conclusions and wirefences. Thesecondnotable factoristhepoor For several years,Nvidiahas held asignificant defaultTAA implementation in thisgame. As forour moving gamingtests,wewere advantageoverAMDthanks toitsDLSS2 It fails miserably to retain any detail in the surprisedtofind FSR2copedslightly better technology, butwiththearrivalof FSR 2AMD wire fencesand generally softens theimage thanDLSS 2atmaintaininga sharp imageand finally hasan answertothis‘freeperformance’ considerably.Becauseof this, FSR 2 inQuality minimising ghosting. While there is distortion setting. FSR 2looks fantastic–almost asgood modeconsistentlylooksbetter thanatnative abovethe edgeof thebarrier inour test shots asDLSS 2.Bothupscalingtechniquescaneven resolution whenTAA is enabled. Without TAA, withFSR2,there’sless fullydiscernible offer imagequalitythat’s sometimes better there are jagged lines everywhere but you do ghosting,whereastheDLSS2shot looks than native resolution. Image quality in fast retainthat extra sharpness. softer and there areclearghostimages of the motion in both techniques suffers from a bit barrierabove it. FSR2,DLSS 2andTAAall lost ofghosting, butit’s onlyreally ofconcern for When it comes toFSR 2vsDLSS 2, both significantsharpnesscompared withnative competitive,faster-paced games. implementationsare very similar.The more resolution with noAA too. aggressive sharpening filtermakesFSR 2 pop DLSS 2is stillalittlefaster thanFSR a little more but DLSS 2 arguably has a slightly FSR2 performance 2,but notby much,and thefactFSR 2 more natural-looking, softer presentation. is available for just about any graphics DLSS 2also does abetterjobwiththewire Wecompared everypossibleiterationof card from the past ten years means it’s a fences, retaining more detail and a more resolution scaling available in Deathloop for technology thatcanbenefiteveryone. The fact it also works on Nvidia cards means AMD doesn’t have a compelling argument for gamers buying one of its cards over one from team green, but at least buying an AMD GPU no longer means missing out on such a potentially huge performance-boosting feature. 89

F E AT U R E / ANALYSIS Which GRAPHICS CARD SHOULD I BUY? Now that GPU prices are starting to bear some semblance to normality again, Ben Hardwidge takes a look at the current market to tell you which GPUs should be on your shortlist 1,920 x 1,080 GAMING I fyou’reonlylookingtoplaygamesat from an etailer now. Before you buy, check the XT, which currently goes for around £250 on 1,920 x 1,080, or you’re simply on a price of the card new – don’t get caught in a eBay. Like the GTX 1660, it doesn’t have any tight budget, the GPU market is still in bidding war without doing your research – we ray-tracing hardware, but it offers an awesome a bit of a state. We sorely miss the days when found there was no point in buying any RTX amount of raw shader power for the money. you could buy a Radeon RX 570 for £150 and cards on eBay at their current prices. Compared with the GTX 1660, for example, it know it would do the job fine. That doesn’t mean averages 135fps in the same Battlefield V test – there are no options though – you just need to Let’s start with the cheapest entry-level that’s 56fps quicker. be careful. option that’s worth buying, which is the GeForce Of course, this is made harder by the huge array of options available, and prices below THE RADEON RX 5700 XT DOESN’T HAVE ANY RAY the £400 mark are still a bit all over the place. TRACING HARDWARE, BUT IT OFFERS AN AWESOME Is it worth buying a second-hand GPU? Is an AMOUNT OF RAW SHADER POWER FOR THE MONEY RTX 3050 better than an RTX 2060? Is the GTX 1660 still worth considering? There are GTX 1660 – these currently go for around £150 We also ran some of our new game tests so many questions, so let’s take them on. on eBay, saving you around £50 on the cost on the Radeon 5700 XT, and it produced some of buying one new. If you’re on an extremely stunning results for the money. It averaged Buying second-hand tight budget, this is the bare minimum spec you 253fps in Doom Eternal at 1,920 x 1,080, for should consider. example – you could even use this card on a Be very wary if you’re buying second-hand. monitor with a high refresh rate. It also averaged Firstly, remember that any GPU you buy may The GTX 1660 is based on Nvidia’s last-gen 76fps in Metro Exodus. have been pummelled to within an inch of its Turing architecture, so it doesn’t have any of life in a cryptocurrency farm. Secondly, a lot of the RT cores for ray tracing, or the Tensor cores That’s 12fps quicker than the GeForce people are seemingly paying very silly prices for for deep learning, which are found