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Welcome
Custom PC Issue 197
/ FROM THE EDITOR
Core the merrier
MD has sent a large,Ryzen-branded demolition squad
into the CPU market this year. While its AM4 Ryzen
chips are comprehensively taking a wrecking ball to
Intel’s LGA1151 chips,its latest Threadripper CPUs are now
bulldozing Intel out of the high-end desktop (HEDT) space.
Intelisfightingback,ofcourse,withitslatest18-coreCore i9 CPU
(seep26)settocostunderagrand–that’sahugepricereduction
comparedwithlastyear,butit’sstillnotenough.Notwhen a 16-core
Ryzenchipundercutsitby£250(seep24),andthelatest
ThreadripperCPUsareavailablein24-coreand32-coreflavours (see
p16),withthe64-core3990Xwaitinginthewingsaswell.
Now,we’ve had 24-core and 32-core Threadripper CPUs before,
but internal latency problems meant they were only really
useful in a select few heavily multi-threaded workstation apps –
in games and lightly threaded software,they were significantly
behind their AM4 Ryzen counterparts. That’s over now though.
The latest Threadripper chips can really do it all – gaming, video
encoding and massively multi-threaded content creation
software – all in the same chip.
Don’t get carried away,though,especially if your main
priority is gaming. Unless you’re using some seriously multithreaded content creation software,you won’t see much benefit
from a Threadripper chip. As our gaming hardware feature on
p78 shows,it’s worth having a 6-core CPU for today’s games, but
you get little benefit beyond that point.
I count myself in that category – I do a fair bit of video
encoding and gaming,which my 8-core Ryzen 7 chip handles
fine. If you want a killer PC that really does it all,though, the
latest Threadripper chips show that you really can have one
CPU that can’t be stopped,offering huge multi-threaded
performance without sacrificing lightly threaded performance.
That’s a massive deal in the HEDT arena.
Intel is also still stuck on its 14nm node,while AMD’s CPU dies
are now manufactured on a 7nm process. What’s more, AMD’s
TRX40 platform also offers PCI-E 4 s support for the latest superfast storage. Intel should be very worried indeed.
A
EDITOR
Ben Hardwidge
EDITORIAL
DESIGN
criticalmedia.co.uk
EDITOR
Ben Hardwidge
ben.hardwidge@raspberrypi.org
HEAD OF DESIGN
Lee Allen
DESIGNERS
FEATURES EDITOR
Edward Chester
Ty Logan, Sam Ribbits
edward.chester@raspberrypi.org
MODDING EDITOR
Antony Leather
COMMERCIAL
& ADVERTISING
ADVERTISING
Charlotte Milligan
GAMES EDITOR
Rick Lane
charlotte.milligan@raspberrypi.org
+44 (0)7725 368887
CONTRIBUTORS
Gareth Halfacree, James Gorbold,
Mike Jennings, Phil Hartup,
Richard Swinburne, Tracy King
PRODUCTION EDITOR
Julie Birrell
Unit 6 The Enterprise Centre
Kelvin Lane, Manor Royal,
Crawley, West Sussex, RH10 9PE
PHOTOGRAPHY
Antony Leather, Brian O’Halloran,
Fiacre Muller, Gareth Halfacree
PUBLISHING
PUBLISHING DIRECTOR
Russell Barnes
ISSUE 197
REVEALED THE HARDWARE YOU REALLY NEED FOR GAM NG
ALL
THE CORES
ACCELERATE CONTENT
CREATION WITHOUT LOS NG
GAMING PERFORMANCE
32
Cores
24
Cores
18
Cores
16
Cores
AMD THREADRIPPER
3970X
AMD THREADRIPPER
3960X
INTEL CORE i9
10980XE
AMD RYZEN 9
3950X
L S
GA NG LAPTOPS
G
GEFORCE RTX
ON HE GO
FROM £1 699
HOW ANTIALIASING WORKS
ISSUE 197
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3
C U S TO M P C / ISSUE 197
Contents
Welcome to Issue 197
Highlights
08 The best budget chip
you can’t buy
COVER
STORY
P16
Richard Swinburne picks up a Ryzen
5 3500X in Taiwan, complete
with a retail box and warranty.
Game therapy
10
Can games help to treat mental
health? Tracy King takes a
look at The Insight Project.
3rd-gen Threadripper
16
We investigate the changes to
AMD’s Threadripper CPU design, try
out the new 24-core and 32-core
CPUs and find out which memory
works best on the new platform.
22 Asus ROG Zenith II Extreme
We try out one of the first new
TRX40 motherboards off the block
for AMD’s new Threadripper CPUs.
24 16-core Ryzen
AMD’s new Ryzen 9 3950X packs
16 cores into an AM4 package
for mainstream motherboards.
We try it out in both gaming and
multi-threaded workloads.
44 Mince pie megatest
The test of the year is here! Find
out which festive pastry treat
won over our panel of judges.
50 GeForce RTX on the go
We put eight laptops with Nvidia
GeForce RTX GPUs through their
paces, in order to find the best
portable gaming machines.
88 All about anti-aliasing
Don’t know your TAA from
your FXAA? Edward Chester
looks at the various ways that
your GPU can smooth out the
jagged edges in games.
98 Hobby tech
70 Reading woes
Rick Lane thought he didn’t like
having to read text in games,
until he played Disco Elysium.
Gareth Halfacree looks at the Argon
1 Pi 4 and Sipeed Longan Nano,
while having a good read of a tome
about typography in arcade games.
30 GeForce GTX 1660 Super
We try out Nvidia’s latest tweak to
the Turing formula, which pairs the
GTX 1660 with GDDR6 memory.
111
78 What you need for gaming
Do you need more CPU cores
for gaming, and how much
difference does RAM make? We
investigate which components
make a difference to gaming.
106 Make a radiator blowhole
Our modder in chief, Antony Leather,
shows you how to boost your case’s
water-cooling potential by creating
your own blowholes for fans.
100
4
Reviewed this month
Reviews
PROCESSORS
Cover guide
18
19
24
26
Regulars
16
78
3
44
PRODUCTS
REVIEWED
MOTHERBOARD
22
8
REVEALED THE HARDWARE YOU REALLY NEED FOR GAM G
From the editor
AMD Threadripper 3960X
AMD Threadripper 3970X
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X
Intel Core i9-10980XE
Richard Swinburne
Asus ROG Zenith II Extreme
GRAPHICS CARDS
30 Zotac GeForce GTX 1660 Super AMP
34 Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 XT Nitro+
10 Tracy King
PERIPHERALS
THE BESTSELLING MAG FOR PC HARDWARE, O ERCLOCKING, GAMING & MODDING / ISSUE 197
A L
ACCELERATE CONTENT
CREATION WITHOUT LOSING
GAMING PERFORMANCE
32
Cores
24
Cores
18
Cores
16
Cores
AMD THREADRIPPER
3970X
AMD THREADRIPPER
3960X
INTEL CORE i9
10980XE
AMD RYZEN 9
3950X
Incoming
36 Cooler Master MM710
37 Razer Tartarus Pro
14
Letters
PC SYSTEMS
47 Custom kit
38 MSI Trident A
40 AlphaBeta i5 RTX
42 Scan 3XS Vengeance RTX Ti Fluid
62 How we test
Mince pie megatest
64 Elite products
44
44
45
45
45
45
45
45
46
46
46
46
46
46
70 Inverse look
PLLUS
76
GA ING LAPTOPS
G
GEFORCE RTX
ON THE GO
FROM £1,699
FEBRUARY 2020 / £5.99
HOW ANTIALIASING WORKS
50
12
88
Reality check
98 Hobby tech
103 For the win
104 Customised PC
106 How to guides
22
Morrisons Mince Pies
Tesco Finest
Morrisons The Best
Tesco Mince Pies
Heston Chocolate and Cherry
Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference
M&S All Butter
Sainsbury’s Mince Pies
M&S Puff Pastry Mince Pies
Heston Spiced with Lemon
Mr Kipling
Waitrose Butter Enriched
Co-Op Mince Pies
Co-Op Truly Irresistible Butter Enriched
Custom kit
111 Readers’ drives
47
47
114 James Gorbold
Cozoo Headphone Stand
Speedlink Orios LED XL
Gaming laptop Labs
50
51
52
53
54
56
58
59
60
44
Acer Predator Triton 500
Alienware m17
Chillblast Phantom 17
HP Omen 15
MSI GS75 Stealth 8SG-046UK
PC Specialist Vortex IX
Razer Blade 15
Scan 3XS Vengeance GL 2070
Games
34
71
72
74
75
76
GRID
Disco Elysium
Ghost Recon: Breakpoint
Trine 4
Pistol Whip
Hobby Tech
98 Argon 1 Pi 4
100 Sipeed Longan Nano
102 Arcade Game Typography
5
OPINION
RICHARD SWINBURNE / VIEW FROM TAIWAN
THE BEST BUDGET CHIP
YOU CAN’T BUY
Richard Swinburne tells AMD to bring the Ryzen 5 3500X to the UK
n last month’s column I lamented that AMD needed
cores. In contrast, the Core i5-9400F scores in the 980s here. The
a Zen 2 chip for around £125 in order to compete with
massive 32MB of L3 cache offers some advantages for AMD’s
architecture in certain benchmarks.
the Intel Core i5-9400F. The Ryzen 5 3500X is that
chip, except you can’t buy it in the UK. Out here in East Asia,
You might be tempted by the discounts on the Ryzen
however, I just picked one up in a retail box with a three-year
2000 series, but the Zen 2 performance uptick means it’s not
warranty for the equivalent of around £125, which I’ve paired
really worth it. Meanwhile, the Ryzen 5 3600 with double the
with a bargain-end Gigabyte Aurous B450 M (micro-ATX)
thread count is still a tempting buy, and certainly worth of the
motherboard.
award Custom PC gave it, but at £185, you could almost buy a
B450 motherboard for the £60 price difference between that
I dug into my box of bits and threw in a pair of old 4GB DDR4
chip and the Ryzen 5 3500X. Using a B450 motherboard isn’t
DIMMs, along with an early Samsung PM941 256GB M.2 SSD,
really a downside either, despite its lack of PCI-E 4 support, as
and the result is a very responsive system that will handle
PCI-E 4 SSDs are out of the league of budget
web browsing, office work and 1080p gaming.
systems anyway.
If you’ve been clinging onto an older Sandy
Out here in East Asia, I
Bridge, Ivy Bridge or Haswell-era chip and
I paired the Ryzen 5 3500X system with
just
picked
one
up
in
a
you’re on a tight budget, a Ryzen 5 3500X and
a Radeon RX 580 4GB, which was another
B450 setup offers a great upgrade, especially
retail box with a three- bargain considering that these cards now
when DDR4 prices are so low and even large
cost almost half the price of the 8GB models.
year
warranty
M.2 drives are now affordable.
It’s the first time I’ve ever built a ‘full AMD’
Compared with the Intel Core i5-9400F, it
PC. I once paired an ATI Radeon 9700 with a
has the same 6-core/6-thread setup, similar clock speeds and
Socket A Athlon CPU, but that doesn’t count because it was
lack of integrated graphics. You can also overclock the 3500X,
several years before AMD bought ATI.
even on a cheap B450 board.
Pairing a Ryzen 5 3500X with a Radeon RX 580 4GB has
With Precision Boost Overdrive enabled, all the cores hit
made a great 1080p gaming rig for the money. So far, I’ve tried
4GHz, and manual overclocking the preferred core enabled it
Cities Skylines, Trine 4 and even The Outer Worlds at very high
to reach 4.3GHz, giving it the single-threaded performance of
settings, and my son is happy with the noticeable boost in
more expensive chips. The hiccup was that I couldn’t have one
Minecraft Java performance.
4.3GHz core and all the other five cores at 4GHz, as the system
AMD is supposed to be replacing its B450 chipset with a
kept automatically downclocking the other cores.
newer B550 chipset at some point soon, and I hope it uses the
Testing Cinebench R15 produced a multi-threaded score of
occasion to bring its Ryzen 5 3500X to the rest of the world,
1,086 at stock speed (3.6GHz), increasing to 1,104 at 4GHz on all
otherwise you guys are seriously missing out!
I
Richard has worked in tech for over a decade, as a UK journalist, on Asus’ ROG team and now as an industry analyst based in Taiwan
8
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OPINION
T R ACY K I N G / SCEPTICAL ANALYSIS
GAME THERAPY
Can games help to treat mental health? Tracy King
takes a look at The Insight Project
’ve always been interestedintherelationshipbetween
gaming and mental health, but historically that’s
been very much from a‘games are brilliant escapism
when you can’t cope’ perspective (I’ve frequently credited
Final Fantasy IX with savingmefollowingaveryseriousmental
health breakdown many years ago). Increasingly, though, it’s
obvious that – a few corporate gamified apps aside – games
can be used as a social good far beyond escapism and fun.
The evidence for any causalrelationshipbetweengamingand
mental health problems has been thoroughly explored in this
column many times, and I feelsafeinsayingI’vebeenvindicated
for my warnings and criticismaround‘gamingdisorder’andthe
medicalisation of gaming behaviours.
But that’s not to say there is no correlation.
Many gamers have mental health problems,
although I would argue that’s why they seek
out games, rather than the otherwayaround.
That doesn’t mean games can’tordon’tmake
mental health worse for a fewpeople,aswith
overconsumption of any vivid media, such
as films or TV. Rather than study the effect of
existing games on mental health, though, why not design games
that help to study mental health?
It’s been tried before, and it’s usually a bit naff. That’s largely
because decent game design is about gameplay, not collecting
data about players’ emotions. Games designed specifically to
study psychology or neuroscience are often made cheaply, for a
laboratory environment, rather than for any of the usual reasons
you make a game.
But now, enter The Insight Project (theinsightproject.com).
It’s a proper academic endeavour run by Professor Paul Fletcher,
a psychiatrist and neuroscientist at Cambridge University, and
Tameem Antionades who co-founded game developer Ninja
I
Theory. The aim of the project is to create ‘an exciting and
immersive AAA game experience’ that ‘will overcome the
stigma of treatment.’
The Insight Project has partnered with Microsoft, and Ninja
Theoryhasalreadyproducedahigh-quality game in Hellblade:
Senua’s Sacrifice, which got a 93 per cent score in Issue 170 of
CustomPC.Wedescribeditasa‘masterpiece of virtual empathy,
and a stunning adventure’.
In this case, the developers not only worked with scientists,
but also people with experience of psychosis, which is the gold
standardforanyentertainmentmedium aiming to depict illness
or disability. They then raised £100,000 to provide training
for mental health professionals, and talked
at science events worldwide about using
gaming to help end mental health stigma.
One of the factors that drives me to write
snarky columns is when scientists study
games and their impact without actually
being gamers or consulting with developers
and players. The Insight Project, as far as I
can tell,is doing everything right. Its master
plan is to use a gaming environment to help researchers and
patients better understand what’s actually going on, with a
view to maybe even being able to fix it.
It sounds like Black Mirror, but it makes a lot of sense. While
medication is one of the most important tools in mental health
treatment, therapy is also very important. I’m familiar with the
scientific evidence for both mindfulness and CBT, and it’s clear
that therapeutic interventions can be very effective in many
cases. So why not expand that into a gaming environment? If
imagining a calm, beautiful beach is useful, why not go full VR
and actually put yourself there? I’ll be first in line to try that. If
the future of therapy is gaming, I’m all for it.
Games designed
specifically to study
psychology or neuroscience
are often made cheaply
Gamer and science enthusiast Tracy King dissects the evidence and statistics behind popular media stories surrounding tech and gaming
10
@tkingdot
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I N CO M I N G / NEWS
InWin unveils
$500 case
InWin has announced a new full tower case with a huge price tag. The
925 has a recommended retail price of $500 US (around £466 inc VAT),
making it ideal for when you’re building a PC that deserves a home nicer
than yours. It looks spacious, gorgeous, robust and well-ventilated.
Made from 4mm-thick brushed aluminium, the 925 has a chunky,
unthreatening and almost cartoonish aesthetic, with some distinctive
visible nuts and bolts and a big tempered glass window to show off
the cavernous interior. There’s also an addressable RGB logo on the
front panel, which helps break up the otherwise stern frontage.
Cooling options are substantial, with room for three 120mm or two
140mm fans in the front panel, three 120mm fans in the top, three 120mm
fans in the rear and the option to install up to 360mm radiators in the front
or the top. The rear cooling option is particularly substantial, with most
cases favouring only a single 120mm exhaust fan. The hard disk cage
can also be removed to provide space for a water-cooling reservoir.
Storage options are surprisingly ordinary given the size of the
case, with space for four 3.5in and three 2.5in disk drives. The drive
bays are stashed in a compartment in the belly of the case along
with the PSU. There is a large amount of ostensibly unclaimed space
within the case, which lends itself to creative builds rather than
efficiency. There’s no word on UK availability for the InWin 925 yet.
PHIL HARTUP
AMD releases
unlocked Athlon
AMD has released a Zen-based budget
APU with an unlocked multiplier. The new
Athlon 3000G combines a dual-core (fourthread) CPU with an integrated Radeon
Vega3 GPU, which contains 192 stream
processors. It’s based on AMD’s 14nm
1st-gen Zen core, rather than the latest Zen
2 core, but it does have a very low price of
just £45 inc VAT from scan.co.uk.
12
The new chip is clocked at 3.5GHz at stock
speed, but the unlocked multiplier could
potentially enable you to get more speed out
of it. With just two cores and 1MB of L2 cache,
it’s not going to break any benchmarking
records, but if you’re strapped for cash, that’s
a very tempting price for a chip that contains
both a CPU and a GPU.
PHIL HARTUP
WORTH
£230
Asus launches
lightweight ROG
headset
Asus has released a new ROG-branded gaming headset with an eye on portability,
making it ideal for taking to LAN events or carrying in a bag. The ROG Strix Go
2.4 weighs just 290g and has a slightly less full-on gamer aesthetic than usual,
eschewing RGB LEDs and instead opting for a sleek design, with a removable boom
mic and integrated hidden microphone.
There’s also a travel case and an array of connection options, so you can use USB, 3.5mm
analogue jacks or a wireless connection as needed. The Strix also charges via USB and
should be able to run for around 25 hours from a full charge, or roughly three hours per 15
minutes on charge. The range of the wirelessconnectionisaround20m,soyoumight not
mbreak(butyoudefinitelyshouldtake
have to take off your headset for a bathroombreak(butyoudefinitelyshouldtake
your headset off before you go to the bathrroom,don’tbethatguy).
vers in airtight
The sound is provided by 40mm driv
chambers, with an array of different pro
ofiles to suit
n
different games, and there’s the option
of virtual 7.1 surround sound. It also
features AI-driven noise cancelling on
ally
the microphones, in order to dramatica
or
reduce background noise. The MSRP fo
the ROG Strix Go 2.4 is £160 inc VAT, an
nd
they’re expected to hit the shelves by
the end of the year.
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900 CASE!
PHIL HARTUP
Corsair has launched a USB-powered
set of RBG LED strips, which are
designed to be installed on the back
of your monitor to provide ambient
light. The iCUE LS100 is compatible
with other products using Corsair’s
iCUE software, which means you
can coordinate it with the lights
on your case, fans, keyboard and
mouse with the same interface.
The iCUE software also h som
compatible games, so that il
react with the lighting to even in
the game. The iCUE LS100 start
kit includes two 450mm strips wit
27 LEDs, and two 250mm strips with
15 LEDs, making for a total of
addressable LEDs. It also i ud
a USB controller and
er source
that can manag
to 192 LEDs. The
strips are at hed using magnetic
fasten s with adhesive backin
T
UE LS100 kits are availab
now from corsair.com/ , with t
starter kit costing £80 inc
HAR
What’s that?
Ourpalsatbequiet! are offering a Dark Base Pro
900Rev.2Silvercase to one Custom PC reader.
Theimageaboveis a distorted close-up of a piece of
rdwarefeatured in this issue. If you identify it,
em thenameand page number of the product to
comp ition@custompcmag.org.uk, with ‘What’s
at?19 theSubject field.
reviou
nners
ewinnerfro urIssue 195 competition was
lesHarr , hocorrectly identified the Creative
asterAWE32from p108. Congratulations
les,we’llbeintouch shortly to get your prize
sortedout.
Terms & conditions
Competition closes on Friday 10 January 2020. Please see p103 for our
competition terms and conditions.
13
F E E D B AC K
Letters
Please send us your feedback and correspondence to
letters@custompcmag.org.uk
When’s the next issue out?
JAN
9
Issue 198
will be on sale on Thursday, 9 January
and PSU that will cope well with
the new parts. Most of my existing
storage will transfer to the new
build easily too. I could do with your
advice on this before I make any
attempt to get the pieces I need.
NICHOLAS LAMBOURNE
Bite the dust
I’ve been reading Custom PC since
the very first issue and I’m over the
moon at the improvements since
the Raspberry Pi buyout! There is
one feature I would absolutely love
to see in the magazine, though,
which has plagued me for decades
– how to build a dust-free PC.
It doesn’t seem to matter what
components or case I use, dust finds
its way into my rig, and always has
done (even in a tidy and smoke-free
environment). I recently upgraded
my son’s PC, and it took us longer to
clean it than it did to install the new
GPU. Is there any way to prevent
this, and if not, how about an article
full of your top cleaning tips? Keep
up the excellent work with the
revived magazine!
RICHARD DAVEY
Ben: There’s no way to completely
remove dust from the equation I’m
afraid, Richard. PCs need an airflow
system that involves taking air from
your house into the chassis and then
exhausting it – you’ll always end up with
some dust entering the system. There’s
a few tips and tricks though. One is to
buy a case with removable dust filters
around the fan mounts – these trap a
fair amount of dust, and you just need to
occasionally give them a clean.
14
We also have a guide on our website
to making your own ones at custompc.
co.uk/dust – you only need a pair of
tights. You can use a mini vacuum
cleaner to carefully remove dust from
your PC as well. I like the idea of a
general cleaning article though – we’ll
put it on the list.
Gaming CPUs
I’ve been looking at upgrading my
PC recently. I’ve looked at the spec
for the ‘mid-range gaming system’
on your Elite list, and am going
to work with that one. However, I
have a couple of things to consider.
I currently use a Core i7-3770K
and a GeForce GTX 970, which
handles most stuff pretty well, but
I definitely want to change
to the RTX 2070 to get realtime ray tracing.
I’m just don’t know how
big the difference will be
with my current CPU and
the current generation
of CPUs. I’m also not
looking to overclock it
all, so I’m wondering if
I can reduce the costs
a little by changing
the motherboard or
some of the other
components. I
already have a case
Ben: Well, this is timely – our feature
on p78 addresses the difference that a
CPU can make to gaming, so it’s worth
having a read of that first. In all honesty,
while the Core i7-3770K is old now,
it’s still a pretty good gaming CPU. It’s
worth upgrading to a CPU with six or
eight cores, but for you, it’s the GPU
that will make the main difference to
gaming performance.
You can also definitely save some
money. If I were you, I would look at
getting one of AMD’s latest 3rd-gen
Ryzen CPUs (the Ryzen 5 3600X
will be ideal for this if you’re not
overclocking), but running it on an older
B450 motherboard. You may need
to update the BIOS so the board will
recognise the new CPU, so ask the
retailer if they can do this for you before
you make your purchase.
R E V I E WS / PROCESSORS
Reviews
S O C K E T T RX 4 P R O C E S S O R S
espite being the surprise member of AMD’s 2017
Zen party, and not even a part of AMD’s original
plans for its desktop CPU onslaught, Threadripper
has undergone the most dramatic changes of any Zenbased CPU. We first had a model with eight, 12 and 16 cores.
Then the 2nd-gen chips maintained compatibility with
Socket TR4 and the X399 chipset, while adding 24 and
32-core models.
This time, AMD has ditched any chips with fewer than
24 cores, with just two models sitting in the current lineup – one with 24 cores and one with 32 cores. However,
just before we went to press, AMD told us that a 64-core
Threadripper is waiting in the wings too. The decision to
keep Threadripper at 24
cores and above is likely
down to the Ryzen 9
3950X giving any chip
with fewer than 20 cores
a run a for its money
from both AMD and Intel –
it’s certainly more than
a match for last year’s
Threadripper 2950X.
A lot has changed
since last year, then, and
not only are core counts
on the rise yet again, but
under the hood, the new
3rd-gen Threadripper
CPUs are very different
from their predecessors
too. For starters, unlike
their 3rd-gen Ryzen
counterparts, which will
D
All four CCDs can
now access all four
memory channels,
and access
the PCI-E bus
independently
16
rk in X370 and X370 boards, the Threadripper 396
and 3977
not backwards compatible with older TR4
motherboards. Likew , der Threadripper CPUs won’t
work in the new Threadripper mo
oards based on the
new TRX40 chipset.
Farewell to TR4
While the new socket’s pin count remains the same as TR4,
the pinouts have changed significantly to accommodate
greater scaling, namely that aforementioned 64-core
model. Despite Socket TR4 no longer having an upgrade
path, the new Socket TRX4 is otherwise physically identical
to its predecessor.
On the plus side, this means that older TR4 coolers are
compatible with the new boards, which is at least some good
news if you’ve already invested in a Threadripper setup. If
you’re still using a 1st-gen Threadripper CPU and don’t want
to shell out for a whole new setup, AMD will also continue
selling 2nd-gen Threadripper CPUs alongside their Zen 2
counterparts, so there’s still some upgrade potential.
Under the hood
The most profound changes to Threadripper, though, lie
under the heatspreader. The previous WX-series CPUs had
four dies with eight cores apiece, with some cores disabled
on the Threadripper 2970WX to account for its 24 cores as
opposed to 32. However, unlike their EPYC counterparts, the
WX-series dies weren’t created equal. Only two of the four
dies had direct access to the PCI-E bus, with the remaining
two dies having to go through the other dies to access it,
creating latency.
The same was true for the memory channels. Only one die
in each pair had access to channels A and B, with the other
die in each pair having sole access to the other two channels.
AMD has increased the number of lanes to the CPU from four to
eight, with a total of 72 usable PCI-E 4 lanes
This created latency, meaning the CPU was severely held
back when it came to lightly threaded tasks, and even
some heavily multi-threaded tasks, with only a select few
workstation-class workloads that were largely unaffected
by the configuration being able to take full advantage of the
extra cores.
This meant that the 24 and 32-core CPUs were barely any
faster in some multi-threaded tasks than the Threadripper
2950X, which had half the number of cores.
Some of this performance drop was later found to be down
to the way Windows handled the CPU, but there’s still some
blame to be laid at the CPU itself.
AMD also tried to circumvent some of these issues with
Ryzen Master as well, as some games saw large performance
drops with the 24 and 32-core CPUs. The software allowed for
the disabling of cores, as well as switching between local and
distributed memory modes. It was all a bit involved.
This all changes with 3rd Gen Threadripper, though,
as AMD has tweaked the topology to allow each core to
access all four memory channels, and access the PCI-E
bus independently. There’s a pair of dual-channel memory
controllers, giving you four channels in total in the new CPUs,
and both controllers can be accessed at the same time by all
the CCDs via the I/O die. Both CPUs feature a quartet of 7nm
Core Chiplet Dies (CCDs), each with either six or eight active
cores. The CPU also sports a 12nm I/O die, which ties the
four CCDs together, connecting them to the PCI-E bus and
memory channels with Infinity Fabric.
AMD claims that this new design brings up to a 60 per cent
improvement in performance, thanks to the lower latency
and increased bandwidth, along with the proven benefits of
the Zen 2 architecture and improved memory speed support.
There is, of course, also PCI-E 4 support with Zen 2, and AMD
has increased the number of lanes to the CPU from four to
eight, with 72 total usable
PCI-E 4 lanes.
This equates to 112GB/
sec of concurrent PCI-E 4
bandwidth from the CPU’s
56 PCI-E lanes, and 16GB/
sec to and from the chipset.
AMD has also massively
expanded the on-board
cache amounts in much the
same way as its 3rd-gen
Ryzen CPUs. With double
the cores compared with
the Ryzen 9 3950X, you
get 128MB of L3 cache
and 16MB of L2 cache.