on the RTX- RTX 3060, and for much less money. It even second-hand cards on eBay, when they could branded Turing GPUs. As such, you won’t be outperforms the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti in get new cards with a warranty for less money able to run any of the latest gaming features, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. If you just want such as ray tracing and DLSS. the fastest frame rates for the cheapest price, A second-hand GeForce GTX 1660 is the bare and you don’t care about ray tracing, this is the minimum spec you should consider You also won’t be able to play the latest graphically demanding games at top settings, AMD’s Radeon RX 5700 XT is the second-hand but you will be able to comfortably play them bargain of the moment, but try to find one without at lower settings, and you’ll be fine in older and this reference cooler design less demanding titles. We ran our old Battlefield V benchmark at Ultra settings on a GTX 1660, for example, and it averaged 79fps, which is absolutely fine. If you can afford to stretch your second-hand budget a bit further, however, the bargain of the moment is AMD’s last-gen Radeon RX 5700 90

The aging GeForce RTX 2060 is cheaper and faster than the new RTX 3050 at current prices second-hand card to buy – just make sure you AMD’s Radeon RX 6600 XT our frame rate target (at least a 45fps 99th buy a third-party card with a decent cooler, remains the sub-£400 GPU king percentile and 60fps average) across most of rather than a reference design with a noisy our test suite. blower-style cooler. frame rates from this card in the latest demanding games, it can cope with it in some At 1,920 x ,1080, it averages 79fps in What about the RTX 2060? less demanding and older titles. For example, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, even beating the it averaged 55fps in Battlefield V with High ray GeForce RTX 3070. It also beats the GeForce In the midst of a crisis where none of its latest tracing enabled. RTX 3060 in our non-ray-traced Cyberpunk GPUs could be bought, Nvidia rushed the aging 2077 test, with a 59fps average compared GeForce RTX 2060 back out to market, which Enough of the old GPUs already to 58fps. You can even (at a push) enable ray has created a bit of a confusing situation when tracing on it. The 6600 XT produced the same it’s up against the new cards. To make matters We’ll admit it’s a bit hard to get excited about average of 54fps in Metro Exodus as the RTX worse, there’s also now an 8GB version with the prospect of buying a second-hand GPU, or 3060 with High ray tracing enabled, but its 99th slightly more CUDA cores than the previous a new one based on a last-gen architecture, percentile result of 35fps was faster than the 6GB version. However, given that prices of the so what are your best bets if you want a proper RTX 3060’s 32fps. latter now border on the silly (they start from brand-new GPU? £330 inc VAT on scan.co.uk), the 6GB flavour is The RTX 3060 has superior ray-tracing the one to consider if you’re on a tight budget. For starters, forget any GPUs at the low end. power in newer games such as Cyberpunk The Radeon RX 6500 XT might look tempting, 2077, but that point is largely moot, as it still only We’ve tested the RTX 2060 6GB in our with its sub-£200 price tag, but these cards averaged 35fps (compared to 22fps for the current test suite, where it clocked up an are based on the same Navi 24 chip used in Radeon RX 6600 XT). You can get a boost by average of 59fps in Metro Exodus, and it AMD’s low-end mobile GPUs. They only come enabling DLSS on the RTX 3060, but we don’t maintained a 47fps average in this game with with 4GB of memory, they have narrow 64-bit recommend using these resolution scaling High ray tracing enabled too, but only with a memory interfaces and they only have 1,024 technologies at 1,920 x 1,080 anyway. The best clunky 99th percentile result of 27fps. You can stream processors. It speaks volumes that not new card you can buy for under £400 is the improve these results if you enable DLSS, but a single card manufacturer has been brave Radeon RX 6600 XT. in all honesty, DLSS looks horrible at 1,920 x enough to send one to us for review. 1,080 – you’d be better off lowering some of the In summary graphics settings instead. However, you only get The GeForce RTX 3050 is a better option, 6GB of memory, so this GPU won’t even run our coming with 8GB of memory, 2,560 CUDA My budget is very limited Doom Eternal test at top settings. cores and a 128-bit memory interface. However, Second-hand Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 in our tests the RTX 3050 is outperformed by Comparatively, the pricier RTX 3050 is the cheaper RTX 2060. ~£150 ebay.co.uk significantly slower in Metro Exodus (48fps, or 40fps with ray tracing). The RTX 2060 is also With the two new low-end options knocked I want fast frame rates on the cheap slower than the Radeon RX 5700 XT, but it’s a out, that brings us to the GeForce RTX 3060 and Second-hand AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT decent step up from the GTX 1660 in terms of AMD’s Radeon RX 6600 and 6600 XT, with shader power, averaging 110fps in Battlefield prices respectively starting from £300, £350 ~£250 ebay.co.uk V. Also, while you can’t get decent ray-tracing and £360 from overclockers.co.uk I want to buy new If you can’t afford to go above beyond £300, Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 6GB the Radeon RX 6600 is a decent option. It even outperforms the pricier RTX 3060 in £249 overclockers.co.uk Metro Exodus at 1080p without ray tracing, for example, averaging 66fps. I’m happy to pay for the best AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT If you can afford to go a bit further, you’re choosing between the GeForce RTX 3060 and £360 overclockers.co.uk Radeon RX 6600 XT, and it’s the latter that gets our vote. It’s the one sub-£400 GPU that hits 91

F E AT U R E / ANALYSIS 2,560 x 1,440 GAMING If you’relooking to play games at2,560 x Otherwise, the RTX 3070 is quicker across The RTX 3070 Founders Edition is a 1,440 then you’ll need a bit more GPU power the board, and it also opens up the gateway no-brainer now that it’s back in stock at £469 in order to churn out all those extra pixels. to ray tracing. It averages 63fps in Metro Thankfully,theGPUmarketstartsto getmuch Exodus at 2,560 x 1,440 with High ray tracing, 5fps in Metro Exodus with High ray tracing less clutteredandcomplicatedonceyouget compared to 47fps for the Radeon RX 6700 and DLSS. That’s not much of a difference beyond the £400level, and it’sbeenrecently XT, and this increases to 71fps if you enable for an extra £90. Still, if you want a bit more made much simplerbythe fact that several DLSS, which is worth doing once you hit performance, and you can’t run to the RTX of Nvidia’sFounders Editioncards are now 2,560 x 1,440. 3080, the RTX 3070 Ti is still a decent option. actually backinstockatnvidia.com at their original launchprices. Until this point, we’d previously been Finally, we come to the ultimate card for recommending Nvidia’s newer GeForce RTX gaming at this resolution, the RTX 3080. With aprice of £469 inc VAT,the RTX 3070 3070 Ti, as the RTX 3070 was either out of Sadly, the Founders Edition isn’t in stock is a no-brainer if you want to go beyond 1080p. stock or overpriced, but the re-establishment at nvidia.com again, but you can pick up a It alsoleavesitslittlesibling, theRTX 3060 Ti, of both GPUs in Founders Edition cards board partner card for £740 inc VAT from in rather a no man’s land. There’s no Founders changes this situation. There’s not much overclockers.co.uk. The 10GB version is all Edition ofthe latteravailable on nvidia.com difference between the RTX 3070 and the you need if you’re gaming at 2,560 x 1,440, at the moment, and boardpartnercards at 3070 Ti, with just an extra two SMs enabled and it’s a killer GPU. It will run Cyberpunk retailers currently start at £470 inc VAT on on the latter, giving you 256 extra CUDA cores, 2077 at 80fps with Medium ray tracing and overclockers.co.uk, so you may as well buy the and the Ti card also has GDDR6X memory, DLSS, and it will only drop down to a 63fps RTX 3070 Founders Edition. rather than GDDR6. 99th percentile. The RTX3070 is generally around 10 per That spec boost gives you a little more Add its superb 348fps average in Doom cent quickerthan the RTX3060 Ti–both performance, but not a great deal – you’re Eternal at 2,560 x 1,440 (the RTX 3070 Ti gets GPUs are based on the same GA104 chip, looking at an extra 4fps in Cyberpunk 2077 300fps), and its 90fps average (with a 52fps buttheRTX3070 has46of itsstreaming with Medium ray tracing and DLSS, or an extra 99th percentile) in Metro Exodus with High ray multiprocessors (SMs) enabled, compared tracing and DLSS, and this is a fantastic GPU if to38 on theRTX3060Ti.This givesit 5,888 you can afford it. CUDAcores, over the 4,864in the3060Ti, and italso gives it eightmoreRT coresfor In summary ray tracing. I want to go beyond 1080p The RTX3070is alsogenerallyquicker than Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 AMD’s nearest competition,the Radeon RX 6700 XT andthe new(identicalbutclocked up) £469 nvidia.com Radeon RX 6750 XT, with the former currently startingat£470 incVATfromoverclockers. co.uk. The exceptionto this generalisationis Assassin’s Creed Valhalla,wheretheRadeons have the upper edge,but the RTX 3070 still averages over 60fps in this game. Givemea bitmorepower NvidiaGeForceRTX 3070Ti £549 nvidia.com Only thebestforsir Nvidia GeForceRTX 308010GB £740 overclockers.co.uk 92