ANTONY LEATHER
17
R E V I E WS /PROCESSORS
S O C K E T T RX 4 P R O C E S S O R
AMD THREADRIPPER
3960X / £1399
inc VAT
SUPPLIER overclockers.co.uk
tom P
s
u
RE
A
TR
EXT
18
T
C
he Threadripper 2970WX was
probably the most niche
+ Excellent allThreadripper CPU AMD has ever
round
performance
released. The only reason you’d consider a WX-series
CPU was for the multi-threaded grunt, and even then it
+ Huge multithreaded
only worked properly in a select few applications. This
performance
time, the 24-core, 48-thread model is the Threadripper
Better
value
than
+
3960X, which is a good £600 cheaper than its 32-core
Threadripper
sibling, yet it offers an identical boost frequency of 4.5GHz
3970X
and a higher base frequency of 3.8GHz.
With AMD’s 7nm Zen 2 architecture under the hood,
BALL MOUSE
the Threadripper 3960X is potentially a much better all- Threadripper
3970X faster in
rounder than its predecessor. However, it stands alone in
some software
terms of price, with Intel’s Core i9-10980XE retailing for
- Expensive
around £400 less and having six fewer cores, while its
motherboards
bigger sibling will set you back two grand.
- Ryzen 9 3950X is
The only people who need to consider this CPU are
faster in games
people looking to make use of the
TRX40 platform’s huge PCI-E lane count,
SPEC
PCI-E 4 support and quad-channel
Base frequency
memory, and who also need huge multi3.8GHz
threaded performance. Intel, of course,
Max boost frequency
can offer some of the former, with its
4.5GHz
Cascade Lake-X CPUs dishing out 48
Core
Zen 2
PCI-E lanes and quad-channel memory
support, but you’ll need to venture into
Manufacturing process
7nm
Xeon workstation territory to see more
Number of cores
than 18 cores.
24 x physical 48 threads)
Both the new Threadripper CPUs also
IGP
have 128MB of L3 cache, but with two
None
cores per Core Complex Die disabled, the
Simultaneous Multithreading
Threadripper 3960X loses out on 4MB of
(SMT)
L2 cache, although the total still stands at
Yes
a hefty 12MB.
Cache
There was very little difference
128MB L3 cache, 12MB L2 cache
between the two 3rd-gen Threadripper
Memory controller
Quad-channel DDR4, up to
CPUs in our Realbench tests, with the
3200MHz
multi-threaded clout of the 32-core
Packaging
model being hampered by poor scaling in
AMD Socket TRX4
Handbrake, where it was only 40,000
Thermal design power (TDP)
points ahead of the 24-core model. Both
280W
CPUs topped the one million-point mark
Features
here too – the first to do so at stock speed.
Precision Boost 2, Precision Boost
The Cinebench scores were the first to
Overdrive, FMA3, F16C, SHA, BMI
/ BMI1 + BMI2, AVX2, AVX, AES,
stretch their legs, with the Threadripper
SSE4a, SSE4, SSE3, SSE2, SSE
3970X offering a 26 per cent lead.
c
OPTICAL
MOUSE
L
ME U
However, the Threadripper 3960X was faster than the old
32-core 2990WX, and is a massive 57 per cent faster than
the Intel Core i9-10980XE in this test.
Blender again saw the 2960X topple every CPU except its
3rd-gen sibling by a huge margin and, unlike the latter, we
didn’t need to engage Game Mode in AMD’s Ryzen Master
software to get decent frame rates. Only the Ryzen 3950X
and overclocked Core i9-10980XE were noticeably quicker.
Overclocking was fruitful too, reaching an all-core frequency
of 4.35GHz using 1.325V, which was 250MHz higher than
its stock speed all-core boost. This tweak boosted the
Cinebench score by nearly 1,000 points and added 20,000
points to the RealBench system score too.
Conclusion
If the Threadripper 3970X is out of reach, or if you’d rather
spend the extra £600 elsewhere, the Threadripper 3960X
makes perfect sense. It offers the same speeds in lightly
threaded applications, similar performance in many multithreaded applications, and it only drops significantly behind
the 3970X in select tasks. The fact it’s
PERFORMANCE
handy in both games and content
creation, unlike its 24-core predecessor,
makes it a monster of an all-rounder.
FEATURES
However, the Ryzen 9 3950X is better
value for money if you can make do with
less multi-threaded grunt.
VALUE
ANTONY LEATHER
45/50
15/15
28/35
VERDICT
Solves the lightly threaded performance
problems of its predecessor, and packs a
mighty multi-threaded punch.
OVERALL SCORE
88%
AL
N
FE
O
AMD THREADRIPPER
3970X
PR
S O C K E T T RX 4 P R O C E S S O R
C
c
tom P
s
u
SSIO
/£1,999 inc VAT
SUPPLIER overclockers.co.uk
MD’s Threadripper 2990WX and 2970WX were,
thankfully for Intel, rather niche, thanks to several
issues at launch hindering performance. Various
tweaks led to improvements over the months, but they still
lack grunt in many tasks outside of workstation-class
applications, in part due to the way they’re configured.
With 3rd-gen Threadripper, though, AMD has connected all
the Core Chiplet Dies, which amount to 32 cores and 64
threads, to an I/O die, giving each die access to the memory
controllers and PCI-E bus. This setup should massively
improve performance, especially in games and lightlythreaded tasks that benefit from lower latencies, plus you have
the improvements of the 7nm Zen 2 architecture as well.
The peak boost frequency has risen from 4.2GHz to 4.5GHz
for the Threadripper 3970X compared to the Threadripper
2990WX, and the L3 cache has doubled to 128MB too.
Meanwhile, an improved memory controller means the
Threadripper 3970X supports similarly fast memory to its
mainstream Ryzen siblings too (see p20 ).
Performance isn’t far short of the Ryzen 9 3950X in our
image editing test, despite the lower boost frequency, and
much faster than the Core i9-10980XE in this test too. What’s
more, even though Handbrake scales poorly above ten cores,
this test still revealed a stark difference between this CPU and
its predecessor, with the 3790X nearly doubling the
performance. Cinebench is where the 3970X really shines
A
SPEC
Base frequency 3.7GHz
Max boost frequency 4.5GHz
Core Zen 2
Manufacturing process 7nm
Number of cores 32 x physical ( 64 threads)
IGP None
Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT) Yes
Cache 128MB L3 cache, 16MB L2 cache
thou
ugh. It produced twice the score of
the Core i9-10980XE and it was 8,000
nts ahead of the Ryzen 9 3950X, with by far the
poin
best result in Blender too.
We
W saw some slow frame rates occasionally in Far Cry 5,
that still struggles
which according
g to AMD is a game
g
gg with high
g
core counts. Other games we tried were fine, though, and
switching to Game Mode in Ryzen Master solved this problem
too, but the Threadripper 3960X performs more consistently
here. The minimum of 90fps in Far Cry 5 using Game Mode
was similar to the Ryzen 9 3950X’s result.
We also managed to overclock the 3970X to 4.2GHz using a
1.3V vcore, which is 150MHz lower than we managed with the
Threadripper 3960X, and 300MHz lower than the stock
speed peak boost. Overclocking improved most test results,
but power consumption rocketed from 451W to 615W.
Amazingly, though, this was similar to the 18-core Intel CPU
and over 200W lower than its predecessor. This CPU does get
hot, though, especially when overclocked.
Conclusion
Thanks to the Zen 2 architecture, a 7nm manufacturing
process and high boost frequencies, the Threadripper 3970X
is far more capable in games and lightly-threaded tasks than
its predecessors, while delivering monumental multithreaded performance and excellent efficiency.
You won’t see scaling in all software, though, which means
you’ll have to carefully weigh up your options. The
Threadripper 3960X offers far better value too, with similar
performance in many tests, higher overclocking headroom,
and excellent multi-threaded performance. For a £600 saving,
it’s a better option unless money is no object. If time is money,
though, and you need to tear through those rendering tasks as
fast as possible, the extra cash will be well spent and, unlike
the Threadripper 2990WX, the Threadripper 3970X is adept in
everyday tasks and gaming too.
ANTONY LEATHER
Memory controller Quad-channel DDR4, up to 3200MHz
OVERCLOCKED
+
Most powerful
desktop CPU ever
+
Blistering
multi-threaded
performance
+
Decent gaming
performance
OVERCOOKED
-
Not much
overclocking
headroom
-
Not many
applications take
full advantage of
core count
-
Requires
significant cooling,
especially once
overclocked
PERFORMANCE
46/50
FEATURES
15/15
VALUE
25/35
OVERALL SCORE
Packaging AMD Socket TRX4
Thermal design power (TDP) 280W
VERDICT
Features Precision Boost 2, Precision Boost Overdrive, FMA3,
F16C, SHA, BMI / BMI1 + BMI2, AVX2, AVX, AES, SSE4a, SSE4,
SSE3, SSE2, SSE
A vastly superior CPU to its predecessor, with great allround performance and incredible multi-threaded grunt,
although it’s extremely expensive.
86%
19
R E V I E WS /PROCESSORS
WHAT’S THE BEST
MEMORY FOR 3RDGE
THREADRIPPER?
he story of AMD’s Zen CPUs and memory speed
has been a complicated and often frustrating one,
with early CPUs and motherboards being highly
unoptimised when it came to memory support. Running
your memory faster than 3000MHz on 1st-gen Ryzen
systems originally required very specific memory dies, or
you’d be stuck at 2933MHz. It took several months and a few
BIOS updates before we could run most memory at high
frequencies on the first Zen chips.
Thatwasunfortunate,because memory speed is very
importantwithZenCPUs,whether it’s an AM4 Ryzen chip or a
Threadripperprocessor.Allthese chips have a high-speed
interconnect,otherwiseknown as Infinity Fabric, which is
directlyrelatedtomemoryspeed. This in turn impacts on the
performanceoftheCPU,sousing fast memory can make all
sortsofsoftware,fromgamesto content creation, run faster.
TheZen2architectureintroduced a better memory controller,
alongwithastackofmotherboard AGESA code tweaks from
motherboardmanufacturers,and 3rd-gen Ryzen CPUs are
nowhappytorunmemoryat3600MHz memory speed while
maintaininga1:1ratiowiththeInfinity Fabric.
Go above this frequency, and some motherboards will
start to use dividers, knocking back the Infinity Fabric clock,
but allowing for faster memory to be used. In short, you
should aim for a RAM frequency of 3600MHz or below,
T
GIMP IMAGE EDITING
2666MHz
3200MHz
3466MHz
3600MHz
0
20k
40k
HANDBRAKE H.264 VIDEO ENCODING
2666MHz
3200MHz
3466MHz
3600MHz
0
300k
600k
100k
200k
HEAVY MULTITASKING
2666MHz
3200MHz
3466MHz
3600MHz
0
especially as memory prices can rocket above this speed.
For AMD’s standard AM4 Ryzen CPUs, we recommend
3466MHz memory, as it performs closely to 3600MHz
RAM, while offering a decent gain over 3200MHz memory.
Is the same true for 3rd-gen Threadripper? To find out, we
tested the Threadripper 3970X with a quad-channel Corsair
Vengeance RGB Pro kit clocked at 2666MHz, 3200MHz,
3466MHz and 3600MHz.
As you can see from the results, 2666MHz should be
avoided with these high-end systems, as it hammers
performance in nearly every benchmark, especially games
and multi-tasking, while it was 15 per cent slower than
3600MHz memory in our video encoding test too. Stepping
up to 3200MHz saw the frame rate in Far Cry 5 recover to
almost normal levels, leaping from a 78fps minimum to 88fps.
However, moving up to 3466MHz saw a 6 per cent
improvement in the video encoding test and 5fps added to
the average frame rate in Far Cry 5, along with a substantial
rise in multi-tasking performance. The final notch up to
3600MHz did yield a noticeable boost to the video encoding
score of around 8 per cent, but Far Cry 5, multi-tasking,
Cinebench and image editing saw meagre gains.
Overall, the situation is much the same as with AMD’s
mainstream 3rd-gen Ryzen CPUs. Memory speeds below
3000MHz should be avoided, as they rapidly see huge drops
in a number of tests. If you find a
B E N C H M A R K R E S U LTS
particularly good-value 3200MHz
SYSTEM SCORE
kit, you won’t lose vast amounts
344,680
2666MHz
of performance, but considering
61,666
3200MHz
348,913
61,830
you’re spending a sizeable
368,714
3466MHz
61,998
amount on your system already,
3600MHz
388,108
63,805
moving up to 3466MHz is
0
100k
200k
300k
400k
60k
80k
absolutely worth the extra money.
Going up to 3600MHz only
CINEBENCH R20 MULTITHREADED
gave us a notable improvement in
17,166
2666MHz
one benchmark. Plus, as most
1,000,500
3200MHz
17,265
3466MHz memory kits will
1,002,844
17,303
3466MHz
1,064,559
3600MHz
17,460
overclock to 3600MHz anyway,
1,146,847
this being Custom PC, we’d much
0
5k
10k
15k
20k
900k
1.2mil
rather tweak the BIOS and save
FAR CRY 5
some cash, so 3466MHz is our
1,920 x 1,080, Ultra settings
recommendation. However, if you
78fps
99fps
2666MHz
292,612
find a 3600MHz kit going cheap, it
88fps
110fps
3200MHz
307,035
will still offer a small performance
90fps
115fps
3466MHz
323,701
91fps
115fps
3600MHz
improvement without the hassle
323,807
of overclocking.
0
50fps
100fps
150fps
200fps
300k
400k
ANTONY LEATHER
20
THREADRIPPER RESULTS
GIMP IMAGE EDITING
CINEBENCH R20 SINGLETHREADED
61,998 62,291
AMD Threadripper 3970X
AMD Threadripper 3960X
AMD Threadripper 3960X
60,286 60,445
AMD Threadripper 2990WX
AMD Threadripper 2970WX
47,768
44,336
66,572
65,768
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X
Intel Core i9-10980XE
0
20k
Intel Core i9-10980XE
40k
60k
80k
436
433
0
150
300
450
600
CINEBENCH R20 MULTITHREADED
HANDBRAKE H.264 VIDEO ENCODING
AMD Threadripper 3970X
1,064,559
1,125,211
AMD Threadripper 3970X
AMD Threadripper 3960X
1,023,216
1,098,103
AMD Threadripper 3960X
AMD Threadripper 2990WX
671,747
AMD Threadripper 2970WX
623,141
AMD Threadripper 2990WX
687,345
AMD Threadripper 2970WX
9,531
10,531
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X
9,188
10,184
972,499
911,080
AMD Threadripper 2950X
300k
600k
900k
8,110
6,965
0
1.2mil
5k
10k
15k
20k
Overclocked
Stock speed
HEAVY MULTITASKING
13,883
10,658
8,742
AMD Threadripper 2950X
872,108
747,195
14,731
11,251
Intel Core i9-10980XE
1,025,842
885,376
18,466
17,303
13,765
688,728
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X
Intel Core i9-10980XE
0
484
454
AMD Threadripper 2950X
48,780
48,638
529
504
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X
60,920
54,011
AMD Threadripper 2950X
425
418
430
419
AMD Threadripper 2990WX
45,403 46,879
AMD Threadripper 2970WX
516
487
513
500
AMD Threadripper 3970X
FAR CRY 5
323,701
315,738
AMD Threadripper 3970X
AMD Threadripper 3960X
328,673
322,836
AMD Threadripper 2990WX
1,920 X 1,080, Ultra settings
AMD Threadripper 3970X
AMD Threadripper 3960X
Intel Core i9-10980XE
152,927
AMD Threadripper 2950X
0
100k
AMD Threadripper 2990WX
139fps
75fps
236,677
200k
110fps
87fps
172,767
198,413
106fps
85fps
306,350
301,982
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X
118fps
90fps
213,733
209,278
AMD Threadripper 2970WX
115fps
90fps
237,257
209,153
149fps
79fps
300k
AMD Threadripper 2970WX
400k
137fps
75fps
150fps
82fps
SYSTEM SCORE
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X
AMD Threadripper 3970X
368,714
AMD Threadripper 3960X
357,734
AMD Threadripper 2990WX
AMD Threadripper 2970WX
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X
100k
130fps
90fps
76fps
341,048
95fps
77fps
0
50fps
100fps
150fps
200fps
295,377
254,547
0
114fps
83fps
98fps
320,868
279,064
AMD Threadripper 2950X
Intel Core i9-10980XE
AMD Threadripper 2950X
326,395
Intel Core i9-10980XE
377,955
242,088
226,288
120fps
99fps
249,365
237,725
123fps
92fps
381,795
200k
300k
400k
Stock speed min
Stock speed avg
Overclocked min
Overclocked avg
Overclocked
Stock speed
TOTAL SYSTEM POWER CONSUMPTION
BLENDER SECONDS
Idle
AMD Threadripper 3970X
22
AMD Threadripper 3960X
23
23
AMD Threadripper 2990WX
28
AMD Threadripper 2970WX
29
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X
AMD Threadripper 3960X 140W
25
34
32
Intel Core i9-10980XE
AMD Threadripper 3970X 132W
33
34
38
0
15
172W
AMD Threadripper 2990WX 132W
156W
AMD Threadripper 2970WX 134W
159W
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 104W 110W
38
29
AMD Threadripper 2950X
222W
30
Intel Core i9-10980XE 128W
41
45
166W
AMD Threadripper 2950X 128W 132W
60
0
250
500
750
1,000
Lower is better
Overclocked
Stock speed
Load
AMD Threadripper 3970X
615W
451W
AMD Threadripper 3960X
440W
AMD Threadripper 2990WX
417W
AMD Threadripper 2970WX
526W
823W
685W
290W
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X
340W
242W
Intel Core i9-10980XE
595W
376W
AMD Threadripper 2950X
543W
290W
0
250
Stock speed
500
750
1,000
Overclocked
21
21
R E V I E WS / MOTHERBOARD
A
TR
c
EXT
RE
C
tom P
s
u
L
ME U
T RX 4 0 M OT H E R B OA R D
ASUS ROG ZENITH
II EXTREME / £715
inc VAT
SUPPLIER overclockers.co.uk
f a motherboard is scored on the weight of its
box, the ROG Zenith II Extreme would rack up
the points. It’s one of the most extreme
motherboards to pass through our lab. For starters, while
pricing was still very approximate when we went to press,
it’s set to retail for around £700, which makes this E-ATX
monster the most expensive desktop motherboard we’ve
ever reviewed. Secondly, it looks absolutely stunning in a
heavy metal, imposing kind of way.
However, Asus hasn’t just slapped copious amounts of
aluminium to the PCB in the form of
heatsinks and backplates. The RGB lighting
SPEC
is incredible, with an infinity mirror-like array
Chipset
on the I/O shroud, a huge illuminated ROG
AMD TRX40
logo on the chipset heatsink and a vivid, topCPU socket
to-bottom row of RGB LEDs in a diffusing
TRX4
strip under the right side of the board.
Memory support
There’s also a Livedash 1.77in OLED display
8 slots: max 256GB DDR4 (up to
4533MHz)
that can show POST code, CPU frequency,
temperature, fan speeds or liquid cooling
Expansion slots
Four 16x PCI-E 4
inputs, as well as your own GIF images. It can
Sound
prove handy when benchmarking, and it
8-channel ROG SupremeFX S1220
looks good too.
Networking
To power a 32-core Threadripper CPU,
Aquantia 10G LAN, Intel Gigabit
you need some serious motherboard
LAN, Intel 802.11ax Wi-Fi
hardware, and the ROG Zenith II Extreme
Overclocking
builds on the changes Asus made to its
Base clock 40-300MHz, CPU
multiplier 22-63x; max voltages:
refreshed X399 boards. It has a 16-phase
CPU 1.7V, RAM 2.5V
power delivery system with teamed power
Ports
phases, rather than doubled ones. These can
8 x SATA 6Gbps 4 x M.2 PCI-E 4, 6 x
provide the high bursts of current needed
USB 3.1 Type-A, 2 x USB 3.1
Type-C, 4 x USB 3, 3 x USB 2 2 x
when a 32-core CPU swings into action.
LAN, 3 x surround audio out
There are three fans on the PCB, with the
Dimensions (mm)
obvious one being the chipset fan, with two
310 x 277
more Delta Superflo fans sitting among the
I
22
VRMs and spinning up when the VRMs reach 60°C.
Thankfully, they only spun up during heavy loads and were
quieter than the rest of our test components. Meanwhile, a
huge backplate acts as a large heatsink to cool hotspots on
the underside.
There’s more cooling for other hardware, including the
four PCI-E 4 M.2 ports. Two of these ports sit under a
removable heatsink on the PCB next to the chipset fan, while
the other two are on a DIMM.2 module that installs next to
the outer DIMM slots. This module sports large heatsinks on
both sides, and it kept our SSD cooler than the lower ports,
while also being more easily accessible, as it’s not blocked by
your graphics card.
You get the usual tools too, such as power, reset and clearCMOS buttons, plus an LN2 mode, a slow mode and USB
BIOS Flashback. As you’d expect, there’s plenty of fan
headers on the PCB as well, but Asus has also included a Fan
Extension Card II, which connects to the motherboard and
provides six more 4-pin headers, three temperature sensor
ports and three RGB headers.
There’s also a water-cooling pump header that can dish
out over 36W to control your pump, as well as coolant flow
sensors, plus a dedicated CPU waterblock port than can
receive data about temperature and leaks.
The storage and networking side of the ROG Zenith II
Extreme won’t leave you wanting either, with an Aquantia
10G Ethernet port in addition to the usual Intel Gigabit port, as
well as an Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 controller.
There are eight SATA 6Gbps ports too and a huge stack of
USB ports, including a pair of Type-C USB 3.1 headers and
B E N C H M A R K R E S U LTS
TOTAL SYSTEM POWER CONSUMPTION
GIMP IMAGE EDITING
Asus ROG Zenith II Extreme
Idle
60,286 60,445
0
20,000
40,000
60,000
80,000
172W
132W
Asus ROG Zenith II Extreme
0
HANDBRAKE H.264 VIDEO ENCODING
300,000
600,000
1,023,216
1,098,103
900,000
1,200,000
0
200
Stock speed
Asus ROG Zenith II Extreme
322,836 328,673
100,000
600
200,000
300,000
526W
440W
Asus ROG Zenith II Extreme
HEAVY MULTITASKING
0
400
Load
Asus ROG Zenith II Extreme
0
200
400
600
Overclocked
FAR CRY 5
1,920 x 1,080, High settings
400,000
Asus ROG Zenith II Extreme
104fps
85fps
SYSTEM SCORE
110fps
87fps
Asus ROG Zenith II Extreme
357,734
0
100,000
Stock speed
200,000
300,000
377,955
400,000
Overclocked
0
30
60
Stock speed min
Stock speed avg
Overclocked min
Overclocked avg
We don’t have any results for other TRX40 boards yet,but
we’ll be doing a group test next month, so we suggestwaiting
to see how the competition stands up before purchasing. For
now, though, the Zenith II Extreme performed admirablywith
no hiccups, which is more than could be said for 1st-gen and
2nd-gen Threadripper boards at the outset.
It managed a RealBench system score of 357,734 at stock
speed, and 377,955 once overclocked, while the Far Cry5
minimum and average frame rates rose from 85fps and
104fps to 87fps and 110fps respectively. The audio
performance was excellent too, with a dynamic rangeof
114dBA and noise level of -116dBA. Meanwhile, our PCI-E4
SSD hit 5,003MB/sec and 4,263MB/sec.
We managed to hit an all-core overclock of 4.35GHz using
a 1.325V vcore with our 24-core Threadripper 3960X, andthe
fans remained quiet throughout testing. Asus has clearly
learned lessons in fine-tuning chipset fans from its X570
boards. In fact, the chipset fan didn’t spin up at all during any of
our benchmarks. The VRM fans were largely redundant too,
with the reported VRM temperature not topping 45°C at stock
speed, even after a ten-minute stress test using Prime95.
120
ROG
Type-C ports on the rear panel. The latter support USB 3.1 Gen
2 2x2, which adds another lane of bandwidth to the equation,
boosting throughput to 20Gbps. For audiophiles, Asus has
also beefed up the Realtek ALC1220 codec with an ESSSabre
90118Q2C amplifier and Nichicon capacitors. Apart fromthe
Fan Extension Card II and DIMM.2 module, though, there aren’t
as many extras as we expected in the heavy box.
Performance
90
Finally, the EFI is generally excellent, as we’ve come to
expect from Asus, and it has the full suite of AMD-specific
overclocking tools. However, we were disappointed that you
can’t select from different temperature inputs to control
your fans.
+
Extreme
featureset
+
+
GreatVRMcooling
Excellentcooling
control
BOG
-
Hugelyexpensive
-
SomeM.2 ports
tricky to access
Notmany
accessories for
the money
Conclusion
TheAsus ROGZenithII Extremeis hideouslyexpensive, but
it’s also one of thebest motherboardswe’vetested,with a
fantastic powerdeliverysystemthatremained cool andquiet,
despite dealing with AMD’smonster new CPUs. It hasthe
potentialforcreating massive storage arrays,itoffersallthe
cutting-edgefeaturesyoucouldneed,including10GLANand
USB3.1, plus itwasrocksolidthroughoutourtesting.Sadly,the
pricewilldictate whocanaffordit, but it’s an amazing
motherboard ifyouhavethe money.
ANTONYLEATHER
PERFORMANCE
34/35
FEATURES
33/35
VALUE
13/30
OVERALL SCORE
VERDICT
Deals with AMD’s 32-core monster with ease, but
it will eat your wallet for breakfast.
80%
23
R E V I E WS / PROCESSORS
SOCKET AM4 PROCESSOR
AMD RYZEN 9
3950X/£749
inc VAT
SUPPLIER overclockers.co.uk
I
24
M
E
AD
c
PRE
t’s taken AMD a while to get its final retail Zen 2 AM4
processor out the door, and the resulting delay
means that it lands in the same month as Intel’s
Core i9-10980XE, as well as AMD’s own 24 and 32-core
3rd-gen Threadripper CPUs. It’s a fascinating combination,
but you might argue that the Ryzen 9 3950X is carving out a
niche for itself, rather than competing with any new CPUs that
have launched this year.
For starters, even though AMD’s latest chipset supports
PCI-E 4, the X570 platform still lacks quad-channel memory
support and has far fewer PCI-E lanes
than Intel’s X299 equivalent. It has
SPEC
so many more cores than any other
Base frequency
3.5GHz
mainstream CPU that there’s no suitable
comparison there either.
Max boost frequency
4.7GHz
However, with NVMe SSDs readily
Core
available in 2TB capacities for under
Zen 2
£400, if you can do without quadManufacturing process
channel memory, the Ryzen 9 3950X
7nm
is potentially attractive as a high-end
Number of cores
content creation CPU that can mix it up
16 x physical (32 threads)
with gaming and lightly threaded tasks.
Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT)
It’s a cheaper alternative to Intel’s HEDT
Yes
CPUs, and a far better all-rounder than
Cache
any of Intel’s mainstream products.
64MB L3 cache, 16 x 512KB L2 cache
Dicing into the specs, there’s not
Memory controller
Dual-channel DDR4, up to 3200MHz
much new under the hood compared
with other Zen 2 CPUs, and the Ryzen
Packaging
Socket AM4
9 3950X sports the same architectural
Thermal design power (TDP)
improvements that lead to the dramatic
105W
IPC improvements we’ve seen with
Features
all Zen 2 CPUs compared with their
Precision Boost Overdrive, FMA3,
predecessors. As you move up the stack
F16C, SHA, BMI / BMI1 + BMI2,
and increase core counts, the benefit
AVX2, AVX, AES, SSE4a, SSE4,
SSE3, SSE2, SSE, MMX Graphs
of the 7nm manufacturing process
becomes more apparent too.
C
tom P
us
IUM GR
It has a TDP of 105W – just two thirds the TDP of Intel’s
Core i9-10980XE (see p26). Admittedly, the latter does have
two more cores, but that means you won’t need to factor in a
monstrous cooling system to deal with the Ryzen 9 3950X
either, especially if you’ll be running at stock speed. Even at
stock speed, the Intel CPU can be a toasty customer.