You hit severely diminishing returns once you get past the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 4K GAMING Finally, wecometo the pinnacle ofgaming AMD’s nearest competitoris the Radeon resolutions, the mighty pixelspaceof 3,840x RX6950XT;likeallthelatestRadeons, this 2,160.Therearen’tmanygraphics cardsupto isfasterthantheequivalentGeForce GPU in thisjob.In fact,even the£1,879 GeForceRTX Assassin’s CreedValhalla,butotherwisethe 3090Tican’t playCyberpunk2077with Ultra RTX 3080Tiis fasteracross the board at 4K. ray tracing at 4K, evenwith DLSS enabled. Beyond this point,you getintoseverely As we coveredinourrecent4Kgaming diminishing returns. The RTX 3090 comes feature(see Issue226,p78),youget thebest with ahuge24GB of memory,but only gives 4K bang for yourbuck from Nvidia’sGeForce youan extra twoSMs,sothe performance RTX 3080Ti.You can pickupthe Founders impacton gamesisminimal(just5fpsinMetro Edition for£1,049fromnvidia.com,but board Exodus at4KwithHighraytracing).Pricesfor THE GEFORCE RTX 3090 ONLY GIVES YOU AN EXTRA TWO SMs OVER THE 3080 Ti, SO THE PERFORMANCE IMPACT ON GAMES IS MINIMAL partnercardsalso currentlygofor the same theRTX3090startat £1,518incVATonscan. priceat overclockers.co.uk.Plus,unlikethe co.uk –alot ofmoney for such asmallboost. RTX 3070 Ti, there’s a substantial step up in spec between the RTX 3080andthe 3080 Ti. Likewise, the RTX 3090 Ti gives you another twoSMsontopof theRTX3090, It has 80 ofitsGA102 GPU’s SMsenabled, but costs£1,879 –that’sanextra£830 over givingit10,240CUDA cores,comparedto the RTX3080Ti, and it’sonly 7fps fasterin 8,704 in theRTX 3080. Its 384-bit memory MetroExodus with Highraytracing.Unless you interface isalso wider than the320-bit literallyhavemoneytoburn,the RTX 3080Ti interfaceontheRTX3080,andithas an is the 4K gaming sweet spot. extra2GBofGDDR6X memory. In summary The GeForceRTX 3080 Ti isthe minimum- spec GPU that hits our frame rate target in Iwant toplay games at4K Metro Exodus at 4Kwithhighray tracing Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080Ti enabled, averaging 74fps with a 47fps 99th percentile –that averageis 10fps faster than £ 1,049 nvidia.com theresultfrom thestandard RTX3080.Its 227fps average in Doom Eternal at 4K isalso Ilove the smell ofburningmoney a stunning result. Nvidia GeForceRTX 3090Ti £1,879 nvidia.com 93

CU STO M I SATION / HOBBY TECH GARETH HALFACREE’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 Panic Playdate C reated through a collaboration However, it’s also smart. The The Panic Playdate isn’t your average between games publisher Panic panel uses Sharp’s Memory handheld device, with its black and and esoteric electronics concern LCD technology, which means it white display and hand-crank peripheral Teenage Engineering, the Playdate is a draws very little power unless it’s handheld console. It’s not your usual handheld being actively updated. In fact, the on the base. Weirdly, there’s also a crank on console either. For starters, the Playdate’s Playdate’s display is always on: the right-hand side – a metal and plastic crank, screen is black and white. Not shades of grey, when you’re not playing, it doubles with a yellow handle, which hides in a small but a simple 1-bit black and white 2.7in 400 x as a clock – a feature that will be enhanced slot when it’s not in use. 240 panel. There’s neither a back nor a front with the planned launch of a desktop dock in light, meaning it’s usable only in a well-lit room the near future. The crank is, effectively, the console’s main or in sunlight – like Nintendo’s original Game selling point. While it might look like a device Boy range. Most of the controls on the bright yellow you’d use to charge the console in some kind console, which feels pleasingly robust in of gaming emergency, it’s actually an input The standard bundle is just the console and a USB hand despite its small size, are standard fare. device. The console can tell whether you’re cable, with the protective case sold separately There’s a 4-way direction pad to the left and cranking it forwards or backwards and at what two buttons to the right, with an optional flip speed, while a sensor can also inform the mode to put the screen on the bottom and game whether or not it’s docked. swap the D-pad to the right and the buttons to the left. There’s also a menu button and a top power button with an RGB status LED. Meanwhile, the single speaker sounds surprisingly clear, and makes a solid alternative to using the 3.5mm headphone jack found next to the USB Type-C charging and data port 94

NEWS IN BRIEF Seeed Studio opens UK warehouse Hobbyist and embedded electronics What you get instead is a ‘season’ of The bundled games range from basic RPGs, such specialistSeeed Studio (seeedstudio. games from independent developers – 24 as Casual Birder, to a music-making sequencer com)has openedits firstwarehouse in titles, provided at the rate of two a week for the UK, offering dramatically improved 12 weeks. The first two, Whitewater Wipeout with overnight drain being higher than delivery times andreduced costs by Chuhai Labs and Casual Birder by Diego expected – a problem worsened by the compared with products shipped from Garcia, offer a taste of what to expect. They console’s fussiness with USB chargers – the its Chinese warehouses. offer simple graphics, pick-up-and-play review unit refused to accept a charger that gameplay and clever use of the crank. works fine with other devices. ‘Onceyou finalise your orders,’ Seeed’s Serna Liang explains, ‘thepurchases In Whitewater Wipeout, the crank controls The biggest problem with the Playdate, aresent from ourUK warehouse and the direction of your surfboard as you perform though, is its price. At $179 US or $199 US expectedtobe receivedintwotothree as many tricks as possible; in Casual Birder, the for the one with the highly recommended workingdayswithabout $3-$8[around crank manages the focus of your camera as magnetic protective cover (around £145 and £2.40-£6.40ex VAT]shipping fees.’ you try to win a bird-spotting competition and £161 ex VAT respectively), the Playdate isn’t Only a subset ofthecompany’s products kick the ‘bad birders’ out of the village. cheap. Landed in the UK, you’ll pay £222 areavailablefrom the UK,but Seeed has inclusive of shipping and VAT – making it more indicatedtherangewillgrow overtime. Not every piece of software in the first expensive than the considerably more capable season is technically a game. Boogie Loops, Nintendo Switch Lite. Which brings us on to the games. Here, one of the titles delivered in your second you’ll need to temper your expectations. week of Playdate ownership, is a cutesy but If you have some cash spare, though, it’s The console is powered by an STMicro surprisingly deep music sequencer with an undeniably delightful device – and it’s STM32 microcontroller with a single Arm dancing pandas, pizza slices, rabbits and cacti. the perfect size for on-the-go gaming. The Cortex-M7F core running at 180MHz, plus Playdate is available to pre-order online from an Espressif ESP32 added for Wi-Fi and You’re not limited to just playing games play.date now. Bluetooth connections. With just 4GB of non- either. Panic has published a full software expandable storage, you’re not likely to see a development kit, allowing anyone – even, The case is overpriced but solidly built, and Skyrim port any time soon. thanks to the simulator, those who don’t keeps the screen safe have a Playdate themselves – to have a crack The console’s compact size makes it ideal at writing their own software. For the less for on-the-go gaming technically minded, a browser-based game development environment called Pulp offers a much lower barrier to entry. The Playdate community has already released a number of packages for the console, ranging from commercial games to simple tools, such as a DTMF phone dialler, to a collection of productivity tools with a voice memo feature that taps into the console’s on-board microphone. The official software, however, still needs some work. The battery life is one concern, 95

CUSTOM I SATION / HOBBY TECH U P DAT E MNT Reform T he MNT Reform (reviewed in Issue battery boards available for While component shortages have 220) is more than just a laptop. It’s sale as a drop-in upgrade delayed shipments, the MNT Reform a project driven by an aggressively for existing Reform laptops community is growing apace open ethos, and with development that’s – or, given the open nature both rapid and incremental – so much so that, of the project, you could From there, the project spiralled. Jacqueline’s less than a year since its first review, there’s also download the design finished Reform is a spin on the original already been plenty of new activity to report. files and have a crack design that not only encompasses a brand- MNT Research hasn’t been resting on at producing your own new keyboard but also swaps out the power its laurels since the original chunky, retro- battery board. jack on the motherboard for a USB