Under the heatspreader, you’ll find two fully active Core
Chiplet Dies sporting eight cores each, thanks to a pair of Core
Complexes sitting in each die, sporting four cores apiece.
Unlike the Ryzen 9 3900X, none of the 16 cores is disabled,
so you get the full 512KB per-core cache, totalling 8MB, along
with a mighty 64MB L3 cache.
The Ryzen 9 3950X is also hugely backwards compatible with
previous AM4 gear. It will work fine in X370 chipset motherboards,
althoughthey’lllikelyrequireaBIOSupdate.Aslongastheboard
hasdecentcooling,evenB450motherboardssuchasMSI’s
B450Tomahawkshouldworkfine.Again,you’llprobablyneed
toupdatetheBIOS,butthankfully,thatboardinparticularoffers
USBBIOSFlashback,allowingyoutoupdatetheBIOSwithout
installingacompatibleCPU.
Performance
We overclocked the Ryzen 9 3950X to an all-core frequency
of 4.35GHz using a vcore of 1.375V, where temperatures
hovered around the low 80°Cs using a 240mm all-in-one
liquid cooler. This all-core overclocked clock is a fair way south
of the 3950X’s 4.7GHz peak boost frequency, though, so you’ll
lose some lightly threaded performance going this route.
However, the all-core boost frequency at stock speed is only
3.9GHz, so if maximum multi-threaded performance is your
goal, a manual overclock is definitely the way to go.
Our GIMP image editing test, which tests single-threaded
CPU performance, used to be dominated by Intel CPUs,
but in the graphs on p28, you’ll see that the only CPUs
to top 65,000 points were the two Ryzen 9 chips. That
situation didn’t change when we overclocked either the
Core i9-9980XE and Core i9 10980XE either.
Only the overclocked Core i9-9900K and 9900KS could
beat these CPUs. The Ryzen 9 3950X was utterly dominant in
our heavily multi-threaded
Handbrake video
encoding test
too, topping 900,000 points, putting it noticeably ahead of the
Ryzen 9 3900X, and even the Intel Core i9-10980XE at stock
speed. Once the Intel 18-core CPUs were overclocked, they did
manage to topple the AMD 16-core CPU, but with significantly
higher power consumption.
Overall, though, the Ryzen 9 3950X is a clear winner in
the Realbench tests, bettering every other CPU by a wide
margin in the system score at stock speed and overclocked.
However, Intel’s 18-core CPUs have an edge in video
encoding once they’ve been overclocked.
Blender saw the Ryzen 9 3950X once again trounce the
18-core Intel competition, despite having two fewer cores,
and it was noticeably faster than the Ryzen 9 3900X here
too. Only when overclocking the Intel Core i9-10980XE and
Core i9-9980XE did we see faster scores, with the former
beating the AMD CPU’s time by 9 per cent. Likewise, the
Ryzen 9 3950X’s single-threaded Cinebench score of 529
beat all the competition, while the multi-threaded score
again topped every other CPU at 9,188, compared to 7,223
for the Ryzen 9 3900X and 8,742 for the Core i9-10980XE.
Far Cry 5 saw only meagre gains for the new AMD
flagship over the Ryzen 9 3900X at stock speed and when
overclocked, though, while Intel’s Core i9-9900K bettered
it at both speeds. Meanwhile, the two Intel 18-core CPUs
were also a match in this test when they were overclocked,
producing higher average frame rates than the 3950X. Bear in
mind, though, that you won’t see these gains in most games.
The most striking part of the results is the power
consumption though. With the 3950X installed, our test
system drew 242W and 340W from the wall at stock and
overclocked speeds respectively, which is much lower than
the 376W and 595W results from the Core i9-10980XE.
Although the latter has two more cores, that doesn’t warrant
the higher power consumption – Zen 2 is clearly massively
more efficient here.
HEXADECACORE
+
Massive multithreaded
performance
+
Cheaper than
equivalent
HEDT CPUs
+
Good choice of
motherboards
DUAL-CORE
-
Manual overclock
slower than
stock boost
Slower than
Intel CPUs in
some games
Conclusion
While the Ryzen 9 3950X isn’t a vast amount quicker than
other Zen 2 CPUs in some tasks, and Intel’s 18-core CPUs are
faster in some tests, in most cases it’s a triumph for the 3950X
– it’s one of the best all-rounders available right now. As an
efficient multi-purpose powerhouse, the Ryzen 9 3950X is
fantastic. Plus, while it’s undoubtedly expensive, it also looks
set to be a good £250 cheaper than Intel’s Core i9-10980XE.
The Ryzen 9 3950X offers massive multi-threaded
performance and excellent lightly threaded performance. The
icing on the cake is that it doesn’t need quad-channel memory
or an expensive motherboard to achieve these feats.
ANTONY LEATHER
VERDICT
One of the best CPUs we’ve ever reviewed. If you want
a CPU that can cope with both gaming and heavily multithreaded content creation, this is the chip to buy.
PERFORMANCE
46/50
FEATURES
14/15
VALUE
29/35
OVERALL SCORE
89%
25
R E V I E WS / PROCESSORS
LG A 2 0 6 6 P R O C E S S O R
INTEL CORE i9
10980XE/£1,000
inc VAT
SUPPLIER overclockers.co.uk
A
s we were writing this review, Intel’s new 18-core,
36-thread CPU was still over a week away from
launching, so we only had a rough idea how much
the Core i9-10980XE will cost, which is expected to be around
£1,000 inc VAT in the UK. That’s expensive compared with
usual mainstream CPUs, but it’s significantly cheaper than its
predecessor, the Core i9-9980XE. Intel
has basically made some monumental
SPEC
price cuts in order to counter the AMD
Base frequency
3GHz
Ryzen 3950X (see p24).
The latter was rumoured to offer
Max boost frequency
4.8GHz
similar performance to the Core
Core
i9-9980XE, but for just £750 ,so the blue
Cascade Lake-X
team had to come up with a plan. Lacking
Manufacturing process
a 10nm desktop CPU die, its only option
14nm
was to use yet another refinement of
Number of cores
its 14nm manufacturing process, first
18 x physical (36 threads)
introduced on its high-end desktop
Hyper-Threading
(HEDT) platform back on the X99 chipset
Yes
with Broadwell-E, along with price cuts.
Cache
This isn’t all bad news, though, as Intel’s
24.75MB L3 cache, 16 x 1MB L2 cache
refining of its manufacturing process
Memory controller
Quad-channel DDR4, up to 3000MHz
enables it to reach higher frequencies.
For instance, its first 14nm 18-core
Packaging
LGA2066
CPU, the Core i9-7980XE, which was
Thermal design power (TDP)
based on the Skylake-X architecture,
165W
had a peak boost frequency of 4.2GHz
Features
in Turbo Boost 2 and 4.4GHz using
Turbo Boost Max Technology 3, Turbo
Turbo Boost Max Technology 3. Those
Boost 2, FMA3, F16C, SHA, BMI / BMI1
figures have now increased to 4.6GHz
+ BMI2, AVX-512, AVX2, AVX, AES,
SSE4a, SSE4, SSE3, SSE2, SSE, MMX
and 4.8GHz respectively with the Core
i9-10980XE, which sports frequencies
26
that aren’t off the high clocks of Intel’s mainstream CPUs
such as the Core i9-9900K. It also has the promise of higher
overclocks, or at least reaching the same frequencies with
slightly less voltage.
Unlike AMD’s 3rd-gen Threadripper, though, the Core
i9-10980XE doesn’t require a new motherboard or chipset. It’s
compatible with existing X299 motherboards, although some
may require a BIOS update. As such, you can take advantage of
a mature platform that also has some motherboard offerings
below the £200 mark, making it a viable alternative for those
considering AMD’s X570 chipset and the Ryzen 9 3950X. The
Intel CPU costs £250 more, but it does have an edge once it’s
overclocked in some tasks, and its motherboards cost around
the same price too.
The main advantage, though, is that the X299 platform
offers quad-channel memory support and more PCI-E lanes
than mainstream platforms, and Intel has capitalised on this
situation by adding four more PCI-E lanes with its Cascade
Lake-X CPUs, increasing the count from 44 to 48. This means
that you don’t just get two more cores and four more threads
for that extra cash, but also significantly more bandwidth and
scope for multi-GPU setups and massive storage arrays.
There’s also support for up to 256GB memory and, as an
added sweetener, Intel has added support for Cascade Lake-X
CPUs with its Performance Maximizer automatic overclocking
tool. Otherwise, this CPU’s specifications are identical to those
of its predecessor. The Core i9-10980XE has 1MB of L2 cache
per core and 24.75MB of L3 cache, along with a TDP of 165W.
The rest of the Cascade Lake-X series differs to previous
generations of Intel’s HEDT CPUs too. There’s no longer
a 16-core model, which you might surmise is due to Intel
avoiding direct competition with AMD’s Ryzen 9 3950X.
The next step down is the Core i9-10940X, which has a
4.8GHz peak boost speed and 14 cores. There are now no
CPUs below the 10-core mark, with the Core i9-10900X
bringing up the rear with ten cores and 20 threads.
This is a sensible move from Intel, as its mainstream 8-core
CPUs have long offered more performance than the lowerend HEDT CPUs. Instead of a £1,000+ price tag, though, the
new 10-core CPU now has a price of around £600 inc VAT. It’s
still expensive, but it now offers a much more affordable way
of getting those extra PCI-E lanes, especially compared with
AMD’s 3rd-gen Threadripper CPUs.
Performance
Out of the box, the Core i9-109080XE’s higher boost
frequencies offered tangible performance boosts over Core
i9-9980XE, with 2,000 being added to the single-threaded
image editing score. Our score in our heavily multi-threaded
Handbrake video encoding test also rose from 871,664 to
885,376 and the system score increased by nearly 4,000
points too.
Cinebench R20 revealed
a similar story, with the
single-thread score increasing
from 421 to 454 and the
multi-threaded score going
from 8,259 to 8,742, while
Blender saw the benchmark
time fall from 40 seconds
to 38 seconds. Far Cry 5
was marginally quicker, but
overall, upgrading from a Core
i9-9980XE is rather pointless
for gaming.
Compared with the Ryzen 9
3950X, the Core i9-10980XE
was slower in most tests,
including Far Cry 5, so at stock
speed, the AMD CPU is a far
better buy for most tasks. It
was also much more power-efficient, drawing just 242W
under load compared to 376W for the Intel CPU.
However, the Core i9-10980XE is massively overclockable,
and our sample smashed the limits of the previous two
18-core CPUs we’ve tested from Intel, managing a huge
4.7GHz clock speed across all 18 cores using a vcore of 1.165V.
You’ll want at least a 240mm all-in-one liquid cooler to
cope with this overclock, as the heat load was rather large, but
this overclock saw the Core i9-10980XE topple the Ryzen
9 3950X in our Handbrake test, narrow the gap in the image
editing test and offer a higher Cinebench multi-threaded score
too. Intel also held the high ground in Far Cry 5 with a similar
minimum frame rate and much higher average frame rate,
while also beating the AMD CPU convincingly in Blender. The
downside to this added grunt is that the power consumption
rocketed to 595W, compared to just 296W for the AMD CPU.
CASCADE
LAKE-X
+
Huge all-core
overclock
+
Loads of PCI-E
lanes
+
Faster than Ryzen
9 3950X once
overclocked
CASCADE
FAILURE
-
High power
consumption
Ryzen 9 3950X
faster at stock
speed
Little innovation
from previous
generation
Conclusion
The Core i9-10980XE was written off by many in the leadup to the Ryzen 9 3950X’s launch, but the situation is more
complicated when you get below the surface. It has more
overclocking headroom than the AMD CPU, and its platform
offers far more PCI-E lanes than X570, as well as quadchannel memory support. Conversely, of course, the X570
chipset has the bonus of PCI-E 4 support but fewer lanes.
The AMD CPU is by far the better bet at stock speed, and
it offers much better value for money too. However, thanks
to some savvy price cuts, there’s still a place for the Core
i9-10980XE if you’re prepared to overclock it.
ANTONY LEATHER
VERDICT
Beaten by the Ryzen 9 3950X at stock speed, but Intel’s
new flagship is still a powerful chip if you’re prepared to
overclock it.
PERFORMANCE
44/50
FEATURES
15/15
VALUE
25/35
OVERALL SCORE
84 %
27
CPU BENCHMARK RESULTS
GIMP IMAGE EDITING
CINEBENCH R20 SINGLETHREADED
66,572
65,768
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X
Intel Core i9-10980XE
60,920
Intel Core i9-10980XE
67,140 67,555
AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
67,819
Intel Core i9-9900KS
61,022
66,942
Intel Core i9-9900K
54,011
AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
Intel Core i9-9900KS
62,933
Intel Core i9-9900K
Intel Core i9-9980XE
0
20k
40k
60k
80k
447
421
436
433
150
300
AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
450
600
627,249
Intel Core i9-10980XE
641,000
Intel Core i9-9900KS
635,765
Intel Core i9-9900K
AMD Threadripper 2950X
300k
600k
900k
15k
20k
5,297
5,149
5,242
4,906
8,110
6,965
0
1.2mil
9,913
8,259
AMD Threadripper 2950X
872,108
747,195
10,658
7,667
7,223
Intel Core i9-9980XE
1,043,069
871,664
5k
10k
Overclocked
Stock speed
HEAVY MULTITASKING
10,184
9,188
8,742
AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
848,107
835,226
627,578
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X
Intel Core i9-10980XE
1,025,842
885,376
0
517
517
0
972,499
911,080
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X
Intel Core i9-10980XE
Intel Core i9-9900K
518 520
CINEBENCH R20 MULTITHREADED
HANDBRAKE H.264 VIDEO ENCODING
Intel Core i9-9900KS
521
500
AMD Threadripper 2950X
48,780
48,638
484
454
Intel Core i9-9980XE
58,504
52,315
AMD Threadripper 2950X
529
504
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X
FAR CRY 5
306,352
301,982
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X
Intel Core i9-10980XE
152,927
1,920 X 1,080, Ultra settings
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X
172,767
AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
Intel Core i9-10980XE
271,071 272,264
Intel Core i9-9900K
Intel Core i9-10980XE
153,010
AMD Threadripper 2950X
100k
AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
114fps
Intel Core i9-9900KS
113fps
141fps
145fps
116fps
236,677
200k
130fps
98fps
165,990
198,413
0
114fps
83fps
274,997
262,247
120fps
99fps
306,477
301,228
Intel Core i9-9900KS
123fps
92fps
300k
400k
131fps
144fps
114fps
SYSTEM SCORE
Intel Core i9-9900K
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X
326,395
Intel Core i9-10980XE
AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
Intel Core i9-10980XE
AMD Threadripper 2950X
AMD Threadripper 2950X
100k
0
50fps
100fps
150fps
200fps
295,377
254,547
0
95fps
77fps
322,876
275,233
126fps
90fps
76fps
243,615 250,411
Intel Core i9-10980XE
112fps
81fps
96fps
246,381 251,256
Intel Core i9-9900K
121fps
315,214
306,884
Intel Core i9-9900KS
122fps
96fps
341,048
320,868
279,064
91fps
200k
300k
400k
Stock speed min
Stock speed avg
Overclocked min
Overclocked avg
Overclocked
Stock speed
TOTAL SYSTEM POWER CONSUMPTION
Idle
BLENDER SECONDS
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 104W 110W
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X
32
Intel Core i9-10980XE
34
38
29
AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
40
Intel Core i9-10980XE
AMD Threadripper 2950X
15
Intel Core i9-9900KS 89W
113W
Intel Core i9-9900K 89W 91W
38
0
AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 99W 100W
42
40
31
166W
128W
Intel Core i9-10980XE
30
41
Intel Core i9-10980XE
45
60
174W
131W
AMD Threadripper 2950X
128W 132W
Lower is better
Overclocked
0
Stock speed
250
500
750
1,000
Load
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X
340W
242W
Intel Core i9-10980XE
AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
296W
262W
Intel Core i9-9900KS
275W
Intel Core i9-9900K
330W
311W
211W
Intel Core i9-10980XE
575W
397W
AMD Threadripper 2950X
543W
290W
0
250
Stock speed
8
595W
376W
500
750
Overclocked
1,000
R E V I E WS / GRAPHICS CARDS
GRAPHICS CARD
ZOTAC GAMING GEFORCE GTX 1660
SUPER AMP EDITION/£240
inc VAT
SUPPLIER ebuyer.com
I
f there was one range of PC components that
really didn’t need another contender, it was the
£200-£250 graphics card segment. We already
have the GeForce GTX 1660 and Ti in there, along with
AMD’s aging Radeon RX Vega56 and Nvidia’s last-gen GTX
1070 muddying the waters further.
Nevertheless, Nvidia has decided that
SPEC
we need one more slightly different
Graphics processor
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660
GPU in the mix, introducing a new
Super, 1530MHz base clock,
Super-branded flavour of its GeForce
1845MHz boost clock
GTX 1660.
Pipeline
Unlike the Super RTX line-up, there’s
1,408 stream processors, 48 ROPs
no change to the GPU here. You still
RT Cores
get the same 1,408 stream processors
0
and 48 ROPS, attached to a 192-bit
Tensor Cores
memory interface. Where the Super
0
variant differs from its predecessor is
Memory
6GB GDDR6, 1750MHz (14GHz effective)
the memory. It has 6GB of 1750MHz
(14GHz effective) GDDR6 memory,
Memory interface
192-bit
compared to the original GTX 1660’s
Bandwidth
6GB of 2GHz (8GHz effective) GDDR5
336GB/sec
memory. The result is a large increase
Outputs/inputs
in total memory bandwidth, from
3 x DisplayPort 1.4, 1 x HDMI 2b
192GB/sec to 336GB/sec.
Power connections
This puts the GTX 1660 Super into a
1 x 8-pin
similar league to the GTX 1660 Ti, which
Card length
also has 6GB of GDDR6 memory, but
210mm
clocked at a slightly slower speed of
30
1500MHz (12GHz effective). However, the Super doesn’t
have the 128 extra stream processors found in the GTX 1660
Ti’s fully enabled GPU. As with the GTX 1660, while this chip
is indeed based on Nvidia’s Turing architecture, it also doesn’t
have the dedicated ray tracing or Tensor cores found in
Nvidia’s RTX GPUs.
If you’re struggling to get your head around all that
nomenclature, the basic gist is that the GTX 1660 Super
mixes the original GTX 1660’s GPU with the GTX 1660 Ti’s
memory, while adding some clock speed tweaks.
Nvidia’s reference speeds for the GPU are a 1530MHz
base clock with a 1785MHz boost clock. However, the Zotac
AMP card here ups that boost clock by 60MHz to 1845MHz.
There’s a cheaper version of the Zotac card without that
overclock, which costs £215 inc VAT from ebuyer.com.
Comparatively, you can buy an MSI Radeon RX Vega56 card
from the same retailer for £237 inc VAT, and that’s going to be
the GTX 1660 Super’s main problem.
This Zotac card has an advantage over similarly priced
Radeon RX Vega56 cards, though, with its custom cooler.
There are no fancy lights or frills, but you do get a backplate
that wraps around the PCB, three 6mm heatpipes, a large
stack of aluminium fans and, most importantly, two quiet
90mm fans. It’s not pretty, but it’s much quieter in games
than the standard blower cooler on the cheaper Radeon RX
Vega56 cards. The only downer is that the Zotac’s single
8-pin PCI-E power connector is placed awkwardly in the
middle of the backplate, rather than the edge.
B E N C H M A R K R E S U LTS
BATTLEFIELD V
1,920 x 1,080, Ultra detail, DX11
92fps
78fps
Zotac GeForce GTX 1660 Super
MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ti
94fps
81fps
79fps
69fps
Zotac GeForce GTX 1660
110fps
85fps
AMD Radeon RX Vega56
0
40
80
120
160
120
160
2,560 x 1,440, Ultra detail, DX11
70fps
63fps
Zotac GeForce GTX 1660 Super
MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ti
71fps
65fps
59fps
54fps
Zotac GeForce GTX 1660
81fps
66fps
AMD Radeon RX Vega56
0
40
80
Performance
TOTAL WAR: WARHAMMER II
1,920 x 1,080, Ultra settings, FXAA, DX11
63fps
51fps
Zotac GeForce GTX 1660 Super
MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ti
62fps
53fps
54fps
46fps
Zotac GeForce GTX 1660
63fps
54fps
AMD Radeon RX Vega56
0
40
80
120
160
2,560 x 1,440, Ultra detail, DX11
Zotac GeForce GTX 1660 Super
37fps
45fps
MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ti
38fps
44fps
38fps
33fps
Zotac GeForce GTX 1660
43fps
38fps
AMD Radeon RX Vega56
0
40
80
120
160
SHADOW OF THE TOMB RAIDER
1,920 x 1,080, Highest settings, TAA, GPU test
84fps
62fps
Zotac GeForce GTX 1660 Super
MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ti
83fps
63fps
70fps
54fps
Zotac GeForce GTX 1660
83fps
63fps
AMD Radeon RX Vega56
0
40
80
120
160
120
160
2,560 x 1,440, Highest settings, TAA, GPU test
56fps
43fps
Zotac GeForce GTX 1660 Super
MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ti
44fps
Zotac GeForce GTX 1660
37fps
54fps
46fps
56fps
43fps
AMD Radeon RX Vega56
0
40
80
DEUS EX: MANKIND DIVIDED
1,920 x 1,080, Very High settings, DX12
MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ti
60fps
83fps
67fps
AMD Radeon RX Vega56
0
40
80
120
160
2,560 x 1,440, Very High settings, DX12
Zotac GeForce GTX 1660 Super
40fps
48fps
MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ti
40fps
49fps
33fps
Zotac GeForce GTX 1660
40fps
45fps
AMD Radeon RX Vega56
0
55fps
40
80
120
160
Average
Minimum
A fat helping of memory bandwidth has given the GTX 1660
a welcome performance boost, and Zotac’s pre-overclocked
card gets close to the GTX 1660 Ti’s frame rates without
making a horrible noise. The only problem for the AMP card is
its price, which puts it in direct competition with AMD’s faster
Radeon RX Vega56, even if the Zotac has a better cooler. The
AMD card is still our sub-£250 GPU of choice, but if you’re
strapped for cash, the non-overclocked Zotac GTX 1660 Super
will still be a good budget buy for £215 inc VAT.
BEN HARDWIDGE
TOTAL SYSTEM LOAD POWER CONSUMPTION
Unigine Superposition Benchmark, 4K Optimized, DirectX
MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ti
193W
Zotac GeForce GTX 1660
181W
VERDICT
278W
AMD Radeon RX Vega56
0
100W
Factory overclock
Quiet cooler
Nearly as fast as
GTX 1660 Ti
1066
-
Outperformed
by Radeon
RX Vega56
Awkwardly placed
power connector
AMP edition
slightly too
expensive
200W
PERFORMANCE
34/40
FEATURES
14/20
VALUE
35/40
OVERALL SCORE
210W
Zotac GeForce GTX 1660 Super
+
+
+
Conclusion
73fps
59fps
49fps
Zotac GeForce GTX 1660
1660
71fps
59fps
Zotac GeForce GTX 1660 Super
Adding GDDR6 memory to the GeForce GTX 1660 makes a
massive difference to performance. In all our tests, the Zotac
GTX 1660 Super was much closer to a pre-overclocked MSI
GTX 1660 Ti card than the original GTX 1660. The overclocked
GPU boost clock helps here too, but it wouldn’t account for
this jump in performance, with the Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
minimum increasing by 10fps over the standard GTX 1660.
There’s generally only 1-2fps separating the Zotac GTX
1660 Super from the MSI GTX 1660 Ti, despite the former
having 128 more stream processors. If you’re looking for a
1080p gaming card, then the GTX 1660 Super delivers the
goods – staying above 50fps in all our demanding game
tests, and crossing the 60fps threshold in some of them too.
The Battlefield V minimum of 78fps and average of 92fps are
particularly good for a budget graphics card. You could even
get away with some 2,560 x 1,440 gaming, with the minimum
frame rates in our tests sitting above the playable threshold,
although 1080p is the sweet spot.
The main problem for the GTX 1660 Super, though, is that
its performance is still behind the AMD Radeon RX Vega56.
The GTX 1660 Super is much more power-efficient, with our
system drawing just 210W from the mains with it installed,
compared to 278W with the Radeon, and this Zotac card has
a quieter cooler, but the Vega56 is faster.
300W
400W
Lower is better
Adding GDDR6 memory to the GTX 1660 provides a decent
performance boost, but it can’t catch the Radeon RX Vega56.
83%
31
R E V I E WS / GRAPHICS CARD
tom P
s
u
SUPPLIER scan.co.uk
apphire’s Radeon RX 5700 XT Nitro+ is what
happens when you tell your component
designers that they really can’t have too much
bling on a graphics card. Not only has Sapphire removed the
horrible reference blower cooler from this card, but it’s also
fitted a custom cooler that looks like it came
from a cyberpunk future.
SPEC
Our favourite part is the ARGB lighting
Graphics processor
diffuser along the top edge. Assuming
AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT, 1770MHz
base clock, 1905MHz game clock,
you’re not using a vertical PCI-E riser, this
2010MHz max boost clock
part will be on display through your case
Pipeline
window. It has several RGB LEDs behind
40 compute units, 2,560 stream
it, and creates a smooth effect where the
processors, 64 ROPs
colours run into one another. You can set
Memory
the lighting software to run a chaser effect
8GB GDDR6, 14GHz effective
across the diffuser on the edge, through
Memory interface
the Sapphire logo just below it and then
256-bit
back through the backplate to light up the
Bandwidth
‘Sapphire Nitro’ logo. It makes the red light at
448GB/sec
the front of KITT look positively pedestrian.
Interface
16x PCI-E 4
The chunky metal backplate soaks up
heat from the rear of the PCB, with a big
Outputs/inputs
2 x DisplayPort 1.4, 2 x HDMI 2b
hole in the front of it to let the large stack
Cooler
of heatsink fins breathe. It’s assisted by
Three fans, 2.5-slot
five chunky heatpipes and three (easily
Power connections
replaceable) fans – the two on the left and
2 x 8-pin
right spin anti-clockwise, while a slightly
Card width
smaller fan in the middle runs clockwise.
306mm
It’s an arrangement that Sapphire says
S
34
D
PP
C
inc VAT
A
SAPPHIRE RADEON RX
5700 XT NITRO+ / £399
c
GRAPHICS CARD
ROV E
ensures optimal airflow over the heatsink fin assembly.
The fans don’t spin up when you’re not gaming either.
However, with a length of 306mm (and a 2.5-slot width),
this card is over a foot long – think about that in terms of a
Subway sandwich and you get the idea. You’ll need enough
room in your case to accommodate this monster, and to
provide enough airflow for its cooling arrangement.
It’s based on AMD’s Radeon RX 5700 XT with 2,560
stream processors, but Sapphire has also taken advantage
of its cooling prowess to boost the specs. The Nitro+ has a
1770MHz base clock, a 1905MHz game clock and a 2010MHz
maximum boost clock, although it leaves the 8GB of GDDR6
memory at the stock frequency of 14GHz (effective).
That’s a substantial increase over AMD’s reference
specs of a 1605MHz base clock, 1755MHz game
clock and 1905MHz max boost clock. Accordingly, the
Nitro+ also ups the power spec, with two 8-pin power
connectors on the top edge, rather than the one 8-pin
and one 6-pin arrangement on the reference cards.
Performance
That extra clock speed stands the Sapphire Nitro+ in good
stead, putting its minimums 4-5fps ahead of the reference
card in Total War: Warhammer II at both 1080p and 2,560 x
1,440, and in Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 1080p.
Significantly, that extra clock speed boost brings the
Sapphire Nitro+’s performance much closer to that of the
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super than the original reference
card. That’s important when the Nitro+ costs £399 from
B E N C H M A R K R E S U LTS
BATTLEFIELD V
SHADOW OF THE TOMB RAIDER
1,920 x 1,080, Ultra detail, DX11, TAA
1,920 x 1,080, Highest settings, TAA, GPU test
156fps
128fps
Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 XT Nitro+
155fps
129fps
AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT
119fps
141fps
100
150
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super
0
50
120fps
92fps
AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT
126fps
97fps
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super
0
200
125fps
96fps
Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 XT Nitro+
2,560 x 1,440, Ultra detail, DX11, TAA
50
100
100fps
116fps
Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 XT Nitro+
64fps
82fps
AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT
100fps
116fps
AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT
62fps
79fps
108fps
94fps
0
50
100
0
200
89fps
100fps
81fps
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super
0
50
100
Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 XT Nitro+
85fps
115fps
AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT
85fps
113fps
60fps
55fps
AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT
60fps
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super
0
50
150
0
200
Minimum
200
50
100
150
200
150
200
2,560 x 1,440, Very High settings, DX12
69fps
62fps
72fps
100
150
110fps
89fps
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super
2,560 x 1,440, Ultra settings, FXAA, DX11
Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 XT Nitro+
100
1,920 x 1,080, Very High settings, DX12
98fps
80fps
76fps
50
DEUS EX: MANKIND DIVIDED
1,920 x 1,080, Ultra settings, FXAA, DX11
AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT
86fps
68fps
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super
150
TOTAL WAR: WARHAMMER II
Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 XT Nitro+
200
2,560 x 1,440, Highest settings, TAA, GPU test
Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 XT Nitro+
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super
150
150
66fps
AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT
64fps
77fps
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super
63fps
75fps
0
200
Average
scan.co.uk, while RTX 2070 Super cards start at £478 inc
VAT from the same retailer.
On the downside, the Radeon RX 5700 XT has no
support for real-time ray tracing. That’s an increasingly
important factor if you want super-realistic reflections and
lighting in games such as Metro Exodus, Control and
Battlefield V. If that’s the case, it’s worth paying the extra
money for the RTX 2070 Super.
However, if frame rates are your bigger priority, you can
save some money and get similar performance. The AMD
GPU also has the benefit of much cheaper monitors that
support its active sync tech – you can get some monitors that
support both AMD Active Sync (also known as FreeSync) and
Nvidia G-Sync, but a wider range of cheaper monitors
support the former.
Sapphire’s Nitro+ cooler also does a good job of keeping
the Radeon RX 5700 XT in check, even with a large
overclock. It makes a noticeable noise when the fans spin
up during games, but it’s very different from the nasty high-
81fps
Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 XT Nitro+
50
Minimum
100
Average
TOTAL SYSTEM POWER CONSUMPTION
Unigine Superposition Benchmark, 4K Optimized, DirectX
338W
Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 XT Nitro+
295W
AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT
323W
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super
0
100
200
300
400
Lower is better
pitched noise from the standard AMD blower cooler. It’s
louder than we’d like, but it’s not irritating.
SAPPHIRE
+
+
Amazing lighting
+
Decent overclock
Quieter than AMD
reference cards
TOPAZ
-
Noraytracing
Massive
Fans still quite loud
Conclusion
Sapphire’s Radeon RX 5700 XT Nitro+ is a massive chunk of
overclocked PCB bling and we love it. The lighting looks
superb, the fan arrangement keeps the overclocked GPU
cool, the performance is nearly on a par with the GeForce
RTX 2070 Super and it currently only costs £399 inc VAT. If
you’re looking for the best frame rates possible for under
£400, and you’re not bothered by ray tracing, the Sapphire’s
Radeon RX 5700 XT Nitro+ is a great-looking card that offers
a significant upgrade over the reference design.
BEN HARDWIDGE
VERDICT
A very powerful card for the money and it looks great too.
There’s no ray tracing, but this is the card to buy if you want
the fastest frame rates for under £400.
PERFORMANCE
36/40
FEATURES
16/20
VALUE
36/40
OVERALL SCORE
88%
35
R E V I E WS / PERIPHERALS
LIGHTWEIGHT GAMING MOU
COOLER
MASTER MM7
/£45 inc VAT
SUPPLIER overclockers.co.uk
he Cooler MasterMM710isthelatest additionto
thenew ve of ultralightgamingmice.Weighing
+ Incredibly light
in at just 3g, it is indeedone of the lightest mice
+ Good button
arrangement
available,and withaa askingpriceof just£45incVAT,it’soneof
thecheapestultrali t modelstoo.
+ Easy to program
The MM710kee s downits weight byhavingmuch of the
+ Great value
outercasingperfo ted.Theentirebacktwo-thirdsof t
mousearepunct red by hexagonalholes that help shed tens
HEXED
grams (the sim larly-shapedCM110weighs 92g).The
- Small, back-heavy of
downsideto all t oseholesisthattheyopentheinternalsup
shape
toinvasionby du t and spilleddrinks,although CoolerMaster
- Holes let dirt into
chassis
d given the
has thoughtoft
ur tea,
resistantcoating.You’llwanttoa
itshouldhelp the MM710 survive the oddsplash.
Someusersmay notbekeen on thefeel of theholes,but
we’vereallycometoappreciate theextragripprovidedbythe
holes on theFinalmouse Ultralight 2,and wish the likes of the
MM710extended theholesalongthefull length of thesides
too. The plain plasticsurface,where your fingers grip the
mouse,cangeta littleslippery whenyou have cold, dryhands.
Theoverallshape of theMM710isintriguingtoo. It’squite
small,butithasaback-heavy design,with themainhumpof
themouse towards therear. Likewise,thenatural gripping
point on thesides,isaround a third ofthe way backratherthan
in themiddle. As such, it’snotparticularly comfortable tousein
afingertip-gripstyle.
Instead,it’sbest suitedfor palm grip use bygamerswith
small hands. The backisalsotooslipperytoprovide a good
purchasefora clawgrip. Asever, this alldependsonthe size of
your handsandhow you play, sowealways recommend
seeing ifthere’sa way to trya mousebeforeyou buy it.
As usual with a lightweight mouse, there are few
features. You get Left,
Right, Middle and a top
SPEC
DPI button, plus two
Weight 53g
thumb buttons on the
Dimensions (mm) 117 x 63 x 38 (W x D x H)
left. There are no
Sensor Pixart PWM3389 (16,000DPI optical)
thumb buttons on the
right, so this isn’t a
Buttons 6 (left, right, scroll wheel, back, forward, top DPI)
truly ambidextrous
Cable 1.8m, ultralight braided
mouse despite the
Extras Water-and-dust-proof coating to internals
shape. Meanwhile, the
HEXAGON
36
T
aided ultralight cable has a looser style of braiding than
rmal, and the cable underneath is very soft and flexible.
is greatly reduces the resistance of the cable so it doesn
sturb your aim. It feels great.
eMM710alsouses theexcellentPixArtPMW33
p
o and has20 millionkeypress-rated Omron
h u
sensor’s DPIcan
switches for itsleftandrigh
t
switchedbetweenuptoseven different levels bythetop
button,with thelevelsset viaCoolerMaster’s software. You
canalsoadjust button response time, double-click speed,
angletunability,liftoffdistanceandpolling rate. As we’d
expect,theMM710 performed flawlessly in terms of tracking
andbutton response –mostmouse sensors and buttons are
just sogoodthesedays.
Conclusion
The CoolerMasterMM710isa goodvalue, highly-capableadditionto the
ultralightgamingmouse roster. It has a
verysimpledesign,butitperforms well
andhasanintuitive button layout.It’s
also easy toprogramviaitssoftware.
However,theshape couldbe improved
–it’s best-suited for gamerswith small
hands who use apalm grip – gamers
whohavelarger handswillfinditabit
uncomfortable touse.
EDWARD CHESTER
DESIGN
14/20
FEATURES
15/20
PERFORMANCE
26/30
VALUE
26/30
OVERALL SCORE
VERDICT
Another good addition to the
ultralight mouse market, but only for
small-handed folk.
81%
R E V I E WS / PERIPHERALS
S
G A M E PA D
RAZER
TARTARUS P
/£130 inc VAT
SUPPLIER razer.com
he Razer Tartarus Pro is an intriguing update to
the company’s gamepad product line. In case
you’re unfamiliar with the T
Tartarus line-up, these
devices are basically standalone gamiing keypads that you
would use primarily in place of a normal keyboard. It
provides a more ergonomic shape for resting your hand,
and it’s more compact than a normal kkeyboard, so it’s easier
able. Meanwhile, its
to position in a way that feels comforta
than with a
key layout puts more keys into closer reach
r
normal keyboard.
You getatotal of 19 keys thatsitunder your fingers,with
another buttonunder your thumb. In between them is aD-pad
thatyoucancontrolwithyourthumbandascrollwheelthat
sitsnexttoyourindexfinger.It’s a smartlydesigneddevice
that providesamuchmorecomfortable waytogoaboutPC
gaming.We particularlylikethewaythekeys alllineupin
columns, makingit far easierto tap keys that areabove or
below thefourcentralWASD-equivalent buttons.
The wrist-rest section is particularly welcome, providing a
soft pad at the base and a gently curved middle section on
which you rest the palm of your hand. Build quality is decent
too, with the new optical mechanical keys being a big
upgrade over the Tartarus V2, although the scroll wheel is
a bit indistinct with its notches.
Moreover, it takes a lot of use to get the hang of using it,
particularly as the keys are just labelled 01-19, so you can’t
glance down to check which button you’re pressing – you
find yourself asking ‘what number was ‘R’ mapped to again?’
and so on. You can expect to spend a couple of weeks at
least of regular use before it starts to feel natural, and that
learning curve can kick in again if, for some reason, you’re
forced to use a normal keyboard for gaming again for a while.
All of which brings us to the key new innovation with the
Pro version of the Tartarus: its analogue switches. These
T
SPEC
Dimensions (mm) 202 x 145 x 60 (W x D x H)
use an optical
tracking
in each key
p
g system
y
y to monitor
its height, allowing you to control the intensity of your
input across a 3.6mm span of total key travel. Basically,
you control the response of the keys by how hard you
press them.
For the likes of racing games, flight sims and even some
first-person shooters, this feature can add a very useful
analogue element to your inputs. However, the relatively
small travel distance means it’s still some way off the truly
precise feel of a proper steering wheel, a set of racing
pedals or a joystick.
However, a potentially more useful application is that you
can assign a secondary function to be activated when a key
is pressed to a certain depth. For instance, you can set a key
to send a W signal (walk) when pressed lightly or Shift+W
(run) when pressed fully.
Again, it’s exact usefulness will vary greatly depending on
the game you’re playing, but the potential is there. Crucially,
though, with a price of £129 inc VAT, you’ll really want to have
a few applications in mind for these extra functions if you’re
thinking of buying this controller.
Conclusion
The Tartarus Pro makes for a versatile gamepad/controller
that has the potential to revolutionise your gaming. It could
be particularly useful for laptop gamers looking for a spacesaving keyboard upgrade. However, its appeal is very much
dependent on the types of games you play, and you’ll need
some time to get used to it.
EDWARD CHESTER
Buttons 32 programmable keys, scroll wheel, D-pad
Cable 2m, braided
Extras Analogue press tracking, dual-actuation keys
VERDICT
A versatile gamepad, but its analogue keys have niche appeal.
TARTARESAUCE
+
Compactand
versatile
+
Analogue controls
great for some
games
+
Well built
TARTAR
-
Steep learning
curve
-
Pricey
DESIGN
15/20
FEATURES
17/20
PERFORMANCE
24/30
VALUE
22/30
OVERALL SCORE
78%
37
R E V I E WS / PC SYSTEMS
S M A L L FO R M FAC TO R G A M I N G P C
MSI TRIDENT A/£1,249
inc VAT
SUPPLIER very.co.uk
SI’s Trident A is a small, affordable gaming PC that’s
designed for 1080p gaming and esports. It’s based
around Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 2060 – a mid-range
GPU that serves up 1,920 stream processors, 30 RT cores and
6GB of memory. This MSI-made Ventus model also increases
the boost speed from 1680MHz to 1710MHz.
However, this GPU is already behind the
curve. The new RTX 2060 Super adds 256
SPEC
stream processors and 2GB of memory to that
CPU
specification. That GPU has already appeared in
2.9GHz Intel Core
i5-9400F
several PCs. Last month, for instance, the £1,299
Motherboard
Wired2Fire Predator used an RTX 2060 Super with
MSI B360 Gaming Trident A
a 30MHz overclock. That said, the original RTX
Memory
2060 will still enable you to turn on some ray16GB Samsung
traced eye candy at 1080p.
2666MHz DDR4
Meanwhile, the MSI’s Intel Core i5-9400F CPU
Graphics
MSI Ventus GeForce
has six cores with base and turbo speeds of 2.9GHz
RTX 2060 6GB
and 4.1GHz, but it doesn’t have Hyper-Threading. In
Storage
the Trident, it’s paired with 16GB of 2666MHz
256GB Samsung
memory, a 256GB Samsung PM981 SSD and a 1TB
PM981 SSD, 1TB Hitachi
Travelstar hard disk
hard disk. It’s a fine specification for 1080p gaming,
Case
but the Wired2Fire is better here too – that rig had
MSI Trident
an 8-core AMD Ryzen 7 3700X CPU and
Cooling
3000MHz memory.
CPU: Intel stock cooler
with 1 x 80mm fan;
Where the MSI notably differs from the
GPU: 2 x 90mm fans
Wired2Fire is in its size. The Trident
Networking
measures 130mm wide and only
y
Gigabit Ethernet, dualweighs 6.6kg, so it’s smaller and
band 802.11ac Wi-Fi
lighter than any ATX PC. That
PSU
FSP SFX Pro 450W
makes the Trident suitable for living
Ports
rooms, small desks and frequentt
Front: 2 x USB 3.1 Gen 1, 1
transport. It looks good too; the
x USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C, 2
front is made from glossy plastic
x audio; rear: 2 x USB 3.1
Gen 2, 2 x USB 3.1 Gen 1, 2 x
with red lights, the roof has slatte
ed
USB 2, 1 x PS/2, 6 x audio
air vents and there’s an angular
Operating system
base. At the front, you’ll also find
Microsoft Windows
two full-sized USB 3.1 ports and a
10 Home 64-bit
Type-C connection.
Warranty
One year parts and
The design is clever on the insid
de
labour return to base
as well, with the rig divided in two.
M
38
One side of the case houses the motherboard, CPU, memory,
storage and PSU. The processor is chilled by a standard Intel
stock cooler, and MSI has done a great job with cable tidying, so
components are easily accessible. Impressively, there are
even two free 2.5in drive bays. Behind the motherboard, you’ll
find cutaways for PSU airflow and rear motherboard access, as
well as a cavity for the graphics card. There’s room for larger
cards, but only a single power connector, which will limit your
future upgrade choices.
The MSI is powered by a small FSP SFX Pro 450W unit. It’s
fine for this machine, but it’s not modular and it only has an 80
Plus Bronze certification rating. As a point of comparison, the
Wired2Fire had an ATX motherboard with a newer chipset and
more connection options, as well as a more powerful and
more efficient PSU. That said, most larger machines at this
price will have better components than the MSI. Big-brand
machines are usually a little behind the curve,
and smaller machines often have to make
com
mpromises too.
Meanwhile, the MSI B360 Gaming Trident A
M
board has been specifically designed for this
macchine. It doesn’t have any spare PCI-E or DIMM
slots, which is normal for this form factor, but it
es have a spare M.2 connector. At the rear, it has
doe
fourr more USB 3.1 ports and six audio jacks, but no
optiical S/PDIF and no Type-C connector. It also
has dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi, but no Wi-Fi 6.
Finally, the MSI is covered with a one year return
to base warranty. Again, that’s standard for a bignd machine, but independent UK system
bran
builders tend to have three or five year packages
thatt offer far more protection.
B E N C H M A R K R E S U LTS
Performance
49,461 332,440 96,751
GIMP IMAGE
EDITING
HANDBRAKE H.264
VIDEO ENCODING
LUXMARK
OPENCL
172,246 140,919 123.12%
HEAVY MULTITASKING
SYSTEM
SCORE
INTEL PERFORMANCE
INDEX
SHADOW OF THE TOMB RAIDER
1,920 x 1,080, Highest Detail, TAA
97fps
74fps
MSI Trident A
0
50
100
150
200
100
150
200
2,560 x 1,440, Highest Detail, TAA
63fps
50fps
MSI Trident A
0
50
TOTAL WAR: WARHAMMER II
83fps
68fps
0
50
100
150
200
2,560 x 1,440, Ultra Detail, DX11
58fps
48fps
MSI Trident A
50
0
100
150
200
BATTLEFIELD V
1,920 x 1,080, Ultra settings, DX12, High DXR, DLSS
66fps
47fps
MSI Trident A
50
0
You can definitely get more CPU and GPU power for your
money elsewhere, but the MSI Trident A is still a welldesigned mini-ITX gaming machine. It has enough power to
play single-player games at solid frame rates and esports
games on high refresh-rate panels, and the CPU is a fine
everyday chip. More importantly for a mini-ITX rig, it’s quiet
and easy to transport. Of course, more powerful
specifications with more versatile cases can be found for this
price, and those rigs will usually have better warranties too.
However, if your main priority is getting a gaming rig that’s
small, quiet and portable, the Trident A is a great example.
MIKE JENNINGS
100
150
200
44fps
0
VERDICT
50fps
50
Minimum
+
Solid 1080p
gaming speeds
+
Smart mini-ITX
design
+
Extremely cool
and quiet
BLACK MANTA
-
Notasfastasrivals
Middling
upgraderoom
Only a one-year
warranty
100
Average
PERFORMANCE
20/25
DESIGN
23/25
HARDWARE
18/25
VALUE
19/25
OVERALL SCORE
2,560 x 1,440, Ultra settings, DX12, High DXR, DLSS
MSI Trident A
AQUAMAN
Conclusion
1,920 x 1,080, Ultra Detail, DX11
MSI Trident A
The RTX 2060 ran our test games at 1080p minimums
between 47fps and 74fps, even with ray tracing enabled.
There’s enough power to play single-player titles at good
speeds and handle esports games at beyond 100fps. The
RTX 2060 also played our test games at 2,560 x 1,440 with
minimums of 44fps or better. It’s solid speed, but the RTX
2060 Super is quicker. The card inside the Wired2Fire
system was nearly 10fps faster in our test titles, and you
can also get even more gaming power from the AlphaBeta
i5 RTX (see p40) for just £999.
Meanwhile, the mid-range CPU is underwhelming in a
machine at this price. Intel’s Core i5-9400F is a little slower
than AMD equivalents in our single-threaded image editing
test, and miles behind in heavily multi-threaded
benchmarks. The CPU has enough power for gaming and
everyday computing, but you can get much more CPU power
for this money elsewhere. The SSD’s read and write speeds
of 3,552MB/sec 1,530MB/sec are good too, although again,
you really want at least a 500GB drive for a gaming machine
these days.
On the plus side, the MSI is an excellent thermal
performer. It’s virtually silent when idle and only produces
modest fan noise when gaming – the noise is barely
noticeable, and it’s quieter than any full-sized PC we’ve
tested at this price. The CPU and GPU delta Ts of 64°C and
50°C are modest as well.
150
200
Not the fastest or the best specification, but the Trident A
packs a decent amount of gaming power into a tiny, welldesigned and quiet chassis.
80%
39
R E V I E WS / PC SYSTEMS
AlphaBeta i5 RTX
D
PP
A
GAMING PC
C
c
tom P
us
ROV E
/£999 incVAT
SUPPLIER alphabetapc.com
lphaBeta is a new name in the PC builders
market, and its i5 RTX gets off to a solid
start by offering a GeForce RTX 2070
Super GPU in a machine that costs just £999 inc
VAT. A large chunk of AlphaBeta’s budget has clearly
gone on the GPU, but it’s still paired with a Core
i5-9600KF CPU. This chip has no integrated graphics,
so it’s cheaper than the Core i5-9600K, but it’s otherwise
identical, with six cores, no Hyper-Threading, and respective
base and boost frequencies of 3.7GHz and 4.6GHz.
The rest of the specification is middling. There’s 16GB of
memory, but it only runs at 2400MHz –
SPEC
a little slower than most rivals. There’s
CPU
a 500GB Crucial MX500 SSD, but no
3.7GHz Intel Core i5-9600KF
secondary hard disk. The PSU is modest
Motherboard
too – the 600W AeroCool Integrator only
Gigabyte Z390-UD
has an entry-level 80 Plus certification
Memory
16GB G.Skill TridentZ
and it’s not modular.
2400MHz DDR4
Likewise, the Gigabyte Z390 UD has
Graphics
no extra ornamentation or RGB LEDs, and
Gigabyte GeForce RTX
it has a basic specification – the sole M.2
2070 Super 8GB
connector is already occupied, and it has
Storage
modest Realtek ALC887 audio hardware.
500GB Crucial MX500 M.2 SSD
It has two spare memory slots, three
Case
AlphaBeta ATX
spare 1x slots and a trio of 16x PCI-E slots,
but only one has 16 lanes, and the board
Cooling
CPU: be quiet! Pure Rock
doesn’t support Nvidia SLI. It’s basic at
with 1 x 120mm fan; GPU: 3 x
the rear too, with six USB 3.1 ports, but no
90mm fans; front: 1 x 200mm
Type-C connection, no optical S/PDIF and
fan; rear: 1 x 200mm fan
only three audio jacks.
PSU
Aerocool Integrator 600W
You can’t expect everything for £999,
though, especially if you want to prioritise
Ports
Front: 2 x USB 3, 1 x USB 2, 2 x
gaming performance. The AlphaBeta PC’s
audio; rear: 6 x USB 3.1 1 x Gigabit
price seriously undercuts other machines
Ethernet, 2 x PS/2, 3 x audio
with
the RTX 2070 Super, such as the
Operating system
£1,399 Overclockers UK Titan Katana
Microsoft Windows 10 Home 64-bit
(see Issue 195, p38). However, that pricier
Warranty
One year parts and labour, followed
PC had an 8-core AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
by two years labour only. One month
CPU, faster memory and quicker, more
collect and return, then return to base
capacious storage, alongside a better PSU.
A
40
AlphaBeta has used its own case for this PC, and the
enclosure makes a stunning first impression. All its panels
are made of tempered glass (sadly, the top panel got
smashed in transit to our photography studio, which is
why it isn’t in the photos), and the front and roof panels
are dominated by 200mm fans with RGB LEDs. A remote
control changes the lighting, the roof has a handle, and the
case is 290mm wide and 380mm tall, making it far smaller
than conventional ATX enclosures.
The ATX motherboard is installed upside down, which
means the CPU is installed at the bottom. The CPU is
topped with a be quiet! Pure Rock cooler in our sample, but
this cooler will be replaced with a similar SilentiumPC Fera
3 HE1224 in the final retail model.
AlphaBeta has done a great job with cabling, which
means the interior looks clean – and the components are
easy to access. The memory and PCI-E slots are all easy
to reach, and there’s space to install pairs of 2.5in and 3.5in
SSDs and hard disks.
Finally, the AlphaBeta system is covered by a three-year
return to base labour warranty with a year of parts coverage.
It’s a good deal, although more parts coverage could be better.
Performance
The RTX 2070 Super raced through out 1080p game tests,
with a superb average of 131fps in Shadow of the Tomb
Raider, and it handled our 2,560 x 1,440 tests well too.
Even our demanding Battlefield V ray-tracing test with
High DXR remained above 50fps during testing. It can even
cope with a little bit of 4K gaming, with minimums of 34fps
B E N C H M A R K R E S U LT S
SHADOW OF THE TOMB RAIDER
1,920 x 1,080, Highest Detail, TAA
131fps
93fps
AlphaBeta i5 RTX
0
50
100
150
200
2,560 x 1,440, Highest Detail, TAA
AlphaBeta i5 RTX
0
69fps
90fps
50
100
150
200
TOTAL WAR: WARHAMMER II
99fps
78fps
0
50
100
GIMP IMAGE
EDITING
150
200
150
200
150
200
HANDBRAKE H.264
VIDEO ENCODING
LUXMARK
OPENCL
185,981 154,468 134.96%
HEAVY MULTITASKING
1,920 x 1,080, Ultra Detail, DX11
AlphaBeta i5 RTX
54,727 322,567 122,999
SYSTEM
SCORE
INTEL PERFORMANCE
INDEX
2,560 x 1,440, Ultra Detail, DX11
72fps
59fps
AlphaBeta i5 RTX
0
50
100
BATTLEFIELD V
1,920 x 1,080, Ultra settings, DX12, High DXR, DLSS
67fps
AlphaBeta i5 RTX
0
78fps
50
100
2,560 x 1,440, Ultra settings, DX12, High DXR, DLSS
53fps
AlphaBeta i5 RTX
0
50
Minimum
ALPHA FLIGHT
60fps
100
150
200
Average
and beyond in our tests. There’s no significant difference
between the AlphaBeta PC and its pricier rivals – the
Overclockers machine returned virtually identical scores.
However, while the Core i5-9600KF is fast enough for
gaming, it’s unable to compete with the AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
that’s routinely found in competing PCs. The 6-core Intel
chip was slightly slower in the single-threaded image editing
benchmark, but it was significantly slower in our heavily
multi-threaded Handbrake test. The Intel CPU returned an
overall system score of 154,468, but the 8-core AMD silicon
routinely scores beyond 220,000.
The AlphaBeta PC has enough CPU power to avoid
gaming bottlenecks, though, and it has enough pace to
handle web browsing, photo editing and everyday work. If
your main priority is gaming, then this CPU is absolutely fine.
The budget bites when it comes to storage though. The
Crucial MX500 could only manage read and write speeds of
558MB/sec and 517MB/sec. That’s several times slower than
the best NVMe drives, although it’s still much quicker than a
hard drive and it’s good to see 500GB of solid state storage.
Meanwhile, thermal performance is reasonable, but not
perfect, as those glass panels block airflow. It’s fine when idle
and gaming, where its peak CPU and GPU delta Ts of 44°C and
48°C are solid, and it was never loud. During a full-system stress
test, the CPU hit a delta T of 76°C, though, which is too high.
+
Great gaming
speed
+
+
Very low price
Smart, small case
BETA TEST
Thesystemonlyreached that point withthe CPUat100
per centload, andthat won’toften happen ina PCthat
isn’t designed for hardcoreproductivity,buttheCPUcould
definitelydowith some morepotent cooling inthiscase.
Conclusion
No other system offers an RTX 2070 Super so cheaply,
and the AlphaBeta i5 RTC also serves up a stunning-looking
case. The low price does involve compromise on the
motherboard, memory and storage, but you can’t beat the
gaming performance if your budget won’t go over a grand.
If you’re searching for a smaller, more focused gaming
machine, this is excellent.
MIKE JENNINGS
-
Mediocre storage
High CPU
temperatures
Underwhelming
motherboard
PERFORMANCE
21/25
DESIGN
21/25
HARDWARE
17/25
VALUE
25/25
OVERALL SCORE
VERDICT
Incredible gaming performance for the price. You have
to compromise on the spec, but this is a fast and goodlooking rig if gaming is your top priority.
84 %
41
R E V I E WS / PC SYSTEMS
tom P
s
u
E
AD
M
C
PRE
SCAN 3XS
VENGEANCE RTX
TI FLUID/£4,499
c
GAMING PC
IUM GR
incVAT
SUPPLIER scan.co.uk
can’s3XSVengeanceRTXTiFluidisoneof
themostpowerfulconsumerPCsthe
Bolton-basedfirmhaseverproduced–it
servesupaPCI-E4SSD,anRTX2080TiGPUand
oneofAMD’smonsternewRyzen93950XCPUs.
You’llhavetoshelloutawhopping£4,499incVATfor
thismachine,though,soit’sgoodthatAMD’snew
chipisabeast.Ithas16cores(and32threadsviaSMT)
andabasespeedof3.5GHz.What’smore,Scanhas
madegooduseofanextensivewater-coolingloop
tooverclockeveryoneofthose16coresto4.3GHz.
Of course, those 16 cores are
unlikely
to be used in most games
SPEC
and office tasks, but they’re great for
CPU
3.5GHz AMD Ryzen 9 3950X
heavily multi-threaded video and CAD
overclocked to 4.3GHz
work. The 3950X also swats away
Motherboard
Intel’s mainstream competition, with
Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Hero
even the latest Core i9-9900KS only
Memory
having eight cores.