Type-C style open-source laptop hit the market. In connector with Power Delivery support. It addition to a previously reported firmware A laptop you can was built entirely from scratch using the update designed to work around the issue of literally make yourself board design files released by MNT Research. batteries becoming too deeply discharged was always Hartmann’s while the laptop is in a sleep state, company vision, but few founder Lukas F. Hartmann has been people have actually investigating a hardware fix. attempted it. The kit The result is a brand-new battery form version of the board, which includes per-cell monitoring Reform, which is sold at in hardware. When the voltage drops a discount over the pre-assembled units, is to a minimum safe level, the batteries popular, but comes with the circuitboards are completely disconnected from the already populated. PCB design files are system until they’re recharged – a final and readily available from MNT Research, conclusive fix for the problem. but it’s only in the past few months that With a traditional laptop, that would be someone has proven that they give you good news only for those who haven’t enough information to make your own purchased their device yet. With the PCB from scratch. MNT Reform, though, the modular approach means that everyone Semi-pseudonymous maker Jacqueline can benefit. Once beta- started off simply wanting to replace testing is complete, the MNT Reform’s keyboard with MNT will make the a custom version based on a split ergonomic ortholinear layout. An upgraded battery board will finally put A work-in-progress adapter aims to bring the an end to deep-discharge problems Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 to the Reform 96

Still in the prototyping stage, the Pocket Reform brings back the netbook form factor Others in the community have also been the addition of steel ball bearings for a The community has contributed a range of add-ons hard at work. There are work-in-progress smoother glide. and respins, such as this ergonomic keyboard design projects for custom keyboard designs, as well as modifications for stowable external The company is also well into Arm cores with up to 16GB of RAM or carriers antennas for improved Wi-Fi range. There development of a smaller, netbook-like for Raspberry Pi 4 Compute Modules, to are also alternate operating system efforts, alternative machine dubbed the Pocket SOMs built around the free and open-source including a port of Plan 9 from Bell Labs, a Reform. With a clamshell design likely to RISC-V architecture, but none of them has a classic and now open-source distributed centre around a 7in display, as well as a release date attached. With that said, several operating system first developed in compact ortholinear keyboard, the Pocket SOMs appear to be in the final stages of the 1960s. Reform is still in the prototype stage with no development, which is good news for those release date yet available. who found the performance of the Reform’s Moving back to MNT Research itself, stock SOM disappointing. the battery board isn’t the only upgrade in On the software front, many highlighted development. Hartmann and colleagues bugs in our original review have been ironed The final update, sadly, is less positive. The have also been working on the Reform out. A 3rd-generation operating system ongoing component shortages affecting Camera, a privacy-focused open-source image was running through beta at the time the entire electronics industry have resulted webcam upgrade. of writing, designed to resolve several issues, in stock problems. Many people who pre- including the problem of package manager ordered their machine after the original The team has also released robust metal updates often breaking customisations. It’s crowdfunding campaign are still waiting side panels as alternatives to the thin plastic expected to have launched by the time this for their hardware a year later, and anyone ones that originally shipped with the laptop. issue hits the shelves. ordering one now is warned to expect a wait The trackball has undergone a series of time of six to nine months. revisions to improve its feel as well, including There’s still little news on the promised new system-on-module (SOM) designs, Those not put off by that fact can place however. Occasional teaser images and an order on mntmn.com now, with prices benchmark tests are being shared of SOMs starting at €1,099 (around £930 ex VAT) for that offer everything from high-performance the DIY kit version. NEWS IN BRIEF Jacqueline’s customised Reform includes a new keyboard and a revised motherboard with USB Framework Mainboard powers new custom builds Type-C charging TheFramework Mainboard, a single-boardcomputeroriginally designed to power theFrameworkmodularlaptop,has begun appearing in impressive community builds, including the pictured machine basedon a circular display.Created by Penk Chen, designerof the CutiePi tablet, the Mainboard Terminal (github.com/penk/MainboardTerminal) features a5incircularscreen andacustommechanicalkeyboard. ‘And yes,’itscreatornotes, ‘it runsSpacewar!’ RichardSutherland’s Framedeck (github.com/ brickbots/framedeck), meanwhile, is a portable machineinspired bytheTRS-80Model100 andhoused in a transparent laser-cutcase.The FrameworkMainboard isavailable tobuyfrom frame.work now,pricedfrom £399(inc VAT). 97

CUSTOM I SATION / HOBBY TECH REVIEW From Vultures to Vampires I nCommodore:TheInsideStory although the colour images sprinkled around the Originally proposed as a single book, From Vultures (reviewed in Issue 189), former pages are left unattributed, and subjects were to Vampires is now two separate volumes Commodore UK managing approached for comment and clarification, which director David Pleasance aimed to tell the tale Pleasance avoided for his original book. backers to buy the second book at only a slight of what happened within the (at the time) discount. With unarguable leeway to cut down on immensely successful computer maker to bring It’s also, at times, a little dry. From the off, nearly the filler, there was almost certainly room to pack about its downfall. At least, that was the idea – four pages are taken up by a cut-and-paste the whole story into a single book. instead, it served as an outlet for increasingly copy of Commodore’s bankruptcy filing, and a unbelievable and in no way corroborated fair chunk of the rest of the book is taken up by The book could also have benefited from personal anecdotes, plus a series of considerably regurgitation of technical specifications for every an additional editorial pass. A smattering of more enlightening contributed chapters from Amiga and Amiga-like machine that followed typographical errors break the flow. Sensible the community. Commodore’s sales, splits and eventual demise. Soccer is attributed to publisher Renegade From Vultures to Vampires: 25 Years of rather than the better-known Sensible Software, Copyright Chaos and Technology Triumphs Having criticised Pleasance’s original which created it, and concepts relating to the Volume One 1995-2004, to give the follow-up for its anecdotal nature, it feels churlish to Amiga’s inner workings – such as the ‘2MB chip its full title, is a very different book. Pleasance’s ding Dickinson’s follow-up for going in the RAM barrier’, a ‘planar-to-chunky chip’, and the name is still on the cover, but there’s another one opposite direction, but it’s a shame a middle concept of ‘retargetable graphics’ – are dropped beneath it – Trevor Dickinson, who wrote the ground between the two styles couldn’t have into the text without explanation. foreword in the original book. been found. The tonal shift is revealed within the first Ending on a clear cliffhanger – ‘unfortunately,’ few pages. You’ll find no first-hand accounts of It’s not all speeds-and-feeds, though, and the reader is told, ‘it was about to get much trade show orgies or ill-advised drink-driving there are fascinating stories to be found within worse’ – it feels like a book that only those adventures; instead, you’ll get a roughly the book. Examples go from a company’s already deeply entrenched within the Amiga chronological journey through the post- demise after investigations into its direct community will enjoy, although whether they’ll Commodore years, focused almost (but not funding of terrorist activities, to the still ongoing enjoy it enough to splash out on both volumes quite exclusively) on the fate of the Amiga family arguments as to which of the various efforts to remains to be seen. of machines. keep the Amiga alive into the 21st century are to It’s all factual in nature. Quotes both be considered ‘official’. From Vultures to Vampires Volume One is contemporaneous and newly obtained are cited, available from blackwells.co.uk now for £24.73 There’s a bit of a bait-and-switch to the (zero-rated for VAT), a discount from its £35 publication strategy, sadly. The title was originally recommended retail price. The second volume crowdfunded as a single book, before its authors hasn’t yet been published. decided to split it into two volumes, and ask There aren’ttoo many images inside, but what’s included is reproduced in full colour on glossy paper Gareth Halfacree is a keen computer hobbyist, journalist, and author. His work can be found at freelance.halfacree.co.uk @ghalfacree 98