32GB Corsair Vengeance RGB
Pro 3200MHz DDR4
Meanwhile,theAsusROG Crosshair
Graphics
VIIIHeromotherboardlooksthepart,
EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11GB
withhugeheatsinks,achunkyI/Oshield
Storage
and loadsofRGBLEDs, as well as
2TB Corsair MP600 PCI-E 4 M.2
SSD; 2TB Samsung 860 QVO SSD
on-boardbuttons, aPOST display,
Case
2.5Gbps Ethernetand a decent
Corsair Crystal 680X
SupremeFX S1220audiosetuplinkedto
Cooling
anESSES9023PDAC.It’swell stocked
CPU: Corsair XC7 RGB waterblock,
atthebacktoo, withamightycountof 11
Corsair XR5 240mm radiator with 2 x
120mm fans, Corsair XD5 RGB pump
USB3.2Gen2ports,alongsideaType-C
and reservoir; GPU: Corsair XG7 RGB
connection.However, there’sno Wi-Fi.
waterblock, Corsair XR5 240mm
Gaming power comes from an EVGA
radiator with 2 x 120mm fans; front: 3
x 120mm fans; rear: 1 x 120mm fan
GeForce RTX 2080 Ti card, which has
PSU
had its 1545MHz base clock improved
Corsair RM850x 850W
by 190MHz, and Scan’s engineers have
Ports
also added 500MHz to the memory
Front: 2 x USB 3.1 Gen 1, 1 x USB 3.1 Gen
speed. There’s also 32GB of 3200MHz
2 Type-C, 2 x audio; rear: 8 x USB 3.2
Gen 2, 3 x USB 3.2 Gen 1, 1 x USB 3.1 Gen 1
memory, and storage is divided
Type-C, 1 x 2.5Gbps Ethernet, 1 x Gigabit
between
a lightning-quick 2TB Corsair
Ethernet, 1 x optical S/PDIF, 5 x audio
Force MP600 PCI-E 4 SSD and a 2TB
Operating system
Samsung 860 QVO SATA drive. The
Microsoft Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Warranty
specification is rounded out by a fully
Three years parts and labour. First
modular Corsair RM850x PSU with 80
year on site, then return to base
Plus Gold certification.
S
42
The high-end hardware is crammed into a Corsair Crystal
680X chassis – a huge enclosure with sturdy metal and
tempered glass used throughout. It’s dominated by a
stunning water-cooling loop too. The CPU and GPU use
Corsair XC7 and XG7 waterblocks, linked to a pair of Corsair
XR5 240mm radiators. The loop’s rigid tubing is filled with
red coolant, and every light across the system is set to glow
with a matching crimson hue.
The Crystal is 344mm wide, which means there’s also
loads of space behind the motherboard. This cavity is where
you’ll find the Corsair XD5 reservoir and pump, alongside
three control boxes for the fans and lights, including a Corsair
Commander Pro box that works with Corsair’s iCUE software.
There’s no denying that the rear is cramped, with loads of
cabling alongside the reservoir and pump. It’s possible to
install 2.5in drives easily in this area, but adding hard disks
requires their cage to be removed, and accessing the rear of
the motherboard will need more work.
Finally, Scan’s usual three year RTB warranty covers parts
and labour for the duration, and it’s boosted with the bonus
of a year of on site coverage as well.
Performance
The overclocked Ryzen 9 3950X is a beast when it comes
to multi-threaded workloads. Our Handbrake test
evaluates multi-threaded performance, and Scan’s
machine scored 955,752. That’s huge – nearly 400,000
points better than an Intel Core i9-9900K and the Ryzen 7
3800X. This means that the Scan will swat aside any multithreaded task with more speed and agility than any other
consumer chip available.
B E N C H M A R K R E S U LTS
59,992 955,752 152,528
GIMP IMAGE
EDITING
HANDBRAKE H.264
VIDEO ENCODING
LUXMARK
OPENCL
295,076 335,331
HEAVY MULTITASKING
SYSTEM
SCORE
SHADOW OF THE TOMB RAIDER
2,560 x 1,440, Highest Detail, TAA
117fps
90fps
Scan 3XS Vengeance RTX Ti Fluid
0
50
100
150
200
3,840 x 2,160, Highest Detail, TAA
64fps
52fps
Scan 3XS Vengeance RTX Ti Fluid
0
50
100
150
200
2,560 x 1,440, Ultra Detail, DX11
104fps
83fps
0
50
100
150
200
3,840 x 2,160, Ultra Detail, DX11
50fps
Scan 3XS Vengeance RTX Ti Fluid
0
60fps
50
100
150
200
BATTLEFIELD V
2,560 x 1,440, Ultra settings, DX12, High DXR
0
50
The Ryzen 9 3950X is a market-leading chip in multithreaded workloads, and the rest of the Scan’s specification
is sensational. The stellar performance is joined by fantastic
design, with excellent water cooling. Of course, you pay a
high price for this setup, and few people need this level of
CPU power. If you do, you’ll be able to find it for less money
if you abandon Scan’s overclocking, water-cooling and
flagship components. If you do demand top-tier processing
grunt and components alongside incredible design, though,
the Vengeance RTX Ti Fluid is a superb machine.
MIKE JENNINGS
70fps
60fps
Scan 3XS Vengeance RTX Ti Fluid
100
150
200
53fps
0
50
Minimum
+
Amazing multithreaded speed
+
Superb
gaming pace
+
Incredible watercooling system
RIPPED APART
-
Expensive
Middling singlethreaded pace
100
150
200
58fps
Average
PERFORMANCE
25/25
DESIGN
24/25
HARDWARE
24/25
VALUE
18/25
OVERALL SCORE
3,840 x 2,160, Ultra settings, DX12, High DXR
Scan 3XS Vengeance RTX Ti Fluid
RIP ROARING
Conclusion
TOTAL WAR: WARHAMMER II
Scan 3XS Vengeance RTX Ti Fluid
The total system score
of 335,331 is stupendous,
sittingmorethan
100,000points beyond
the usual competitors on
mainstreamCPUsockets.
Theonlypartwhereyou
don’tgetmuchbenefitissingle-threadedperformance,whichis
limitedbythe4.3GHzall-coreoverclock.However,that’sstilla
decentclockspeed,andtheresultof59,992inourGIMPimage
editingtestissolidenough.
Besides,themain factorforgaming performanceisyour
graphics card,andtheScan’s overclockedGeForceRTX2080
Tiissuperblyfast.Itrocketed throughour 2,560 x1,440game
tests, and itevenmaintained asuperbminimum of53fps in
our4K BattlefieldV test withDXR onHigh, and that’swithout
DLSSenabled either– a superbresult. The Scan canclearly
cope well with 4K gaming,evenwith raytracing enabled.
TheSSDisno sloucheither. Its readand write speeds of
4,817MB/secand4,172MB/sec are market-leading.What’s
more,the top-notchwater-cooling systemdoesagreatjobof
coolingthe components– theCPU andGPUdelta Tsof 55°C
and32°C are great,andthe noiselevels arefineaswell. The
noiseis noticeable, but never irritating.
VERDICT
Stunning speed, hardware and design. It’s expensive, but
it’s an amazing build.
91%
43
R E V I E WS / MINCE PIES
MINCE PIE MEGATEST
We apply our demanding testing principles to the latest festive pastry treats,
complete with blind taste testing, to find the top Christmas pies
for six
Opening the test this year is a really ordinary-looking pie with
a star on the top. It shares thisappearance almost exactly with
some of its rivals (leading to questions over just how many
varieties of industrial pie pastry cutters there are in the UK
mince pie industry).
Despite looking nonplussed, however, the
Morrisons pie tasted pretty good. There’s
no unpleasant aftertaste, and the filling is
surprisingly tasty for the money There’s
nothing extravagant here, but if you’re
short of cash, this is the best sub-£1 box
of pies we’ve tasted this year.
6/10
R E V I E WS / MINCE PIES
for six
ROV E
The Tesco Finest pies are big boozy beasts with a strong,
sweet flavour and a slightly sharp aftertaste, which
divided some of the panel’s judges, but not disastrously
so. It’s a traditional approach to a traditional treat, and
Tesco has pretty much nailed it.
Plus, if you’re going to make a good
pie, we’re all fans of making that pie as
big as the laws of physics will allow
in a supermarket package – more is
more. If you can’t get to Sainsbury’s
or Waitrose this year, the Tesco Finest
is a solid effort.
Taste Testers: Antony Leather, Ben Hardwidge, Charlotte Milligan, Edward Chester,
Lucy Hattersley, Mike Jennings, Phil Hartup and Rosemary Hattersley
44
PP
7/10
Reviews: Phil Hartup
D
TESCO FINEST
/£1.85
A
MORRISONS
MINCE PIES/£1
C
c
tom P
us
MORRISONS
THE BEST/£2 for six
TESCO MINCE PIES
/£0.87 for six
HESTON FROM WAITROSE
CHOCOLATE AND CHERRY
MINCE PIES/£3 for six
The standard Tesco mince pie is a dead ringer
for the Morrisons one, but they’re definitely not
the same inside – we even did a second, sideby-side tasting of all the identical-looking pies
to make sure. Weaker pastry and a much less
pleasing filling were notable
aspects. That’s not brilliant
when the comparison pie
4/10
didn’t exactly light up the
room either.
Thesepungent weirdos have astrong but
notunpleasantscentwhenyou takeoff
the packaging,and make a deliciousfirst
impression when youbite them. However, the
chemicallyartificialaftertasteis real,and it’s
not ourfriend. It’s not anybody’s
friend, infact.Anambitious
and strangeoffering;we’re not
3/10
against theideaof thesepies,
buttheexecution is lacking.
SAINSBURY’S TASTE
THE DIFFERENCE /£2 for six
M&S ALL BUTTER
/£1.80 for six
SAINSBURY’S
MINCE PIES/£1 for six
The Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference offering
provides a rather intricate pastry design on a
solid, tasty, classic mince pie. There’s tasty,
chunky filling, good pastry and no weird
chemically artificial aftertaste that makes you
wonder if you’ve been poisoned.
There’s nothing hugely
adventurous here and there
8/10
doesn’t need to be – it’s just
a proper mince pie done well.
A great effort all round.
If you’re putting a star on a mince pie lid, you
make it a pastry star on top of the pie lid, or you
use a pastry star as whole the pie lid. You don’t
put a star shaped hole on the top of your pie.
We’re not kids. We’re not bad people. But we
had to laugh at the bum-hole pie
lids, because we’re not made of
stone. We ate the pie anyway
– it was okay. It’s a bit lemony,
5/10
there isn’t much filling and it’s
little bland.
Sainsbury’s standard mince pie effort was
the most spectacularly bland pie to grace the
table this month. Its pastry Christmas tree
on the lid is a unique effort this month, but
there’s otherwise absolutely nothing going
on with this pie at all, making it a complete
waste of calorie intake. The
only plus side was that, by
lacking much in the way of
3/10
discernible flavour, it was at
least also totally inoffensive.
Morrisons’‘The Best’pie is well-presented,
with not one but two layersof pastry stars,
but they’relacking bothintasteandpastry
consistency.There’salways some variation
in flavourwith mincepies,butthisveered off
into odd places. We’ve had much
worse, butthat’s reallynot
saying much.Even the nameis
5/10
wrong –thestandardMorrisons
mince piestastebetter.
E
AD
c
PRE
M
C
tom P
us
IUM GR
45
R E V I E WS / MINCE PIES
E
AD
c
PRE
M
C
tom P
us
IUM GR
M&S PUFF PASTRY
MINCE PIES/£2.50 for six
HESTON FROM WAITROSE MR KIPLING/£1.75 for six
SPICED MINCE PIES WITH
LEMON/£3 for four
M&S’additionofpuffpastrytothemincepie
formulaworkedforsomeofourpanel.Thepies
tasteokay,andthepuffpastrywithitscrustof
sugarisquitetasty(it’shardtogowrongwith
bigchunksofsugar).However,thelackoffilling
madegettingthroughthepie
alotofwork,anditendedup
feelinglikethemincemeatand
5/10
thepuffpastrywouldhavebeen
happierelsewhere.
Thesebafflingheavyweightsbarelyqualifyas
mincepies,butthat’snotnecessarilybad.Witha
spicy,cinnamon-heavyflavour(youcanbarely
tastethelemon)andareallytastycrumbly
topping,ratherthanatraditionallid,thesehuge
odditieswereamassivehitwith
somejudges,butnotwithothers.
They’reexpensive,butthey’re
8/10
amazingifyoulovecinnamon
andyou’refeelingadventurous.
Thesnowflake motif onthe lid ofthispie isa
goodstarttowardsmakingapieChristmassy,
buttheMr Kiplingpiestarted going off-piste
earlywithanunevenpastrytexture,aswell
as a slightly chemically taste to the filling.
There’s alsoanaftertaste
that overstayeda welcome
thatitdidn’treally have in
4/10
thefirstplace.Definitelynot
exceedinglygood.
WAITROSE BUTTER
ENRICHED /£1 .90 for six
COOP MINCE PIES
/£1for six
COOP TRULY
IRRESISTIBLE BUTTER
ENRICHED /£1 for two
A double star design on the lid seems like
an odd choice for a Christmas product.
There’s the star of Bethlehem, but then
what’s the other one? Was it a tribute to the
flag of Panama? Sadly the pie itself was
unremarkable. There’s a strange,
almost a savoury flavour to
the pastry and the filling is
5/10
disappointingly bland too.
You can get better pies for
this money elsewhere.
The Co-Op standard mince pie is a buttery
yet bland pie. Again, its star-topped lid
makes it look like the standard Morrisons
and Sainsbury’s pies, but it tastes different.
It’s still one of several thoroughly ordinary
efforts in our test, but its pastry has
notably the most buttery taste
of these pies. If you’re a big fan
of unimpressive pies, but you
4/10
want your unimpressive pie to
be buttery, this is what you want.
Thispiebroughtadeep,crunchypastrycaseto
the table, which went down better with some
judges than others. Opinion on the filling was
more unifying, but unfortunately, because
nobody was very impressed by it. These pies
look like they’re going to be deep and satisfying,
but the filling’s consistency was
off, being gooey and almost
runny, and it looks weirdly
3/10
shiny too. Nobody signs up
for that with a mince pie.
46
R E V I E WS / CUSTOM KIT
Customkit
Phil Hartup checks out the latest gadgets, gizmos and geek toys
COZOO HEADPHONE STAND
/ £22.99 inc VAT
SUPPLIER amazon.co.uk
The Cozoo Headphone Stand is a combination
of a couple of useful desktop gizmos smushed
together. Ostensibly, it’s a headphone stand that
attaches to the underside of your desk with a
strip of double-sided tape. However, it also has
a three-port USB hub and an audio port. This
combination of features enables you to not only
use the Cozoo as a headset stand, but also as a
charging port or, most helpfully, as the point of
connection for a USB headset back to your PC.
The Cozoo is also supplied with a trio of cable
holders, equipped with double-sided tape,
in order to mitigate the possible headache of
wiring. As such, you can neatly hook the wires
to the underside of your
desk, then up and into the
rear USB ports of your PC.
As a USB hub, it’s inevitably
in an unusual position, but
not an inherently bad one, and
the arms on which you stand the
headphones include additional grabbers
for cables to further limit cabling chaos. It’s not
hard to make a headphone stand, but the Cozoo
excels at its job, and an extra USB 3 port and two
more USB 2 connections never hurt anybody.
Kazoo
Cozoo
SPEEDLINK ORIOS LED XL
/ £52.57 inc VAT
SUPPLIER amazon.co.uk
The Speedlink Orios LED XL is a massive, soft mousepad with a
USB-powered LED strip around the edge. Insofar as ambition is
concerned, the Orios XL is mostly aiming to be really big, and it
succeeds – with its 910 x 420mm area, it’s absolutely huge.
The pad itself is only 3mm thick, with a smooth fabric surface
and a rubberised underside to keep it still. Meanwhile, the LEDs
around the edge feature seven different colours and a pattern
that cycles through them all. By itself, that’s not an impressive
party trick for a mousepad, but the scale of it makes it more
visually interesting, acting as a sort of perimeter light for your
main desktop area. The Orios is a decent execution of the giant
mousepad approach, although it’s also a bit too pricey for what it is.
Giant mouse
Giant mousepad
Seen something worthy of appearing in Custom Kit? Send your suggestions to
phil.hartup@gmail.com
47
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49
L A B S T E ST
GeForce on
the go
Mike Jennings lines up eight RTX-powered gaming laptops to
discover the best mobile gaming rigs
Howwetest
aming laptops are complex devices with many areas where
a machine can excel or disappoint, so a robust set of test
procedures is required to discover which systems are worth
buying. They’re gaming laptops, of course, so we’ve deployed our gaming
tests to find out which machines can handle top titles at solid speeds, and
to discover whether laptops can handle ray tracing and deliver the frame
rates required to handle screens with high refresh rates.
We’ve tested those panels with an X-Rite i1 Display Pro colorimeter in
order to see which screens have the best contrast, colour accuracy and
gamut coverage levels. Many gaming laptops are also used for work,
which is no surprise given their powerful components. In order to evaluate
G
their suitability, we’ve run our application benchmarks so we can assess
their capabilities in both single and multi-threaded workloads. We also ran
SSD benchmarks to find out which drives offer the fastest performance.
Meanwhile, our tests cover both gaming and work scenarios (using
loops of Unigine and PCMark respectively), and we stress-test each
machine in gaming and work situations to find out if any of these machines
will prove too hot or too loud for comfort. Temperatures are measured
using CoreTemp, Prime95 and GPU-Z, and we subtract the ambient air
temperature from these figures to provide a delta T result. To obtain the
final scores, we carefully judge each machine’s performance, design,
hardware and value, and add the scores for each of those parts together.
Contents
Acer Predator Triton 500 /p51
PC Specialist Vortex IX / p58
Alienware m17 / p52
Razer Blade 15 / p59
Chillblast Phantom 17 / p53
Scan 3XS Vengeance GL 2070 / p60
HP Omen 15 / p54
Results graphs / p61
MSI GS75 Stealth 8SG-046UK / p56
50
ACER PREDATOR
TRITON 500/£1,699
inc VAT
SUPPLIER laptopsdirect.co.uk
cer’s Predator Triton 500 has a very
tempting price, which is reflected in
its specification – it relies on the
GeForce RTX 2060, rather than the RTX 2070,
and it has an older Core i7 chip than most of the
competition. The Acer’s RTX 2060 is the same
chip as the Razer, but it’s going to struggle
against the HP Omen’s RTX 2070 Max-Q,
which has an extra 2GB of memory.
The Core i7-8750H retains the 6-core design
of the i7-9750H found in the Razer and HP
laptops, but the Acer’s older chip runs at lesser
base and boost frequencies of 2.2GHz and
4.1GHz. Elsewhere, Acer’s machine has a 512GB
SSD, a 1TB hard disk and 16GB of memory –
solid components. Its networking options are
reasonable too; there’s no Wi-Fi 6, but the
Gigabit Ethernet and dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi
both come from gaming brand Killer.
Gaming performance is underwhelming
though. The Acer returned minimums
A
SPEC
CPU 2.2GHz Intel Core i7-8750H
Memory 16GB 2666MHz DDR4
Graphics Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 6GB
Screen 15.6in 1,920 x 1,080 IPS 144Hz
Storage 512GB WD PC SN720 M.2 SSD
Networking Gigabit Ethernet,
dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi
Weight 2kg
Ports 3 x USB 3.1 Gen 1, 1 x Thunderbolt
3/USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C, 1 x miniDisplayPort, 1 x HDMI 2, 2 x audio jack
Dimensions (mm) 359 x 255 x 18 (W x D x H)
Operating system Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Extras Bluetooth 5
Warranty One year parts and labour return to base
between 49fps and 59fps in our tests. That’s
enough to play esports games beyond 100fps,
but those results are sstill slightly behind
the £1,699 HP. The Triton’s application
benchmark results were middling as well.
It’s quicker than the Raazer machine, but
slower than the HP.
The Acer lasted for around an hour and
a half in gaming batterry tests, which is
on benchmark
good, and its applicatio
result of four hours and 14 minutes
is the longest in the Labs. It’s a good
o. Its CPU
thermal performer too
and GPU delta Ts are fine and noise
levels are low – so it does better than the hot,
throttling HP and Razer systems.
Meanwhile, the Acer’s panel serves
up a 144Hz refresh rate, which is good
for smooth gaming, but there’s no active
sync. The HP’s 240Hz G-Sync panel has
smoother performance, and without tearing
artefacts. Image quality is decent though.
The contrast ratio of 1,319:1 is the best in the
Labs and ensures plenty of vibrancy, and the
brightness level of 356d/m² delivers loads of
punch. The delta E of 3.14 is middling, but it’s
not a bad result and is helped by the accurate
colour temperature of 6,749K. This panel is
easily usable for games.
The chassis looks good too, with blue
accents and a smart speaker grille, while
the 2kg weight and 18mm body make this
machine pleasingly light. There’s a fair bit
of flex in the lid behind the screen though.
Meanwhile, there are no RGB LEDs on the
keyboard, or a numberpad for that matter,
and the switches feel soft – the HP Omen’s
keyboard feels a little crisper. On the plus side,
the keys have enough travel, and the trackpad
has a fast, shallow clicking action, although
serious gamers should still use a USB mouse.
PREDATOR
ALIEN
+
+
Low price
-
Underwhelming
gaming pace
Older processor
+
Decent battery life
-
Reasonable screen
quality
Mediocre keyboard
Conclusion
The Acer isn’t the best-looking or fastest
laptop on test, but it does have enough
power for 1080p gaming alongside good
screen quality. It’s certainly more practical
than the Razer. However, the HP Omen 15
has slightly more graphics power, a newer
CPU and a 240Hz screen, making it a better
option at this price.
VERDICT
A reasonable 1080p gaming laptop, but rivals
offer newer components and a more speed
for the same price.
PERFORMANCE
DESIGN
16/25
17/25
17/25
19/25
HARDWARE
VALUE
OVERALL SCORE
69%
51
L A B S T E S T / GAMING LAPTOPS
ALIENWARE M17/£2,599
inc VAT
SUPPLIER dell.com
lienwarelaptopsarewell-knownfor
their gregariousdesign,andthem17
isnoexception,withitsboldRGB
LEDs and honeycomb-styledair vent and
speaker grilles.It looks moreeye-catching
thanthemodest Chillblast andoutdatedMSI.
Buildqualityisgoodtoo, withsturdy matt
magnesium alloy used throughout, and the m17
hasgreatsoftware,eye-trackingandloadsof
RGBLEDs.It’sagood start, butthe£2,599price
is highand, at 2.6kg, them17is theheaviest
systemon test.
Ergonomicsare solid.The trackpad has
snappy buttons,andthechicletkeyboard has
1.7mmoftravel, arock-solidbase,RGBLED
backlightingandanti-ghostingalongside four
macro keys. TheChillblast’smechanical
keyboardisbetter,buttheAlienwarehasthe
bestchiclet unitintheLabs.
Graphics powercomesfroma GeForceRTX
2080Max-Qalongsidea Core i7-9750H CPU,
16GB ofmemoryand a 256GB SSD, although
there’s nosecondary storage unlessyou pay
A
ROSWELL
NOT WELL
+
+
Great physical design
-
60Hz screen with
poor contrast
Pricier than rivals
+
Best chiclet keyboard
on test
-
Solid gaming
performance
52
Not always the fastest
extra, and you’ll definitely want more than
that 256GB SSD for today’s game installs.
Meanwhile, networking is covered by dualband 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Killer-branded Gigabit
Ethernet, but there’s no sign of Wi-Fi 6. The
speakers aren’t bad either - the bass is
overwhelming but this can be altered in
software, and the mid-range and treble
frequencies sound crisp and clear.
In terms of gaming performance, the
Alienware’s Shadow of the Tomb Raider frame
rate was the fastest on test, never dropping
below 78fps, and its 67fps minimum in Total
War: Warhammer II is great – it’s faster than the
MSI, which has the same GPU. Meanwhile, in
Battlefield V with High DXR, the Alienware
returned a solid minimum of 54fps. That’s
faster than the MSI, although the Chillblast’s
non-Max-Q RTX 2070 was slightly quicker in
this test. The Alienware’s overall RealBench
result of 148,927 is also solid, falling between
the slower MSI and the faster Chillblast.
Meanwhile, the Alienware’s gaming
battery life of just over an hour isn’t great
compared with the MSI, but it’s better than
the Chillblast. However, the Alienware’s
application battery lifespan of nearly four
hours is longer than both rivals. It’s solid in
thermal tests too, with no temperature
issues and consistently quiet fan noise. Only
the Chillblast was quieter, and not by much.
A
Alienware’s machinefalters
inth
he screen department
thou
ugh. ItsdeltaE of 1.97 is
grea
atandit handled95.2per
centofthesRGBcolour
gam
mut,but the contrastlevel
of759:1is low, so gameslack
dep
pth andpunch.It’salso the
only
ypanel ontesttorunat
60H
Hz. That’s smooth enough
for most
m gaming needs, but
com
mpetitive esports players
w
won’tbe
satisfied and a
144Hz screen will cost
an extra £249.
SPEC
CPU 2.6GHz Intel Core i7-9750H
Memory 16GB 2666MHz DDR4
Graphics Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q 8GB
Screen 17.3in 1,920 x 1,080 IPS 60Hz
Storage 256GB SK Hynix PC601 M.2 SSD
Networking Gigabit Ethernet,
dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi
Weight 2.6kg
Ports 3 x USB 3.1 Gen 1, 1 x Thunderbolt 3/USB
3.1 Gen 2 Type-C, 1 x mini-DisplayPort, 1 x HDMI
2, 1 x audio jack, 1 x Alienware Graphics Amplifier
Dimensions (mm) 400 x 296 x 21 (W x D x H)
Operating system Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Extras Bluetooth 4.2
Warranty One year parts and labour on site
Conclusion
Alienware’s machine looksfantasticand
hasgood gamingandapplicationpace.It’s
comfortablybetterthanthepricierMSI. In
terms of performance, itstruggles against the
Chillblast though. That laptop maynot have
extravagantdesign,butitofferscomparable
gamingspeed,extraapplicationpower, abetter
screen andamechanicalkeyboardfor£1,949.
TheAlienwareis bold, but it’s not quite good
enoughto justifyitshighprice.
VERDICT
An eye-catching design, but the m17 can’t
outpace cheaper competitors.
PERFORMANCE
DESIGN
22/25
23/25
19/25
17/25
HARDWARE
VALUE
OVERALL SCORE
81%
CHILLBLAST PHANTOM 17
/£1,949 inc VAT
he Chillblast Phantom 17 is the only
17.3in machine in the Labs with a
mechanical keyboard. It’s an
excellent addition; the buttons have more
travel, snap and speed than any chiclet unit,
and there’s a strong base.
The Chillblast has a numberpad too, and no
buttons are reduced in size. The keyboard has
RGB LED backlighting too, and it offers a
robust gaming and typing experience. We
can’t say the same for the trackpad though –
it’s large, but the buttons are soft.
The design is decent elsewhere too, even if
it doesn’t have the pizzazz of the Alienware.
Its 2.4kg weight and 27mm frame mean its
dimensions slot between the larger
Alienware and the slimmer MSI, and its
design is smart and subtle – it’s all matt metal
and brushed aluminium.
T
HAUNTED
HUNTED
+
-
+
+
Impressive
gaming speed
Fast in applications
Mechanical keyboard
Underwhelming looks
Poor battery life
A little heavy
and chunky
The sides serve up a USB 3.1 Type-C port
and two full-sized USB 3.1 connectors, plus
a card reader, but its third USB port uses the
slower USB 2 standard and there’s no
Thunderbolt 3. Meanwhile, there’s Gigabit
Ethernet and dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi for
networking, but no Wi-Fi 6.
Inside, there’s a Core i7-9750H and a full-fat
mobile RTX 2070 GPU alongside 16GB of DDR4
RAM. Storage is covered by a 500GB Samsung
NVMe SSD and a 2TB hard disk. That SSD is the
fastest in the Labs too. The Core i7 processor
returned an overall RealBench score of 157,541 –
fast enough to just about beat the Alienware and
easily outpace the MSI. It’s not enough power to
beat the PC Specialist’s Core i9 CPU, but that
chip is only worth considering for serious multithreaded work alongside games.
Intermsofgamingperformance,theRTX
2070’sShadowoftheTombRaiderminimum
of71fpsisalittlebehinditsrivalswiththeRTX
2080Max-Q,but itsTotalWar:WarhammerII
minimumof63fpsbeatstheMSI.InBattlefieldV
withHighDXR,itsscoreswerealittlebetterthan
theMSIandPCSpecialist.Itmaynothave‘2080’
initsname,butthere’sclearlyplentyofgaming
powerinthisGPU.
TheChillblastalsoremainedcoolandquiet
duringgaming.Don’texpectmuchbattery
lifethough–itcouldn’thandleanhourof
gamingwiththescreenatfullbrightness.
Meanwhile, the 17.3in panel’s 144Hz
refresh rate means undemanding games
with high frame rates look smoother than
on the Alienware’s screen, and it has a
solid contrast ratio of 1,277:1. Its delta E
of 2.25 is poorer than that of the
Alienware and MSI screens, and it
only rendered 87.3 per cent of
the sRGB colour gamut, but
those figures are still
fine for gaming.
E
PRE
M
AD
SUPPLIER chillblast.com
C
c
tom P
s
u
IUM GR
SPEC
CPU 2.6GHz Intel Core i7-9750H
Memory 16GB 2,666MHz DDR4
Graphics Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 8GB
Screen 17.3in 1,920 x 1,080 IPS 144Hz
Storage 500GB Samsung 970 Evo Plus M.2
SSD, 2TB Seagate Barracuda hard disk
Networking Gigabit Ethernet,
dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi
Weight 2.4kg
Ports 2 x USB 3.1 Gen 2, 1 x USB 3.1
Type-C, 1 x USB 2, 2 x mini-DisplayPort,
1 x HDMI 2, 1 x SDXC, 2 x audio jack
Dimensions (mm) 396 x 261 x 27 (W x D x H)
Operating system Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Extras Bluetooth 5
Warranty Two years parts and labour
collect and return, followed by three
years labour only return to base
Conclusion
The Chillblast doesn’t have the pizzazz of the
Alienware, but it offers comparable gaming
pace, it’s quicker in applications, and it has a
superior screen and a mechanical keyboard.
With great gaming performance and a sub£2,000 price, it’s the best 17.3in gaming laptop
in the Labs.
VERDICT
There are no outrageous design elements,
but this affordable laptop offers great quality
and fast gaming performance.
PERFORMANCE
DESIGN
23/25
19/25
21/25
23/25
HARDWARE
VALUE
OVERALL SCORE
86%
53
L A B S T E S T / GAMING LAPTOPS
HP Omen 15/£1,6999
incVAT
SUPPLIER hp.com
P’s affordable Omen15 balances
eye-catchinglookswitharefined
sense of design.OlderOmen models
hadred accents andoutlandishangles, but
thosehave been replacedwith modest
texturedmetalandmattaluminium.It’sone
of thebest-lookingmachinesintheLabs.
It measures 20mm thick and build quality
is solid, but it’s a bit heavier than rivals. Still, it’s
a good start – it’s just as sturdy as the Razer
and better than the Acer and Scan machines
THE OMEN
THE OMEN IV
+
Great-quality 240Hz
screen with G-Sync
Rivals are faster
+
Smart, sturdy
exterior design
-
+
Solid gaming
performance
-
Soft keyboard
and trackpad
CPU sometimes
throttles
SPEC
CPU 2.6GHz Intel Core i7-9750H
Memory 16GB 2666MHz DDR4
Graphics Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q 8GB
Screen 15.6in 1,920 x 1,080 IPS 240Hz
Storage 1TB Samsung PM981 M.2 SSD
Networking Gigabit Ethernet,
dual-band 802.11ax Wi-Fi
Weight 2.4kg
Ports 3 x USB 3.1 Gen 1, 1 x USB 3.1 Gen 2
Type-C/Thunderbolt 3, 1 x mini-DisplayPort,
1 x HDMI, 1 x audio jack, 1 x SDXC
Dimensions (mm) 360 x 260 x 20 (W x D x H)
Operating system Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Extras Bluetooth 5
Warranty One year parts and labour return to base
54
in this respect. The
HP ha
as three full-sized
USB 3.1
3 ports and a Type-C
socket
et that supports Thunderbolt 3 –
alongside a card reader, Gigabit Ethernet and
Wi-Fi 6 – those are great connection options.
Meanwhile, the chiclet keyboard has
customisable RGB LEDs and 26-key antighosting support. The buttons have 1.5mm
of travel, a consistent action and a firm base.
The action is a little soft, but the keyboard
is better than Acer and Razer’s efforts this
month – only the mechanical Scan and
Chillblast keyboards are better. The trackpad
isn’t particularly good though – the two
buttons are too soft and push down too far.
The Omen is one of two machines in this
Labs with a 240Hz screen, and it’s the only
model that also includes Nvidia G-Sync.
That refresh rate is arguably overkill for most
people, but the inclusion of G-Sync is great
for the price, ensuring that tearing artefacts
are eliminated during games. The 1,196:1
contrast ratio is also fine, and its delta E of 1.88
means colours will be accurate. The colour
temperature of 7,112K is a little chilly, but it’s not
wayward enough to cause significant issues.
On the inside, the HP uses the RTX 2070
Max-Q, which is the same GPU as the Scan
and a step ahead of the RTX 2060 inside
the Acer and Razer models. The HP also
has a Core i7-9750H CPU, 16GB of DDR4
memory and a 1TB Samsung PM981 SSD –
that’s great capacity at this price, although its
performance lags behind the latest SSDs.
The HP’s 61fps and 56fps minimums in
Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Total War:
Warhammer II were only marginally better
than the RTX 2060 machines
we tested
tested, and it was a couple of
frames per second ahead of these machines
in Battlefield V with ray tracing enabled.
Scan’s machine is pricier, but quicker.
In application benchmarks, the HP
outpaced the Acer and the Razer machines,
but it was much slower than the Scan,
and battery life was middling. Thermal
performance was mixed too. The Omen
was cool and quiet during games. However,
the processor becomes hot and throttles
to 2.4GHz during intensive workloads.
Conclusion
The Omen 15 looks great, has a buttersmooth 240Hz screen and solid connection
options and ergonomics, but it’s average
on the inside. It’s only a little faster
than the Acer and Razer machines, but
noticeably slower than the Scan, and it
gets very hot. The pricier Scan offers more
in the way of raw power, but the Omen
still outpaces the Acer and Razer and
offers a superb screen for the money.
VERDICT
A 240Hz screen alongside solid speed and
design – but more power is out there.
PERFORMANCE
DESIGN
17/25
19/25
20/25
23/25
HARDWARE
VALUE
OVERALL SCORE
79%
Join us as we lift the lid
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L A B S T E S T / GAMING LAPTOPS
MSI GS75 STEALTH
8SG046UK /£2,830
inc VAT
SUPPLIER box.co.uk
SI’sGS75 Stealth8SG-046UKisthe
mostexpensive machine ontestthis
month,with a pricethat’s morethan
£200 beyond even theAlienware.It’s theonly
machineherewith32GBofmemoryaswell,
and ithas 1TB ofsolid state storage.Italso
comeskittedwithaGeForceRTX2080Max-Q
GPU, whichis oneof themost powerfulGPUsin
theLabs –just like theAlienware.
The other 17.3in machine on test, the
Chillblast, uses the full-power RTX 2070,
which has fewer stream processors but faster
clock speeds. However, the MSI uses the older
Core i7-8750H, which still has six cores, but
has reduced speeds when compared with the
Core i7-9750H used in rivals.
That means reduced application
performance. The MSI beat the Alienware in
M
STEALTH FIGHTER
STEALTH TAX
+
+
+
-
Good screen quality
32GB of RAM
Slim and light
56
Rivals are faster
Old processor
Very expensive
the single-threaded image editing test, but it
was at least 35,000 points behind rivals in the
Handbrake benchmark and more than 12,000
points back in the overall result. The CPU isn’t
slow, but you can get more CPU power for less
money elsewhere.
The MSI offers reasonable gaming
performance, though, with Tomb Raider
scores that beat the Chillblast, although
its performance was outpaced by several
competitors in Battlefield V with High DXR.
On the plus side, the use of a Max-Q GPU
has enabled MSI to slim down the chassis to
just 18mm thick. With a weight of just 2.3kg,
this makes it the slimmest and lightest 17.3in
laptop on test this month. The aluminium
panels look and feel good too, although the
bronze edging is really a matter for your tastes
– it looks good to our eyes, but it’s not neutral.
Elsewhere,the basepanel isa littleweak,
although thekeyboard’s chicletbuttons are
goodenough forgaming andtyping.There’s an
RGBLEDbacklight too, although keen gamers
willpreferthe taller, more solid Alienware
buttonsortheChillblast’s mechanical
hardware. The trackpadis disappointing. It’s
large,butitsposition to theright-handsideof
the base meanswristseasilycatch it, and its
built-inbuttonsaretoosoft.
The screenisahighpoint though.The MSI’s
brightness of 376cd/m²is the bestresult on
test,andthecontrast ratioof 1,106:1isgood as
well.ThedeltaEof0.74is fantastic, thecolour
temperatureis good andthepanelrendered
95.5percentof thesRGBgamut.Combine
thiswiththe144Hz refreshrateand
you’ve got a display that will make
any game look great.
Thosedimensionsdon’t
leave muchroomfor a
decent battery though.
The MSI couldn’t make
it through an hour of
gaming with the screen at
full brightness and couldn’t
SPEC
CPU 2.2GHz Intel Core i7-8750H
Memory 32GB 2666MHz DDR4
Graphics Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q 8GB
Screen 17.3in 1,920 x 1,080 IPS 144Hz
Storage 2 x 512GB M.2 SSD
Networking Gigabit Ethernet,
dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi
Weight 2.3kg
Ports 3 x USB 3.1 Gen 1, 1 x USB 3.1 Gen 2
Type-C, 1 x Thunderbolt 3, 1 x mini-DisplayPort,
1 x HDMI, 1 x audio jack, 1 x microSD
Dimensions (mm) 358 x 248 x 18 (W x D x H)
Operating system Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Extras Bluetooth 5
Warranty One year parts and labour return to base
handle 90minutesofworkeither.Itwasnever
particularly loudin thermaltests, whichis good,
buttheAlienware andChillblast were botha
littlequieter.
Conclusion
The MSI may have a good screen and
plenty of gaming power, but its cheaper
rivals are quicker in both games and
applications. Alienware’s pricey portable
looks snazzier and has a superior keyboard,
and the Chillblast is cheaper and better in
most departments.
VERDICT
A great screen in a slim and light chassis, but
you can get faster performance for much less
money elsewhere.
PERFORMANCE
DESIGN
20/25
19/25
22/25
15/25
HARDWARE
VALUE
OVERALL SCORE
76%
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L A B S T E S T / GAMING LAPTOPS
PC SPECIALIST VORTEX IX
/£1,999 inc VAT
SUPPLIER pcspecialist.co.uk
he PC Specialist Vortex IX isn’t the
most attractive laptop we’ve seen.
The lid and base are made from
plain metal, the wrist rest is littered with
stickers and the sides have strange orange
accents. It weighs 2.5kg, and it’s the thickest
laptop on test too.
On the plus side, it’s kitted out with a Core
i9-9980HK CPU with eight Hyper-Threaded
cores – the rest of the machines on test have
6-core chips. The CPU has base and boost
speeds of 2.4GHz and 5GHz, with that latter
figure also the best on test. It’s joined by a
full-power RTX 2070 GPU – the same GPU
as the Chillblast, while the boot drive is a
500GB Samsung SSD that returned excellent
read and write speeds, plus there’s 16GB of
2666MHz memory.
T
VORTEX
ARTEX
+
+
+
-
Incredible CPU pace
Good gaming power
240Hz screen
58
Loud, bulky and ugly
Poor screen quality
Keyboard feels
too soft
That extra CPU clock speed put the PC
Specialist 6,000 points ahead of all the
competition in our image editing test, and
those extra two cores put it nearly 200,000
points ahead of rivals in our Handbrake test as
well. It’s by far the fastest machine on test for
application performance.
Meanwhile, the PC Specialist’s 74fps and
68fps minimums in Shadow of the Tomb
Raider and Total War: Warhammer II outpace
the Chillblast, but the RTX 2080 Max-Q
machines are faster in those games and
the Chillblast is faster in Battlefield V. The
PC Specialist is still a fast gaming machine,
nevertheless. Practical features are solid
as well, with three full-sized USB 3 ports
and separate USB Type-C and Thunderbolt
connections. You get dual-band Wi-Fi 6 too.
Where the PC Specialist starts to falter is
with its screen. Its 240Hz refresh rate means
it’s capable of smooth gaming at high frame
rates, but the HP Omen goes one step further
with G-Sync support. Quality isn’t great either.
The brightness of 305cd/m² is comparatively
dim, and the contrast ratio of 1,089:1 is
middling – more vibrancy can be found
e
elsewhere. The delta E of 1.81 is reasonable,
but its colour tempe
,
e ture of 7,908K
is too
chilly for work and leaves games with a slight
blue pall. The speakers aren’t much
h cop either,
sounding tinny and lacking bass.
The other issue is fan noise – th
his machine
is one of the loudest on test, alt ugh the
CPU and GPU delta Ts of 54°C an
nd 52°C are
great. Battery life is reasonable too, lasting
just over four hours in our ever ay work
test, and just over an hour when
n gaming.
Meanwhile, the keyboard is a ch
hiclet unit with
a numberpad that’s fine for typing and
casual gaming
g, but its weak
ba
ase makes
it too soft for
serious gaming.
SPEC
CPU 2.4GHz Intel Core i9-9980HK
Memory 16GB 2666MHz DDR4
Graphics Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 8GB
Screen 15.6in 1,920 x 1,080 IPS 240Hz
Storage 500GB Samsung 970 Evo Plus M.2
SSD, 1TB Seagate Barracuda hard disk
Networking Gigabit Ethernet,
dual-band 802.11ax Wi-Fi
Weight 2.5kg
Ports 3 x USB 3.1 Gen 1, 1 x USB 3.1 Gen
2 Type-C, 1 x Thunderbolt 3, 1 x miniDisplayPort, 1 x HDMI 2, 2 x audio jack
Dimensions (mm) 359 x 263 x 33 (W x D x H)
Operating system Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Extras Bluetooth 5
Warranty One year parts and labour. First month
collect and return, then return to base
Conclusion
PC Specialist’s bulky system suffers
from inconsistent screen quality and
underwhelming ergonomics, but its Core
i9 CPU offers tremendous power and the
RTX 2070 is fast. There’s more quality and
gaming power available elsewhere, though,
so this machine is only suitable if you really
want its 8-core CPU.
VERDICT
Lashings of CPU power and good gaming
speed, but the PC Specialist is noisy and
needs a better screen.
PERFORMANCE
DESIGN
24/25
16/25
17/25
20/25
HARDWARE
VALUE
OVERALL SCORE
77%
RAZER BLADE 15
/£1,899 inc VAT
SUPPLIER razer.com
azer’s Blade 15 is arguably the bestlooking laptop in the Labs, with its
aluminium frame, clean lines and
smart logos. It’s slim and light, with a weight of
2.1kg and a 20mm body, and build quality is
exceptional. Acer’s rival offers similar
dimensions alongside more basic looks and
build quality, while the HP and Scan machines
are much larger. Connection options are solid
too, with Thunderbolt 3 support included.
It’s a good start, but the Razer falters in
practical areas. It uses an RTX 2060, just like
the Acer, and its Tomb Raider, Warhammer
and Battlefield minimums of 60fps, 55fps and
50fps are virtually identical to those of the
Acer. However, the Razer’s bigger competition
comes from the Scan and HP, both of which
have RTX 2070 Max-Q GPUs. Both machines
are faster in gaming, with the Scan in particular
R
SPEC
CPU 2.6GHz Intel Core i7-9750H
Memory 16GB 2666MHz DDR4
Graphics Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 6GB
Screen 15.6in 1,920 x 1,080 IPS 240Hz
Storage 512GB Lite-On CA3 M.2 SSD
Networking Gigabit Ethernet,
dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi
Weight 2.1kg
Ports 3 x USB 3.1 Gen 1, 1 x Thunderbolt
3/USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C, 1 x miniDisplayPort, 1 x HDMI 2, 1 x audio jack
Dimensions (mm) 355 x 235 x 20 (W x D x H)
Operating system Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Extras Bluetooth 5
Warranty One year parts and labour return to base
opening a substantial lead.
The Razer
R
has enough power for
1080
0p gaming, but you can clearly
get more
m performance
p
g
in this p
price league.
The same is true for application
performance, despite this machine having
a Core i7-9750H CPU alongside 16GB of
memory. The Blade’s overall RealBench score
of 128,252 is the slowest result on test, and its
SSD read and write speeds of 3,054MB/sec
and 1,756MB/sec are unimpressive for this
price too. Again, the Razer will still handle Office
applications and web browsing fine, but more
CPU power is available elsewhere.
The sluggish CPU performance can be
attributed to throttling. In a full-system stress
test, the Blade’s CPU hit a high delta T of 71°C
and ran at just 2.1GHz. In this test, the area
above the keyboard was also too hot to touch.
The thermals were better in gaming tests,
where temperatures remained fine and noise
levels were comfortably low. Don’t expect
brilliant battery life either – the Razer lasted for
an hour in games but couldn’t match the Acer’s
lifespan in an application test.
The screen is mediocre too. Its contrast
ratio of 1,254 is high enough to deliver good
punch, but the delta E of 2.4 is one of the worst
colour accuracy results on test, and the colour
temperature of 7,233K is chilly. The brightness
level of 301cd/m² sits at the bottom of the
table this month as well.
The panel has enough contrast and
colour accuracy to make games look decent,
alongside a 144Hz refresh rate, but better
panels are readily available. The speakers are
better, with decent bass and punchy, clear
audio. The keyboard and trackpad aren’t great
though. The keyboard has no numberpad,
SHARP
BLUNT
+
Gorgeous exterior
design
+
Enough speed for
1080p gaming
-
+
Quiet in gaming tests
Rivals are often faster
Disappointing
keyboard
-
Mediocre screen
quality
-
CPU throttles
and the buttons are shallow – they don’t
have the travel and solid feeling needed for
gaming. Meanwhile, the trackpad’s buttons are
pleasingly shallow, but the action feels too soft.
Conclusion
Razer’s machine looks good and has enough
power for mainstream gaming. However,
far more gaming and application power is
available from rivals, alongside better screens
and keyboards. If you’re willing to sacrifice the
Razer’s keen sense of style then your money
will go further elsewhere.
VERDICT
It looks the part and has good 1080p gaming
power, but the Razer is let down by a
disappointing screen and a high price.
PERFORMANCE
DESIGN
16/25
22/25
19/25
18/25
HARDWARE
VALUE
OVERALL SCORE
75%
59
L A B S T E S T / GAMING LAPTOPS
SCAN 3XS VENGEANCE
GL 2070/£1,849
inc VAT
SUPPLIER scan.co.uk
can’s 3XS Vengeance GL 2070
looks pretty underwhelming
compared with most of the
competition this month. The exterior is built
from plain, brushed metal and there are
few eye-catching design touches. Build
quality is fine, and the Scan is neither too
heavy or thick. The spec is solid though.
Scan makes good use of the Core
i7-9750H, and the Vengeance GL 2070 is
JUSTICE
REPRISAL
+
+
+
Loads of storage
-
Great application
performance
-
Mechanical keyboard
Noisy fans
More CPU power
available elsewhere
Disappointing screen
SPEC
CPU 2.6GHz Intel Core i7-9750H
Memory 16GB 2666MHz DDR4
Graphics Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q 8GB
Screen 15.6in 1,920 x 1,080 IPS 144Hz
Storage 1TB Samsung 970 Evo Plus SSD,
2TB Seagate Barracuda hard disk
Networking Gigabit Ethernet,
dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi
Weight 2.1kg
Ports 2 x USB 3.1 Gen 1, 1 x USB 3.1 Gen 1
Type-C, 1 x USB 2, 2 x mini-DisplayPort, 1 x
HDMI 2, 1 x SDXC card reader, 2 x audio
Dimensions (mm) 359 x 244 x 24 (W x D x H)
Operating system Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Extras Bluetooth 5
Warranty Two years parts and labour. First year
collect and return, then return to base
60
the fastest Core i7
laptop on test in terms of
application performance, easily beating
the HP Omen 15 and Chillblast machines
and only coming second to the PC
Specialist and its Core i9 CPU. The rest of
the specification is decent, with 16GB of
2666MHz memory, and the inclusion of a
1TB SSD and a 2TB hard disk gives the Scan
the best storage setup on test this month.
It’s also the only 15.6in machine in this
group to have a mechanical keyboard, along
with RGB LED lighting and switches that
mimic CherryMX Brown hardware. It’s an
excellent keyboard, with fast and robust
action, and the keys have more weight
than on any chiclet unit. The Chillblast
is only marginally better in this respect.
The trackpad is reasonable too, although
you’ll want a proper mouse for gaming.
Scan’s machine has a GeForce RTX
2070 Max-Q GPU, as also found in the HP
Omen. It comfortably beats that machine
in gaming tests, but the PC Specialist and
Chillblast machines both have full-fat RTX
2070 GPUs. The Scan still holds its own in
games, though, sitting well ahead of the HP,
Acer and Razer models in our game tests.
Screen quality is underwhelming though.
The Scan’s brightness level of 310cd/m² is
lower than most machines on test, and its
mediocre contrast ratio of 861 means the
panel lacks vibrancy. Colours are fine, but the
Chillblast and HP both have better screens.
The Scan’s speakers are poor too, sounding
muddy without any real high-end punch.
With the screen at full brightness,
the Vengeance’s battery lasted a little
more than an hour when gaming, but
only for one hour and 42 minutes during
our everyday work test. That latter
figure is behind every close rival.
Thermals aren’t great either. The CPU
and GPU both returned peak delta Ts of
72°C, and that GPU temperature was the
highest in the Labs. The fans also sound
loud and high-pitched when its components
are stressed, making an irritating noise.
Conclusion
Scan’s machine feels a little lost among
such fierce competition. It offers decent
performance, a well-balanced storage
setup and a quality keyboard, but rivals are
slightly faster and cooler – and the Chillblast
has a larger screen. The Scan’s best results
came in application benchmark tests but,
even then, the PC Specialist’s Core i9 CPU
is faster. It’s not a bad machine, but it isn’t
much cheaper than rivals, and it needs a
better screen and cooling system.
VERDICT
Great application performance, loads of storage
and a quality keyboard, but the Scan is let
down by a disappointing screen and noisy fans.
PERFORMANCE
DESIGN
20/25
20/25
18/25
18/25
HARDWARE
VALUE
OVERALL SCORE
76%
GAMING LAPTOP LABS RESULTS
SHADOW OF THE TOMB RAIDER FPS
GIMP IMAGE EDITING
1,920 x 1,080, Highest Detail, TAA
58,218
PC Specialist Vortex IX
52,344
Scan 3XS Vengeance GL 2070
Chillblast Phantom 17
52,234
49,958
Razer Blade 15
MSI GS75 Stealth 8SG-046UK
49,157
20k
74
100
72
98
98
71
83
61
79
60
78
59
0
60k
50
100
15
100
15
100
15
TOTAL WAR: WARHAMMER II FPS
HANDBRAKE H.264 VIDEO ENCODING
1,920 x 1,080, Ultra Detail, DX11
536,423
PC Specialist Vortex IX
414,064
Scan 3XS Vengeance GL 2070
Chillblast Phantom 17
391,828
370,217
Alienware m17
Acer Predator Triton 500
342,641
341,052
HP Omen 15
334,477
MSI GS75 Stealth 8SG-046UK
PC Specialist Vortex IX
68
Alienware m17
67
MSI GS75 Stealth 8SG-046UK
65
Chillblast Phantom 17
63
Scan 3XS Vengeance GL 2070
63
200k
400k
84
84
80
84
83
HP Omen 15
56 69
Acer Predator Triton 500
55 68
55 68
Razer Blade 15
307,802
Razer Blade 15
0
PC Specialist Vortex IX
Acer Predator Triton 500
40k
108
101
Scan 3XS Vengeance GL 2070
Razer Blade 15
44,984
0
78
HP Omen 15
47,381
HP Omen 15
Alienware m17
78
Chillblast Phantom 17
47,848
Acer Predator Triton 500
Alienware m17
MSI GS75 Stealth 8SG-046UK
0
600k
50
BATTLEFIELD V FPS
HEAVY MULTITASKING
1,920 x 1,080, Ultra Detail, DX12, High DXR, DLSS
191,712
PC Specialist Vortex IX
169,356
HP Omen 15
Scan 3XS Vengeance GL 2070
168,833
Chillblast Phantom 17
164,129
Alienware m17
158,534
141,209
Acer Predator Triton 500
100k
0
200k
75
73
54 67
Scan 3XS Vengeance GL 2070
53 62
HP Omen 15
52 62
MSI GS75 Stealth 8SG-046UK
51 62
Razer Blade 15
50 61
49 61
Acer Predator Triton 500
136,554
Razer Blade 15
57
56
Alienware m17
144,800
MSI GS75 Stealth 8SG-046UK
Chillblast Phantom 17
PC Specialist Vortex IX
0
300k
50
Minimum
Average
SYSTEM SCORE
SSD SPEED MB/SEC
202,410
PC Specialist Vortex IX
Scan 3XS Vengeance GL 2070
164,304
Chillblast Phantom 17
157,541
Alienware m17
148,927
HP Omen 15
143,136
Acer Predator Triton 500
MSI GS75 Stealth 8SG-046UK
CrysalDiskMark 6, sequential 32-queue depth
PC Specialist Vortex IX
Acer Predator Triton 500
136,289
Alienware m17
100k
0
200k
300k
3,410
3,380
2,531
3,238
2,153
3,054
1,756
2,387
HP Omen 15
0
1.5k
Write
SCREEN COLOUR TEMPERATURE KELVIN
3,544
3,272
3,082
Razer Blade 15
128,252
Razer Blade 15
3,545
3,158
Scan 3XS Vengeance GL 2070
137,598
3,559
3,246
Chillblast Phantom 17
MSI GS75 Stealth 8SG-046UK
2,622
3k
4.5
Read
Lower is better
Deviation from ideal result of 6,500K
SCREEN CONTRAST RATIO
20
Scan 3XS Vengeance GL 2070
249
Acer Predator Triton 500
Alienware m17
Razer Blade 15
474
MSI GS75 Stealth 8SG-046UK
733
Razer Blade 15
1,408
500
1,106
1,089
PC Specialist Vortex IX
PC Specialist Vortex IX
0
1,254
1,196
HP Omen 15
612
HP Omen 15
1,277
Chillblast Phantom 17
396
Chillblast Phantom 17
MSI GS75 Stealth 8SG-046UK
1,319
Acer Predator Triton 500
318
1,000
861
Scan 3XS Vengeance GL 2070
1,500
759
Alienware m17
Lower is better
0
500
1,000
1,500
SCREEN COLOUR ACCURACY DELTAE
SCREEN BRIGHTNESS CD/M²
0.74
MSI GS75 Stealth 8SG-046UK
HP Omen 15
1.88
Alienware m17
Alienware m17
HP Omen 15
2.25
1.5
3
305
PC Specialist Vortex IX
3.14
0
323
310
Scan 3XS Vengeance GL 2070
2.4
Razer Blade 15
349
332
Chillblast Phantom 17
1.97
Acer Predator Triton 500
356
Acer Predator Triton 500
1.86
Chillblast Phantom 17
376
MSI GS75 Stealth 8SG-046UK
1.81
PC Specialist Vortex IX
Scan 3XS Vengeance GL 2070
4.5
Lower is better
306
Razer Blade 15
0
150
300
450
61
61
R E V I E WS / HOW WE TEST
How we test
MOTHERBOARDS
TEST PROCESSORS
Intel LGA1151 Intel Core i9-9900K
Intel LGA2066 Intel Core i9-7900X
AMD AM4 AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
AMD TRX4 AMD Threadripper 3970X
Our test gear comprises a GeForce RTX 2070 Super Founders
Edition and a 2TB Samsung 970 Pro SSD (or a PCI-E 4 1TB
Corsair MP600 SSD on X570 and TRX40 boards). We also
use Corsair Vengeance RGB 3466MHz DDR4 RAM – a 16GB
dual-channel kit for mainstream systems, and a 32GB quadchannel kit for HEDT systems.