FOR THE WIN / COMPETITION WIN A FRACTAL TORRENT NANO RGB MINI ITX CASE If you’re feeling inspired to get started on building a new mini system after this issue then you’ll want to enter this month’s competition, where we have an award-winning Fractal Design Torrent Nano RGB case up for grabs. The Torrent Nano RGB is built to maximise cooling potential straight out of the box. Its main standout features include an unobstructed base intake, an open front grille and a Fractal 180mm Prisma AL-18 RGB fan, which has been custom-made to achieve maximum air cooling while maintaining controlled noise levels. Other features include a removable top bezel, along with routing clips with cable ties, to make for easy installation and cable management. There’s also a top-mounted aerodynamic PSU shroud with integrated ARGB effects, and the case’s lights are all fully controllable by motherboards that support addressable RGB (5V). Meanwhile, despite being space-optimised, the Torrent Nano can hold a three-slot graphics card up to 335mm long, and its seamless tempered glass panel has a bolt-free, top- latching mechanism. SPEC • Motherboard compatibility Mini-ITX, mini-DTX • Power supply support ATX, max length 200mm • CPU clearance 165mm • Graphics card clearance 335mm, three slots • Included front fan 180mm Fractal Design Prisma AL-18 RGB • Total fan mounts 1 x 180mm, 4 x 140mm or 5 x 120mm (with included brackets) • Front panel 1 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C, 2 x USB 3, audio jack SUBMIT YOUR ENTRY AT CUSTOMPC.CO.UK/WIN Competition closes on Friday, 5 August. Prize is offered to participants in the UK aged 13 or over, except employees of the Raspberry Pi Foundation and Raspberry Pi Ltd, the prize supplier, their families or friends. Winners will be notified by email no more than 30 days after the competition closes. By entering the competition, the winner consents to any publicity generated from the competition, in print and online. If you choose to enter by subscribing to our newsletter, be assured that we don’t like spam: participants’ details will remain strictly confidential and won’t be shared with third parties. Prizes are non-negotiable and no cash alternative will be offered. Winners will be contacted by email to arrange delivery. Any winners who have not responded 60 days after the initial email is sent will have their prize revoked. 99

MODDING / OPINION ANTONY LEATHER’S Customised PC Case mods, tools, techniques, water-cooling gear and everything to do with PC modding Beware Socket AM5 cooler compatibility N ot a lot is known about Socket will remain, giving Socket AM4 same place, and if the backplate itself AM5 at the moment. We coolers that use coolers that use the is physically the same, with the same don’t know exact CPU them a free pass standard plastic threads as the one used on current models or core counts, although it for cooling Zen 4 mounting brackets Socket AM4 motherboards. looks like 16 cores may be the limit, at CPUs, the same will be compatible least at first, and when I spoke to AMD’s can’t be said of with Socket AM5 If it is, then there are a number of Robert Hallock recently, he suggested those coolers that coolers that do currently make use that 3D V-Cache might not appear at require the use of of the included backplate rather than the launch of AMD’s new socket either, a backplate on the motherboard. using their own designs. but that we would be seeing it again. However, one point that has been EK told me this month that the If that’s the case then two out made clear is that coolers that are backplate will be fixed to the socket this of three situations will be okay. compatible with AMD’s current Socket time, rather than being detachable, as However, it’s highly unlikely that any AM4 will fit on Socket AM5, and that with Socket AM4. CPU cooler or waterblock that uses there has been no change in Z-height a custom backplate will cleanly fit to for the new CPUs either, unlike Intel’s This is similar to Intel’s LGA2066 an integrated backplate on a Socket Alder Lake CPUs. socket, meaning that the use of custom AM5 motherboard. I have, however, learned from backplates won’t be possible. This waterblock manufacturer EK that raises some significant problems, as Socket AM5 isn’t going to offer cooler plenty of air coolers, AIO liquid coolers manufacturers and cooler owners an and waterblocks require the use of a entirely easy ride. While the plastic custom backplate to secure them to brackets on current Socket AM4 boards the motherboard. It remains to be seen if the CPU socket mounting holes will sit in the 100