We use Custom PC’s own RealBench suite, and Far
Cry 5 installed on Windows 10 Home 64-bit to test basic
performance. We also test the board’s SATA and M.2 ports,
and record the noise level and dynamic range of the
integrated audio using RightMark Audio Analyzer. We try to
overclock our test CPU to its maximum air-cooled level on
each motherboard, and record the performance results.
MONITORS
We test image quality with an Xrite
iDisplay Pro colorimeter and
DisplayCal software to check for
colour accuracy, contrast and
gamma, while assessing more
subjective details such as pixel
density and viewing angles by eye. We also run games on
them to assess their responsiveness, and to see how well any
active sync tech works, and to gauge their performance at
high refresh rates.
CPU COOLERS
We measure the CPU temperature with CoreTemp, and
subtract the ambient air temperature to give a delta T result,
enabling us to test in a lab that isn’t temperature controlled.
We load the CPU with Prime95’s smallfft test and take the
reading after ten minutes.
PROCESSORS
TEST MOTHERBOARDS
Intel LGA1151 MSI MEG Z90 ACE
Intel LGA2066 MSI MEG X299 Creation
AMD AM4 Gigabyte X570 Aorus Master
AMD AM4 (APU) MSI X470 Gaming Pro Carbon
AMD TRX4 Asus ROG Zenith II Extreme
We otherwise use the same core spec to test each CPU.
Our test gear comprises an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super
Founders Edition (or an APU’s integrated GPU for gaming tests)
and a 2TB Samsung 970 Pro SSD. We also use Corsair
Vengeance RGB 3466MHz DDR4 memory – a 16GB dualchannel kit for mainstream desktop systems, and a 32GB
quad-channel kit for HEDT systems.
We use Custom PC’s own RealBench suite, Cinebench and
Far Cry 5, installed on Windows 10 Home 64-bit, and record the
power draw of the test PC. These tests cover a broad range of
performance characteristics, including image editing,
gaming, video encoding and 3D rendering. We run all tests at
stock speed and at the CPU’s highest overclocked frequency.
62
TEST KIT
Fractal Design Meshify C case, 3000MHz Corsair Vengeance
LPX memory, 256GB Crucial MX100 SSD, be quiet! System
Power 9 500W PSU, Windows 10 64-bit.
INTEL LGA1151
Intel Core i5-9600K CPU overclocked to 4.6GHz with 1.2V
vcore, MSI Z370 PC Pro motherboard.
INTEL LGA2066
Intel Core i9-7900X overclocked to 4.2GHz with 1.15V vcore,
MSI X299M Gaming Pro Carbon AC motherboard.
AMD AM4
AMD Ryzen 7 1700 overclocked to 3.9GHz with 1.425V vcore,
Asus ROG Strix B350-F Gaming motherboard.
AMD TR4
AMD Threadripper 2950X overclocked to 4.1GHz with 1.425V
vcore, AMD Threadripper 2990WX overclocked to 4GHz with
1.3375V vcore, ASRock X399M motherboard.
AWARDS
GRAPHICS CARDS
c
TR
A
C
c
AD
E
C
PREMIUM GRADE
Premium Grade products are utterly desirable,
offering a superb balance of performance and
features without an over-the-top price.
c
FE
These products might not be appropriate for a
gaming rig, but they’ll do an ace job at
workstation tasks.
N
AL
C
SSIO
c
tom P
us
D
PP
C
ROV E
ST
IT
c
tom P
us
C
POWER CONSUMPTION
We run Unigine Superposition at 4K
Optimized DirectX settings. We measure the power
consumption of our whole graphics test rig at the mains
during the test, and record the peak power draw. Bear in mind
that this result is for the whole system, not the graphics
card alone.
Some products are gloriously over the top. They
don’t always offer amazing value, but they’re
outstanding if you have money to spend.
PROFESSIONAL
CU
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Tested at the Very High preset in
DirectX 12, running the builtin benchmark.
IUM GR
EXTREME ULTRA
tom P
us
A
Total War: Warhammer II Tested in DirectX 11, as the DirectX
12 beta currently causes stuttering issues on some GPUs. We
test at Ultra settings with FXAA, and run the built-in
bu
‘Battle’ benchmark.
M
O
Shadow of the Tomb Raider Tested at the Highest settings
preset, with TAA. We run the built-in benchmark, and record
the frame rate from the GPU test.
L
ME U
tom P
us
PR
GAME TESTS
Battlefield V Tested in DirectX 11 at Ultra settings on every
card. If a GPU also supports real-time ray tracing, we then test
it in DirectX 12 with DXR enabled on Low and High settings.
We run through a one-minute custom benchmark in the
‘Under No Flag’ War Story, recording the frame rate
with Fraps.
RE
PRE
TEST KIT
Intel Core i7-8700K overclocked to 4.7GHz on all cores, 16GB
Corsair Vengeance LED 3000MHz DDR4 memory, Gigabyte
Z370 Aorus motherboard, Cooler Master MasterLiquid 240
CPU cooler, Corsair HX750 PSU, Cooler Master MasterCase
H500M case, Windows 10 Home 64-bit.
tom P
us
EXT
We mainly evaluate graphics
cards on the performance they
offer for the price. However,
we also consider the efficacy
and noise of the cooler, as well
as the GPU’s support for new
gaming features, such as realtime ray tracing. Every graphics card is tested in the same PC,
so all the results are directly comparable. Each test is run
three times, and we report the average of those results.
We test graphics cards at 1,920 x 1,080, 2,560 x 1,440 and
3,840 x 2,160, although we omit the latter resolution on
cheaper cards that are unable to produce playable frame
rates at this setting. We also try to overclock every graphics
card we test to assess the performance impact.
OM K
APPROVED
Approved products do a great job for the
money; they’re the canny purchase for a
great PC setup.
CUSTOM KIT
For those gadgets and gizmos that really
impress us, or that we can’t live without,
there’s the Custom Kit award.
CUSTOM PC REALBENCH
Our own benchmark suite, co-developed with Asus, is
designed to gauge a PC’s performance in several key areas,
using open source software.
GIMP IMAGE EDITING
We use GIMP to open and edit large images, heavily stressing
one CPU core to gauge single-threaded performance. This
test responds well to increases in CPU clock speed.
HANDBRAKE H.264 VIDEO ENCODING
Our heavily multi-threaded Handbrake H.264 video encoding
test takes full advantage of many CPU cores, pushing them to
100 per cent load.
LUXMARK OPENCL
This LuxRender-based test shows a GPU’s compute
performance. As this is a niche area, the result from this test
has just a quarter of the weighting of the other tests in the
final system score.
HEAVY MULTITASKING
This test plays a full-screen 1080p video, while running a
Handbrake H.264 video encode in the background.
63
Elite
Our choice of the best hardware available
Core component bundles
The fundamental specifications we recommend for various types of PC. Just add your preferred case and power supply, and double-check there’s
room in your case for your chosen components, especially the GPU cooler and graphics card. We’ve largely stopped reviewing power supplies, as
the 80 Plus certification scheme has now effectively eliminated unstable PSUs. Instead, we’ve recommended the wattage and minimum 80 Plus
certification you should consider for each component bundle. You can then choose whether you want a PSU with modular or captive cables.
Budget system with
integrated graphics
Budget gaming system
Quad-core CPU, basic gaming
Needs a micro-ATX case. We recommend a
450W 80 Plus power supply. See Issue 191,
p78, for an example build guide.
Quad-core CPU, 1080p gaming
Needs a micro-ATX or ATX case.
We recommend a 350W 80 Plus power supply.
COMPONENT
NAME
CPU
AMD Ryzen 5
3400G
CPU COOLER
AMD Wraith air
cooler included
with CPU
GRAPHICS CARD
AMD Radeon
RX Vega 11
integrated
into CPU
MEMORY
8GB (2 x 4GB)
Corsair
Vengeance LPX
3000MHz
(CMK8GX4M2A
3000C16)
MOTHERBOARD
STORAGE
MSI B450M
Mortar
(micro-ATX)*
500GB WD
Blue SN500
(M.2 NVMe)
SUPPLIER
PRICE
ISSUE
inc VAT
COMPONENT
NAME
SUPPLIER
ISSUE
PRICE
inc VAT
CPU
Intel Core
i3-8100
scan.co.uk
#191
p78
£118
overclockers.co.uk
#194,
p20
£ 129
N/A
#176
p80
£0
CPU COOLER
Raijintek Juno
Pro RBW
overclockers.co.uk
#191
p78
£12
N/A
#194
p20
£0
GRAPHICS CARD
Zotac Gaming
GeForce GTX
1660 Super
ebuyer.com
#197
p30
£215
MEMORY
16GB 2 x8
GB) Corsair
Vengeance
LPX 3000MHz
(CMK16GX4
M2A2666C16)
scan.co.uk
#191
p78
£60
MOTHERBOARD
Gigabyte B360M
DS3H
(micro-ATX)
cclonline.com
#191
p78
£69
STORAGE
500GB WD Blue
SN500
(M.2 NVMe)
ebuyer.com
#191
p78
£66
scan.co.uk
ebuyer.com
ebuyer.com
#176
p80
#182
p50
#191
p78
£45
£90
£66
Total £540
UPGRADES
Total £323
*This motherboard may require a BIOS update in order to recognise the new
CPU, which can be performed without needing an old CPU, downloading the
latest BIOS to a USB flash drive and pressing the Flash BIOS button
64
SWAP
GRAPHICS CARD
AMD Radeon RX
Vega 56
ebuyer.com
#190
p47
£237
SWAP STORAGE
Kingston A2000
1TB
scan.co.uk
#196
p30
£108
Mid-range allpurpose system
Mid-range
gaming sys
6-core CPU, 2,560 x 1,440 gaming
8-core CPU, 2,560 x 1,440 gaming
with real-time ray tracing
Needs an ATX case. We recommend using a 550W power supply
with 80 Plus Bronze certification. See Issue 193, p76 for a similar
example build guide.
COMPONENT
NAME
SUPPLIER
ISSUE
PRICE
inc VAT
CPU
AMD Ryzen 5
3600
scan.co.uk
#195
p16
£186
CPU COOLER
Deepcool
Gammaxx GT
scan.co.uk
#192
p52
£30
GRAPHICS CARD
AMD Radeon RX
5700
MEMORY
16GB (2 x 8GB)
Corsair
Vengeance RGB
3466MHz
(CMW16GX4
M2C3466C16)
MOTHERBOARD
MSI X570-A Pro
(ATX)
STORAGE
1TB Corsair
MP600
overclockers.co.uk
scan.co.uk
#192
p24
#192
p21
Needs an ATX case with room for a 240mm all-in-one liquid
cooler. We recommend a 600W 80 Plus Bronze power supply.
SUPPLIER
ISSUE
PRICE
inc VAT
overclockers.co.uk
#192
p14
£290
ARCTIC Liquid
Freezer II 240
scan.co.uk
#196
p26
£65
GRAPHICS CARD
Nvidia GeForce
RTX 2070 Super
scan.co.uk
#193
p16
£480
MEMORY
16GB (2 x 8GB)
Corsair
Vengeance RGB
3466MHz
(CMW16GX4
M2C3466C16)
scan.co.uk
#192
p21
£129
MOTHERBOARD
Asus ROG Strix
X570-E Gaming
(ATX)
ebuyer.com
#193
p44
£280
STORAGE
1TB Corsair
MP600
scan.co.uk
#193
p26
£200
overclockers.co.uk
#166
p54
£105
awd-it.co.uk
#185
p82
£124
COMPONENT
NAME
CPU
AMD Ryzen 7
3700X
CPU COOLER
£300
£129
cclonline.com
#193
p48
£140
scan.co.uk
#193
p26
£200
Total £985
UPGRADES
SWAP GRAPHICS
CARD
Nvidia GeForce
RTX 2060
Super (adds
real-time raytracing abilities)
scan.co.uk
#193
p16
£375
Total £1,444
UPGRADES
ADD SECONDARY Western Digital
STORAGE
Blue 4TB
overclockers.co.uk
#166
p54
£105
ADD SECONDARY Western Digital
STORAGE
Blue 4TB
SWAP CPU
COOLER
ARCTIC Liquid
Freezer II 240
scan.co.uk
#196
p26
£65
SWAP CPU
COOLER
Corsair H100i
RGB Platinum
(240mm AIO
liquid cooler)
65
E L I T E / THE BEST KIT
Core component bundles cont …
4K gaming system
stem
Heavy multi-threading
workstation
12-core CPU,
4K gaming with real-time
ray-tracing abilities
Serious multi-threaded power,
1080p gaming
Needs an E-ATX case with room for a 240mm all-in-one liquid
cooler. We recommend a 650W 80 Plus Gold power supply.
COMPONENT
CPU
CPU COOLER
GRAPHICS CARD
MEMORY
MOTHERBOARD
STORAGE
NAME
SUPPLIER
AMD Ryzen 9
3900X
Corsair H100i
RGB Platinum
(240mm AIO
liquid cooler)
Nvidia GeForce
RTX 2080 Ti
16GB (2 x 8GB)
Corsair
Vengeance RGB
3466MHz
(CMW16GX4
M2C3466C16)
MSI Prestige
X570 Creation
(E-ATX)
1TB Corsair
MP600
overclockers.co.uk
awd-it.co.uk
scan.co.uk
scan.co.uk
ISSUE
#192
p14
#175
p20
#189
p20
#192
p21
PRICE
inc VAT
Needs an E-ATX case with room for a 240mm all-in-one liquid
cooler. We recommend a 700W 80 Plus Gold power supply.
SUPPLIER
ISSUE
PRICE
inc VAT
AMD
Threadripper
3960X
overclockers.co.uk
#197
p18
£1,399
CPU COOLER
Enermax
Liqtech II
TR4 240
(240mm AIO
liquid cooler)
overclockers.co.uk
#186
p44
£130
GRAPHICS CARD
Zotac Gaming
GeForce GTX
1660 Super
ebuyer.com
#197
p30
£215
MEMORY
32GB Corsair
Dominator
Platinum RGB
3466MHz
(CMT32GX4
M4C3466C16)
scan.co.uk
#197
p20
£306
MOTHERBOARD
Asus ROG Zenith
II Extreme
(E-ATX)
overclockers.co.uk
#197
p22
£715
STORAGE
1TB Corsair
MP600
scan.co.uk
#193
p26
£200
COMPONENT
NAME
CPU
£519
£124
£999
£129
Total £2,965
overclockers.co.uk
scan.co.uk
#193
p48
#193
p26
£430
£200
UPGRADES
SWAP GRAPHICS
CARD
Nvidia GeForce
RTX 2070 Super
(2,560 x 1,440
gaming with ray
tracing, and
some 4K
gaming)
scan.co.uk
#193
p16
£480
SWAP CPU
AMD
Threadripper
3970X
(32 cores massive multithreaded power)
overclockers.co.uk
#197
p19
£1,999
cpc.farnell.com
#166
p50
£222
Total £2,401
UPGRADES
ADD SECONDARY 4TB Western
STORAGE
Digital Blue
SWAP CPU
66
AMD Ryzen 9
3950X (16 cores)
overclockers.co.uk
#166
p54
£105
overclockers.co.uk
#197
p24
£749
ADD SECONDARY 6TB Seagate
STORAGE
BarraCuda Pro
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. We’ve also recommended a small PSU and a low-profile CPU cooler, if your
chosen case requires them.
Mini-ITX
Micro-ATX
Motherboards
Motherboards
CATEGORY
NAME
SUPPLIER
ISSUE
PRICE
inc VAT
Intel Z390
(LGA1151)
ASRock Z390
Phantom
Gaming-ITX/ac
scan.co.uk
#185
p50
AMD X570
(AM4)
Gigabyte X570-I
Aorus Pro WiFi
overclockers.co.uk
SUPPLIER
ISSUE
PRICE
inc VAT
overclockers.co.uk
#189
p28
£285
ASRock X399M
Taichi
scan.co.uk
#179
p28
£330
MSI B450M
Mortar
ebuyer.com
#182
p50
£90
SUPPLIER
ISSUE
PRICE
inc VAT
CATEGORY
NAME
£187
Intel Z390
(LGA1151)
Asus ROG
Maximus XI
Gene
#195
p24
£227
AMD X399
(TR4)
ISSUE
PRICE
inc VAT
AMD B450
(AM4)
Cases
CATEGORY
NAME
Metallic Gear
Neo Mini
Phanteks Enthoo
Evolv Shift Air
Lian Li
PC-Q37WX
BUDGET
MIDRANGE
PREMIUM
SUPPLIER
amazon.co.uk
overclockers.co.uk
overclockers.co.uk
#195
p48
#195
p49
#195
p47
£60
Cases
£95
CATEGORY
NAME
BUDGET
Fractal Design
Focus G Mini
overclockers.co.uk
#180
p46
£47
MIDRANGE
Fractal Design
Define Mini C
scan.co.uk
#161
p26
£80
PREMIUM
NZXT H400i
overclockers.co.uk
#175
p32
£120
£225
CPU coolers
CATEGORY
NAME
LOWPROFILE
Noctua NH-D9L
SUPPLIER
ISSUE
PRICE
inc VAT
amazon.co.uk
#143
p17
£43
Power supplies
CATEGORY
NAME
SUPPLIER
ISSUE
PRICE
inc VAT
800W SFX
SilverStone
Strider SX800-LTI
scan.co.uk
#185
p82
£156
ATX Cases
CATEGORY
BUDGET
BUDGET QUIET
BUDGET RGB
SUB£100
MIDRANGE
HIGHEND
PREMIUM
LUXURY
NAME
Phanteks Eclipse
P300 Glass
be quiet! Pure
Base 500
Phanteks Eclipse
P400A
Lian Li Lancool
One Digital
Phanteks Eclipse
P600S
NZXT H700i
Phanteks Enthoo
Evolv X
Cooler Master
Cosmos C700M
SUPPLIER
overclockers.co.uk
aquatuning.co.uk
overclockers.co.uk
overclockers.co.uk
overclockers.co.uk
overclockers.co.uk
overclockers.co.uk
scan.co.uk
PRICE
ISSUE
inc VAT
#176
p28
#196
p24
#194
p24
#184
p32
#187
p24
#196
p51
#187
p24
#183
p28
£55
£72
£84
£95
Networking
SUPPLIER
ISSUE
PRICE
inc VAT
TP-Link Archer
AX6000
amazon.co.uk
#196
p57
£250
Netgear Orbi
2-Pack (RBK50)
amazon.co.uk
#172
p57
£287
scan.co.uk
#196
p54
£384
CATEGORY
NAME
ROUTER
WIFI 6
MESH ROUTER
WIFI 5
PREMIUM MESH Asus AiMesh
ROUTER WIFI 6 AX6100
WIFI ADAPTOR
TP-Link Archer
TX3000E
overclockers.co.uk
#196
p58
£60
SINGLEBAY NAS
BOX
Synology DS118
box.co.uk
#174
p34
£138
DUALBAY
MEDIA NAS BOX
Synology
DS218play
box.co.uk
#174
p34
£196
£128
£180
£200
£415
67
E L I T E / THE BEST KIT
Monitors
AMD FreeSync
Nvidia G-Sync
SUPPLIER
ISSUE
PRICE
inc VAT
amazon.co.uk
#174
p52
£120
cclonline.com
#191
p28
£171
AOC AGON
AG251FZ
overclockers.co.uk
#187
p48
£290
Samsung
C27HG70
ebuyer.com
#171
p28
£465
CATEGORY
NAME
24IN BUDGET
1,920 X 1,080
AOC G2460VQ6
24IN MIDRANGE
1,920 X 1,080
AOC C24G1
24IN 240HZ
ESPORTS
1,920 X 1,080
27IN
2,560 X 1,440
AMD FreeSync
and Nvidia G-Sync
CATEGORY
NAME
SUPPLIER
24IN BUDGET
1,920 X 1,080
AOC G2590FX
25IN MIDRANGE
1,920 X 1,080
Asus VG258QR
overclockers.co.uk
overclockers.co.uk
ISSUE
PRICE
inc VAT
#190
p53
£200
#190
p54
£280
SUPPLIER
ISSUE
PRICE
inc VAT
AOC AGON
AG241QG
box.co.uk
#169
p55
£378
27IN 2,560 X
1,440
Asus ROG Swift
PG279Q
scan.co.uk
#155
p48
£695
35IN
ULTRAWIDE
3,440 X 1,440
AOC AGON
AG352UCG6
overclockers.co.uk
#180
p52
£725
27IN 4K
PREMIUM
Asus ROG Swift
PG27UQ
scan.co.uk
#181
p31
£1,999
CATEGORY
NAME
24IN
2,560 X 1,440
Non-gaming
CATEGORY
NAME
SUPPLIER
ISSUE
PRICE
inc VAT
27IN 4K
AOC U2790PQU
scan.co.uk
#194
p30
£298
27IN
5,120 X 2,880
Iiyama ProLite
XB2779QQS
scan.co.uk
#179
p34
£695
Peripherals and audio
Gaming mice
Gaming keyboards
PRICE
inc VAT
CATEGORY
NAME
MEMBRANE
Corsair K55 RGB
overclockers.co.uk
#176
p52
£45
MECHANICAL
Corsair K68 RGB
ebuyer.com
#181
p53
£120
MECHANICAL
MMO
Corsair K95 RGB
Platinum
PREMIUM
MECHANICAL
Corsair K70
Mk.2 Low
Profile
LUXURY
MECHANICAL
Razer
Hunstman Elite
68
SUPPLIER
scan.co.uk
#164
p26
CATEGORY
NAME
SUPPLIER
ISSUE
PRICE
inc VAT
FIRSTPERSON
SHOOTER
SteelSeries Rival
600
scan.co.uk
#184
p59
£74
MMO
Roccat Nyth
amazon.co.uk
#186
p53
£63
AMBIDEXTROUS
Razer Lancehead
Tournament
Edition
scan.co.uk
#177
p53
£65
ULTRA
LIGHTWEIGHT
Glorious PC
Gaming Race
Model O
overclockers.co.uk
#195
p58
£45
£170
scan.co.uk
#193
p56
£150
scan.co.uk
#193
p59
£189
Peripherals and audio cont …
Game controllers
CATEGORY
NAME
STEERING WHEEL Logitech G920
& PEDALS
Driving Force
GAMEPAD
Microsoft Xbox One
Wireless Controller
Gaming headsets
SUPPLIER
ISSUE
PRICE
inc VAT
currys.co.uk
#159
p55
£200
currys.co.uk
#191
p56
£45
Speakers
CATEGORY
STEREO
NAME
Edifier R1280DB
SUPPLIER
ISSUE
amazon.co.uk
#192
p57
PRICE
inc VAT
£120
SUPPLIER
ISSUE
PRICE
inc VAT
Sennheiser GSP
300
amazon.co.uk
#194
p56
£78
SURROUND
Asus ROG
Centurion
cclonline.com
#163
p49
£216
WIRELESS
SteelSeries
Arctis 7
currys.co.uk
#178
p58
£119
PREMIUM
WIRELESS
Corsair Virtuoso
RGB Wireless SE
scan.co.uk
#195
p30
£180
SUPPLIER
ISSUE
PRICE
inc VAT
falconcomputers.co.uk
#176
p52
£480
CATEGORY
NAME
STEREO
PCs and laptops
Pre-built PC systems
CATEGORY
NAME
CPU
GPU
BUDGET PC WITH INTEGRATED
GRAPHICS
Falcon Raptor RX
AMD Ryzen 5 3400G
stock speed
AMD Radeon RX Vega 11
SUB£1,000 GAMING
AlphaBeta i5 RTX
Intel Core i5-9600KF
stock speed
Nvidia GeForce RTX
2070 Super
alphabetapc.com
#197
p40
£999
8CORE GAMING
Wired2Fire Predator
AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
stock speed
Nvidia GeForce RTX
2060 Super
wired2fire.co.uk
#196
p40
£ 1,299
GEFORCE RTX 2080 SUPER GAMING
Stormforce Crystal RTX
2080 Super
3.6GHz AMD Ryzen 7
3700X stock speed
Nvidia GeForce RTX
2080 Super
stormforcegaming.co.uk
#196
p38
£1,870
PREMIUM MINIITX
Corsair One i160
Intel Core i9-9900K
stock speed
Nvidia GeForce RTX
2080 Ti
corsair.com
#190
p32
£3,250
WATERCOOLED 16CORE GAMING
Scan 3XS Vengeance
RTX Ti Fluid
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X
OC to 4.3GHz
Nvidia GeForce RTX
2080 Ti
scan.co.uk
#197
p42
£4,499
DREAM PC
Scan 3XS Barracuda
Intel Core i9-9900X
OC to 4.4GHz
2 x Nvidia GeForce RTX
2080 Ti
scan.co.uk
#145
p58
£9,791
SUPPLIER
ISSUE
PRICE
inc VAT
Laptop
ps
CATEGORY
NAME
CPU
GPU
SCREEN
GEFORCE RTX
GAMING
Chillblast Phantom 17
Intel Core i7-9750H
stock speed
Nvidia GeForce RTX
2070
17.3in 1,920 x 1,080
IPS 144Hz
chillblast.com
#197
p53
£1,949
PREMIUM GAMING
Asus ROG Zephyrus S
GX701GX
Intel Core i7-9750H
stock speed
Nvidia GeForce RTX
2080 Max-Q
17.3in 1,920 x 1,080
IPS 144Hz G-Sync
amazon.co.uk
#190
p28
£3,300
69
Games
R I C K L A N E / INVERSE LOOK
TEXT ADVENTURES
Rick Lane doesn’t like having to read text in games, or so he
thought until he played Disco Elysium
’ve never particularly enjoyed reading in games. I
It’s remarkable how much of a difference this setup makes
enjoy reading in general, of course – I wouldn’t be
to readability, presumably because you’re not having to
much of a writer otherwise, but I’ve always found
scan your eyes across the width of the screen to read. It’s
reading in games challenging. I didn’t get into RPGs until the
surprising no developer has thought of this idea sooner. In all
early 2000s, when games such as Morrowind and Knights of
other reading formats – whether it’s newspapers, magazines,
the Old Republic made reading less central to the experience.
books, your phone or a website – text is always presented in
As I’ve become older, I’ve built up more of a tolerance to it, but
columns, either a single, vertical block of text in a book, or
I still frequently findgrapplingwithtext-heavygamesdifficult.
multiple columns in a newspaper-style format.
Or at least, that’s what I thought.
Incidentally, that’s not because vertical formatting
I’ve always assumedthatmydislikeofreading
demonstrablymakestexteasier to read. Columns
in games was more specificallyadislikeofreading
are simply a leftover from the days when the
At
any
one
time,
only
from a screen. I still buypaperbooks,forexample,
type on printing presses had to be set by hand.
because I prefer them to reading on a Kindle or a the relevant paragraph Over the years,however,we’ve become used to
phone. However, havingrecentlyrattledthrough
readinginthisfashion,sowhen we’re presented
is
highlighted
to
be
the fantastic RPG Disco Elysium (see p72), I’m
with text formatted to be wider than it is long
readable, and it then (whichishowmostisometric RPGs present their
beginning to think it isn’t me that’s the problem.
While Disco Elysiumhasvisualenvironments
text) I think it feels more challenging to read.
greys
out
in which you can walk around, and objects on
Readability in games is a much wider issue
which you can click, the game’s interactivity is
than you might think. If you’ve ever streamed
almost entirely text-based. And there’s a lot of interaction.
a PC game to your TV, you’ll have discovered that the text in
The developer states that the script is around a million words
most games is far too small to be read across the room on your
long – approximately twice the length of the Lord of the Rings
sofa. The vast majority of games also don’t let players adjust
trilogy (the books, not the films).
the size of written text, and therefore don’t accommodate for
people with sub-20/20 vision.
Disco Elysium presents its mountain of text differently to
This isn’t just about squinting at a screen because you can’t
most RPGs though. Instead of having text boxes run across the
bottom of the screen, when you enter a conversation the text
find your glasses. It’s also an accessibility issue. There’s no point
appears in a column on the right of the screen. At any one time,
in a developer adding subtitles to a game if the text is so small it
only the relevant paragraph is highlighted to be readable, and
can’t be read. As my own experience with Disco Elysium shows,
it then greys out and scrolls upwards once you click through
small changes to how you present a game’s information can
drastically improve a user’s overall experience.
to the next passage of text.
I
Rick Lane is Custom PC’s games editor
70
@Rick_Lane
GRID / £39.99
inc VAT
DEVELOPER Codemasters / PUBLISHER Codemasters
A
fter a dodgy sequel and a decent but largely
overlooked spin-off, GRID is Codemasters’ attempt
to take its arcade series back to the roots that made
Race Driver: GRID a success in 2008. It’s strips away
unnecessary frippery and focuses entirely on track action.
After a brief introduction that sees you complete three
rapid-fire events, GRID catapults players straight at its career
mode’s wall of races. Its four primary categories – Touring
Cars, Stock Cars, Experimental Cars and a Fernando Alonsobranded Supercar category – each offers 14 events and
dozens of races. There are also 28 more invitational events,
with cars ranging from Mini Coopers to classic Ferraris.
These events take place within what seems like a wide
variety of locations, ranging from British classics, such as
Brands Hatch and Silverstone, to more exotic locations, such
as Havana and Japan. Two locations stand out. The first is
Barcelona, where the waterfront and city centre has been
painstakingly recreated. The second is Shanghai. In the rain
at night, the centre of Shanghai resembles a Blade Runner
scene, with towering skyscrapers and neon signage.
GRID looks fantastic, and it feels similarly satisfying
beneath the fingers. A pure arcade racer, GRID is all about
muscling your way to the front of the pack over the course of
three laps. To further facilitate its aggressive, shoulder-toshoulder racing, Codemasters has introduced a new system
that affects driver behaviours. If you bump into a rival driver
too hard or too often, they’ll become your ‘nemesis’, who
then tries to ram you off the road.
This system has a couple of other elements too. For each
race you have a specific ‘rival’, and you gain extra points for
beating them in a race. Lastly, you also have a teammate who
you can order to race aggressively to gain extra team points,
or defensively to hold back the pack. These three driver types
can combine in interesting ways too. It’s possible to make
your teammate your nemesis, for example. However,
Nemeses only last to the end of the race, after which your
actions are apparently forgiven and forgotten, only scraping
the surface of this feature’s potential.
As the game continues, that seemingly diverse range
of locations also turns out be very limited. GRID simply
front-loads the vast majority of what it has to offer within
its first five or six hours, then repeats those same
locations ad nauseum. Multiplayer is even less well
served, offering only two race modes and no public
lobbies. With no more structured career goals, and no
exciting modes or ideas to unlock later, it isn’t long before
the thrill of racing wears off, and GRID is simply going
through the motions.
GRID
RICK LANE
-
+
+
+
Looks good
Great handling
Aggressive
arcade racing
GRIDLOCK
-
Best ideas are
undercooked
Career mode
gets repetitive
Thin multiplayer
/VERDICT
A surefire winner
on the track,
GRID struggles
to maintain its
blazing speed
across the longer
distance of its
career mode.
OVERALL SCORE
67%
71
G A M E S / REVIEWS
hereas most role-playing games treat character
creation as a separate entity that occurs
before the game starts, Disco Elysium
dedicates its entire length to figuring out who you
are, spiritually and literally. It also happens to be
one of the most imaginative, touching and laughout-loud funny RPGs in ages.
You play an alcoholic, drug-addled police
detective who, after one too many all-night
benders, awakes in a hotel room having sluiced
his entire memory right out of his head. You
can’t remember your name, what you look like,
or what you’re doing in the dilapidated porttown of Martinaise.
Through the intervention of your newly
assigned partner, Kim Kitsuragi, you learn that
you’re investigating the death of a man hanging
from a tree behind the hotel. You chase these
two cases – the mystery of the hanging man
and the mystery of yourself – across Disco
Elysium’s 20 to 40-hour duration.
Ultimately there’s only one killer, but there
are many potential detectives who will try to
catch them. Nearly all of Disco Elysium’s action
occurs through its complex dialogue system.
Around a million words have been poured into
the story, but what makes its narrative so
compelling isn’t its breadth, but how the
dialogue interacts with the game’s skill system.
W
DISCO ELYSIUM
+
+
+
Incredible writing
+
Almost everything,
to be honest
Fantastic art
Innovative
skill system
DISCO INFERNO
-
Time progression
can cause
frustration
-
Overindulges in its
own lore a bit
72
M
E
AD
c
DEVELOPER Studio ZAUM / PUBLISHER Studio ZAUM
inc VAT
PRE
Disco Elysium / £29.99
C
tom P
us
IUM GR
Your detective has a total of 24 different ‘skills’, each of
which represents a small but noisy part of his
mind. ‘Encyclopedia’ is your personal
knowledge bank, giving you insight into the
game world’s lore. Physical Instrument, on the
other hand, is your mental personal trainer,
encouraging you to do anything from busting
down doors to busting in faces.
What makes these skills different from those in
other RPGs – aside from their weird names – is that
they’re represented as individual characters. They
speak to you directly in dialogue and, depending on
your proficiency in them, will offer you advice and
tips on how to perform actions, solve puzzles and
respond in conversations. A high Rhetoric skill, for
example, will advise you on how to win over people
in conversations, whereas high Perception will help
you notice tiny details about crime scenes and
people, bringing up new actions and conversation
options as a consequence.
Like the colourful population of Martinaise,
however, the facets of your mind aren’t always
helpful acquaintances. Electrochemistry is a skill
that, at high levels, shields you from the negative
effect of narcotics. However, it also makes you
want narcotics more, rearing its head to nag you
whenever the subject of drugs or alcohol come up
in conversation. High Empathy, meanwhile, will
help you feel what others are feeling, and therefore gain
insights into their personalities. However, high empathy can
also quite literally hurt you, damaging your health if you
overempathise with another person’s pain.
The result is an astoundingly complex range of interactions,
with wildly different potential outcomes for nearly every
situation. Early in the game you need to examine the hanging
man’s body, but in your hungover state, the decomposing
corpse puts you on the verge of vomiting. A character with
high Endurance will perform the examination without
problems, but low-Endurance characters will have to find
manual ways of coping, from dispelling the hangover with a
sniff of ammonia, to being embarrassed into doing the work
via the taunting of a foul-mouthed local boy.
This hints at the other key point about Disco Elysium’s
writing; it’s enormously funny. Skill checks can lead to
ridiculous situations, such as chucking an old man’s boule
into the sea because you mistook it for a shot put and
wanted to show off. At other times, the jokes are on you. If
you apologise too much in conversation, your mind will tell
you that you’ve assumed the personality of ‘Sorry Cop.’
You can either say sorry and accept this description, or
swear at your brain, at which point it will say ‘whoa, maybe
you’re not Sorry Cop after all!’
Importantly, though, Disco Elysium’s wit isn’t forced, it
emerges naturally from the mess in which you and the game
world are currently stuck. Speaking of which, Disco Elysium’s
world is a lightly fantastical reinterpretation of 20th century
history – one that’s mired in economic stagnation after a
capitalist government defeated a communist rebellion in a
bloody civil war, and where cars look like they’re from the
1920s but disco has already had its heyday.
Thematically, it paints on both large and small canvases.
It’s able to deal with themes of racism and unionisation,
while at the same time letting you help a woman lift a curse
from the building of her bookshop, and assist a pair of elderly
cryptozoologists search for a mythical creature. There’s so
much else to celebrate here too, from the stunning painterly
artwork to the eerie and soulful soundtrack.
However, there’s also a couple of issues worth
mentioning. Time in Disco Elysium moves according to
dialogue, with each paragraph causing a minute of the day
to tick forward. It attempts to mimic the passing of days
without forcing you to work against the clock, but it can lead
to some annoying situations where you miss an event at a
set time because you’re stuck in a conversation, or you’re
actively searching for conversations to move the day
forward. You can pass the time by reading books, but ideally,
the game needs an ability to wait until specific times of day
and exit conversations at any point.
Also, while the writing is undoubtedly brilliant, it would
still have benefited from a slightly sterner editor. Disco
Elysium’s world is based on a setting the developer has
been building for a decade, and at times it feels like it’s tried
to cram that decade’s worth of material into one game. The
detail is impressive, but we simply don’t need to know
about some elements of the lore.
Nonetheless, Disco Elysium is a tremendous
achievement. It’s staggeringly rich in detail, wonderfully
written and capable of being funny and devastatingly human
at the same time. It’s rare indeed to see an out-and-out
masterpiece leap straight out of the box, especially from a
first-time developer, but Disco Elysium is precisely that.
RICK LANE
/VERDICT
A stunning
psychedelic
detective game,
Disco Elysium
represents a
whole new
standard for
isometric RPGs.
OVERALL SCORE
95 %
73
G A M E S / REVIEWS
Ghost Recon: Breakpoint / £49.99
inc VAT
DEVELOPER Ubisoft Paris / PUBLISHER Ubisoft
U
bisoft’s practice of reusing ideas and mechanics
across multiple games is well known and, when
done carefully, that strategy can have its place.
However, it comes crashing apart in Ghost: Recon
Breakpoint, a horrendously stitched-together ragdoll with
which no child would ever want to play.
Like its predecessor Ghost Recon: Wildlands, Breakpoint
is an open-world tactical shooter. It sees players join forces
with up to three friends to infiltrate the island of Auroa. Here,
tech-entrepreneur Jace Skell’s drone-manufacturing facility
has been hijacked by a rogue private military company
known as the Wolves.
Wildlands wasn’t great game, but its loop of infiltrating
enemy compounds, and its blend of stealth and gunplay to
complete objectives had potential. Instead of adding depth to
those existing concepts, Breakpoint lumbers its experience
with two inexplicable systems from other Ubisoft games.
The first is the dialogue and conversation system from
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. Rather than simply getting
information over your radio, every interaction with an NPC is
bookended by lengthy dialogue sequences with characters
the game never gives you a reason to care about.
Such sequences crop everywhere with no thought for
your current situation. You could be safe in your home
base, or in the middle of a mission with enemies
surrounding you on all sides.
Breakpoint then adds Ubisoft’s ubiquitous loot system,
originally seen in The Division and since spread to Assassin’s
Creed and Far Cry. However, the whole concept of loot is
rendered pointless by the fact that Breakpoint’s weapons
do realistic damage, meaning a headshot is lethal with any
gun regardless of its stats. As for armour and equipment,
Ubisoft’s desperation to create varied loot that’s still vaguely
military leads to ridiculous situations where an officer’s cap
offers more protection than a crashproof helmet.
Breakpoint’s systems aren’t entirely recycled. It has a
more survivalist theme than Wildlands. When your initial
assault on the island goes awry, you’re left isolated and
hunted on the island, and must scavenge to survive. You can
camouflage yourself by rolling in mud and dirt, while terrain
navigation is simulated so that climbing mountainsides
slows your progress. Particularly steep slopes will trigger
an increasingly uncontrollable slide. That’s just as annoying
as it sounds. These systems add nothing to the cooperative
tactical play, and mostly just inconvenience you as you try to
get to the next mission.
The skills and upgrade system is also far less
comprehensive than that of Wildlands, with the most
interesting gadget you unlock being a torch that cuts
through fences. Breakpoints lacks Wildlands’ AI
companions too, meaning you’ll either have to go alone
or find other players with which to play.
Breakpoint’s combat is enjoyable enough. But after
trudging your way to your 20th mission, which is almost
identical to the previous 19, you’ll soon discover that the
only Breakpoint reached here is for your patience with this
slapdash and monotonous experience.
RICK LANE
74
BREAKING
+
Passable combat
BROKEN
-
Everything else
/VERDICT
Nope.
OVERALL SCORE
28%
TRINE 4/ £24.99
inc VAT
DEVELOPER Frozenbyte / PUBLISHER Modus Games
T
rine 4 could be more accurately described as
‘Trine 3 done right’. The third game’s attempt to
blend 2D platforming with full 3D movement and
combat didn’t go down well with fans. What’s more, the
experiment was so costly for developer Frozenbyte that it
had to cut the planned game short, with a sudden and
unsatisfying cliffhanger ending.
Rather than continuing from here, Trine 4 essentially
pretends Trine 3 never happened, returning to its pure 2D
roots with a new story. It’s a delightful return to form that
sees the series’ three heroes (Amadeus the Wizard, Zora
the Thief and Ser Pontius the Knight) reunite as they
attempt to track down a missing prince whose nightmares
can take physical form. The quest seems straightforward at
first, but the Prince proves highly elusive as he’s chased
through forests, over mountains and even in dreams.
It’s a simple, arguably simplistic, fairy tale that’s little
more than an excuse to tie together Trine 4’s impressive
number of levels. Fortunately, these stunning and diverse
levels more than compensate for the threadbare
storytelling. From wintry mountaintops with knee-deep
snow, to pumpkin-filled farmland, sun-dappled forests and
gloomy ramshackle castles, Trine 4 is one of the prettiest
games you’ll play this year.
Trine 4 also returns to the series’ emphasis on delightful
physics-based puzzling. Each of the three characters has
their own speciality. Amadeus can conjure boxes, balls
and planks, while Zora can tie objects together using her
grapple rope. Ser Pontius is notionally the group’s fighter,
but he can also deflect water and fireballs with his shield,
and smash objects with his stomp ability.
Using this toolset, Frozenbyte creates wonderfully
satisfying puzzles with a consistent level of challenge, while
also giving you a little leeway to invent your own solutions,
stacking boxes and creating rope bridges in ways the
developer didn’t quite anticipate. There are several new
abilities too, such as Zora’s ‘fairy rope’, which causes objects
attached to it to levitate, and Ser Pontius’ dash ability, which
lets you propel objects into breakable walls.
However, the game is let down by its combat, which
sees you fighting figments of the Prince’s imagination that
appear suddenly and, if we’re honest, repetitively, at set
points. There’s plenty of ways to deal with these enemies,
such as throwing boxes at them with Amadeus, or using
Zora’s bow and arrow. However, the battles are so
chaotic, with large groups of enemies attacking you
simultaneously, that the easiest solution is simply to use
Ser Pontius to stomp on everyone.
Fortunately, combat encounters only last seconds, after
which you’re back into joyous platforming. Trine 4 isn’t the
most adventurous game in terms of big ideas or grand
themes, but it’s still a thoroughly entertaining adventure.
RICK LANE
TRINE
+
+
+
Incredible visuals
Delightful puzzling
Pleasant and
comforting
TRIPE
-
Mediocre combat
Thin story
/VERDICT
A thin story
and flawed
combat don’t
stop Trine 4
being a stunning
and satisfying
puzzleplatformer.
OVERALL SCORE
80 %
75
G A M E S / VIRTUAL REALITY
REALITY
CHECK
Rick Lane tries out
some rhythm-based
combat, and gets
excited about the new
Medal of Honor, in our
monthly VR roundup
REVIEW
PISTOL WHIP / £19.49 incVAT
DEVELOPER Cloudhead Games / PUBLISHER Cloudhead Games
Pistol Whip is a rhythm game and first-person
shooter hybrid. The developer claims it was
inspired by ‘action movies like John Wick
and Equilibrium’, although we reckon it’s
more likely inspired by two of the best, most
successful VR games currently available
– the rhythmic block-slicing of Beat Saber
and slow-mo shooter SUPERHOT VR.
That’s not to besmirch the work by
Cloudhead Games. Pistol whip is a decent
blend of two of our favourite VR experiences.
Each stage sees you automatically moving
forwards through a loosely sketched 3D
environment, while silhouetted enemies
appear from both sides and attempt to
add a large dose of lead into your diet.
Wielding a pistol in each hand, your goal
is simply to shoot your opponents as they
appear, while avoiding their bullets by
dodging left and right in the headset.
76
Like the aforementioned games, Pistol
Whip isn’t just about getting to the end of a
level – it’s also about doing it in style. Each
stage is closely choreographed with the
song that plays over it so, to a certain extent,
you’re able to anticipate when enemies may
appear. You also get extra points for shooting
precisely on the beat, encouraging you to
realise your potential as an action hero and
move in accordance to the song’s rhythm.
From a visual and tactile sense, Pistol
Whip impresses. Bullets both given and
received have a real sense of impact to
them, which makes the gunplay thrilling
and the desire to avoid being shot palpable.
The game’s kaleidoscopic visual style also
looks fantastic, although it can make intense
sequences quite confusing, and highlights
how SUPERHOT’s clean, colour-coded
visuals are practical as well as stylistic.
Pistol Whip also boasts a couple of neat
smaller mechanics. There are several
types of enemies that require different
numbers of shots to take down, meaning
you need to think quickly about how
to approach the everchanging combat
scenarios. Meanwhile, the off-screen
danger indicator is useful for keeping track
of the action in a VR headset’s limited field
of view, and hopefully will becomes a
standard in combat-focused VR games.
Aside from being a little too visually busy,
Pistol Whip’s main issue is a dearth of content.
There are only ten songs, and there’s no
level editor for the community to create their
own action vignettes. Also, because the
game involves constant forward movement,
people who easily suffer from motion
sickness should approach with caution.
Ultimately, Pistol Whip’s individual
components are too simplistic to stand
up to either Beat Saber or SUPERHOT
Nonetheless, the combination gives Pistol
Whip enough of its own novelty, and it’s an
entertaining enough distraction while it lasts.
PISTOL
BLUNDERBUSS
+
+
+
-
Fun concept
Stylish
Satisfying action
Not enough songs
Visuals can
become confusing
VERDICT
Successfully merges
the rhythm action
of Beat Saber with
the slick shooting of
SUPERHOT, although it
also lacks the finesse
of both those games.
OVERALL SCORE
71%
NEWS
VIRTUAL
RETRO
GAMING
NEWS
MEDAL OF
HONOR VR
Before Call of Duty, there was Medal of
Honor. Originally a PlayStation series, 2001’s
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault was one of the
best PC games of the year, letting players
virtually experience the D-Day landings for
the first time. Since then, however, the series
has spiralled downwards, with the last
release being 2012’s mediocre modern-day
shooter, Medal of Honor: Warfighter.
Next year, however, Medal of Honor
returns as a fully fledged VR shooter. Medal
of Honor: Above and Beyond is being
developed by Respawn Entertainment,
creator of Titanfall and Apex Legends (and
founded by the original directors of Allied
Assault). Above and Beyond returns players
to Europe in 1944, assuming the role of an
American Office of Strategic Services agent
on various assignments around Europe.
Its scope marks it out from other VR
shooters. This is a full-fat game, with 50
missions that range from working with the
Paris Resistance to fighting your way across
the top of a German train, as well as multiple
battles through the towns and hedgerows of
Normandy. Above and Beyond also takes
advantage of VR’s haptic control schemes.
You’ll be able to catch grenades and throw
them back at enemies, and you’ll have to
manually reload your M1 Garand and
Thompson submachine guns.
In terms of play, Above and Beyond leans
more toward an arcade feel than realism,
while visually, it can’t match the most recent
Call of Duty or Battlefield games.
Nonetheless, it’s wonderful to see Medal
of Honor returning to its roots, and we can
definitely get behind a proper VR FPS being
developed by a master such as Respawn.
Emulationisanimportantpartofmaintaining
the historical games library, as well as
providing a way to play classic games without
setting up and maintaining a dozen old
machines. However, unless your chosen retro
game is a PC title, emulators often don’t
provide the ideal way to play it. Enter EmuVR,
a program currently in development that’s
designed not just to emulate classic games,
but also the device on which they were
played and how they were played.
EmuVR simulates a retro gaming space,
a large house with every console you can
imagine set up and ready to play. It lets you
upload the ROMs of any games you own,
then represents those games as virtual
cartridges or CD-ROMs that can be picked up
and inserted into the console of your choice.
They can be played with a simulated
controller on the screen of your choice, be it a
modern LCD display or chunky CRT TVs. The
developer even created a ‘glass thickness
shader’ to accurately represent the picture
displayed by pre-LCD TVs.
EmuVR has been in development since
2017. It uses another program called
RetroArch for emulation, and currently
supports over 70 classic gaming
platforms. They include the PlayStation,
N64, Megadrive, Master System, ZX
Spectrum, Commodore 64 and PC Engine.
Its most recent update added support for
lightgun games, letting you point a virtual
plastic gun at your TV to play games such
as House of the Dead or Time Crisis.
EmuVR is still in beta, and if you want to
check it out, you need to contact the
developer directly. For legal reasons, EmuVR
naturally doesn’t come with ROMs of its own.
See emuvr.net for more information.
77
Games such as Dota 2 put a
high demand on the CPU
WHAT HARDWARE DO YOU
REALLY NEED
FOR GAMING?
DO YOU REALLY NEED MORE CPU CORES FOR GAMING, AND HOW MUCH DIFFERENCE
DOES RAM MAKE? EDWARD CHESTER INVESTIGATES WHICH COMPONENTS ARE THE
MOST IMPORTANT FOR GETTING THE MOST FROM YOUR GAMING PC
t’s easy to get carried away when putting together your
new PC; you want to get the best of every component you
can afford. However, not all components are created
equally when it comes to maximising your gaming
experience. Do you really need a 16-core processor or 32GB of RAM?
Well, that’s what we’re here to find out.
We tested a wide range of components and peripherals across five
different games, to see what difference they made. Some upgrades
didn’t make a difference to performance, but unlocked better visuals,
improved ergonomics or just generally made our gaming life easier.
The basis of our test rig was an AMD Ryzen 7 3700X – we then
underclocked, overclocked and disabled some of its cores in order to
I
78
test how a CPU can affect gaming performance. We also equipped the
system with a range of RAM options, different storage drives and, of
course, different graphics cards. We then tested a range of different
monitors, mice and keyboards to gauge their effect on each of our
chosen games.
Each game was tested at 1080p (1,920 x 1,080) and 4K (3,840 x 2,160),
so we could demonstrate the extremes of monitor resolutions most users
will encounter. We also set each game to a detail level that balanced
performance and image quality in the best possible way. Graphically rich
games such as Rise of the Tomb Raider were run at Medium to High detail
settings, while Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) were
run at High detail settings and above.
CPU CORES
CPU cores (average fps)
1,920 x 1,080
Two cores
Four cores
Six cores
Eight cores
With AMD having skyrocketed back to the top of the
Rise of the Tomb Raider
127
123
124
123
CPU charts when it comes to overall performance per
PUBG
134
163
163
165
pound, it’s easy to assume that running out and buying a
Ryzen 9 3900X is the best way to go for a gaming CPU.
Dota 2
87
147
171
179
However, the massive multi-core performance of the
Ashes of the Singularity
36
49
51
54
latest high-end CPUs isn’t necessarily of that much
benefit for gaming performance. With that in mind, we set
CS:GO
163
200
220
197
out to find the crossover point in our suite of test games.
In theory, games that involve many players or
3,840 x 2,160
Two cores Four cores Six cores Eight cores
characters, such as battle royale games or real-time
Rise of the Tomb Raider
48
48
48
48
strategy games, are more demanding of CPUs, but was
PUBG
69
73
71
73
that borne out in our testing? To find out, we took our
3700X and disabled all but two of its cores (you can’t drop
Dota 2
91
136
132
139
to just one core), then tested our games using the RTX
Ashes of the Singularity
39
47
51
53
2060 Super. The RTX 2080 Super is already CPU-limited
in these tests, so the 2060 Super is more likely to show
CS:GO
131
179
180
195
up meaningful results. We then bumped the CPU back up
to four cores, six cores and finally the full eight cores.
You’ll want a minimum of a quad-core CPU for consistent gaming performance.
You don’t need more than eight though
We were surprised by the drop in performance that resulted from
dropping to only two cores in nearly all our test games. Just three or
four years ago, before Ryzen arrived, Intel’s fast dual-core processors
Moving up to four cores resulted in big leaps all round, although
were still a popular choice for budget gamers, but now it’s not a route
there are still some noticeable gaps in performance compared with
we’d recommend.
using eight cores. AOTS and Dota 2 take the biggest hit here, with
The only game to remain untouched by our changes to the CPU
24fps difference seen in the latter when you move from four to eight
cores was ROTTR, which remained resolutely bound only by graphics cores. PUBG was essentially back to full speed at just four cores
card performance. This is reflective of the fact this game is graphically though – having large number of players and a large game world
very rich, and that it doesn’t tend to have a huge amount of enemies or will put strain on the CPU, but not enough to stress eight cores.
other characters on screen at the same time.
Taking another step up to six cores sees the gaps close up. Dota 2
Elsewhere, though, the drop to two cores made a big difference.
performance takes another leap at 1080p, coming to within 7fps of
In Dota 2, the average frame rate plummeted from 179fps to just
its 8-core performance. AOTS also creeps up ever closer to its
87fps at 1080p, while even at 4K it dropped from 139fps to 91fps. In
maximum at 1080p. Elsewhere, though, we’ve basically already hit
AOTS, it also made a big difference – the only factor in our testing
peak performance.
that did seem to make a difference in this game – with the frame rate
We have to admit that we were surprised to see these small but
dropping by 29 per cent.
consistent gaps between the 6-core and 8-core results for Dota 2
What’s telling is that the largest drops were at 1080p, rather than
and AOTS. We fully expected that a 6-core CPU (in this case, it can
4K, emphasising the point that CPU and GPU performance needs to
deal with up to 12 threads at a time thanks to SMT), would be enough,
be balanced – the number of CPU cores will only be the limit in your
but there’s a very small gaming advantage to having those final two
system if your graphics card isn’t otherwise the bottleneck.
cores in some instances.
Ashes of the Singularity puts a major strain on CPU
usage, thanks to all the units being on-screen at once
The Ryzen range tops out at 16 cores but you don’t
need that cores many for gaming
F E AT U R E / ANALYSIS
CPU CLOCK SPEED
Having established a sweet spot for gaming performance around the
6-core mark, we next wanted to test the effect of clock speed. The opinion
has long been held that Intel CPUs are still the best for games, as they have
a clock speed advantage, although AMD has closed that gap considerably
with the latest Zen 2 Ryzen processors.
To test just where CPU clock speed sits in the hierarchy of importance for
game speed, we took our results for the 8-core test, then compared them
with the CPU underclocked to 3GHz and then overclocked to 4.2GHz. The
results were conclusive.
Right across the board, as soon as we downclocked our CPU to 3GHz,
performance dropped. Even in ROTTR, where the number of CPU cores
made little difference, there was a noticeable drop in frame rate at 1080p.
That said, in most instances, it wasn’t as big a drop as we expected. After all,
this is a CPU with a base clock speed of 3.6GHz and a boost clock speed of
4.4GHz, so forcing it back down to just 3GHz is quite a drop.
Meanwhile, giving our CPU an all-core overclock proved more of a mixed
bag. In some instances, we saw a clear increase in performance, such as in
Dota 2 and PUBG at 1080p. However, in others, there were minimal gains
over the stock clock speed. A large part of this is down to the fact that AMD
Ryzen CPUs tend not to overclock easily above their default boost clock
speed, as was the case with us hitting 4.2GHz, when its boost clock is 4.4GHz.
However, that boost clock only applies to one core and isn’t guaranteed,
whereas an all-core overclock is always on. As such, those games that can
limit their CPU usage to just one core can get the full boost clock advantage,
but where more cores are involved, the overclocked CPU takes the lead.
That’s why the likes of Dota 2 saw big gains with the all-core overclock,
whereas CS:GO or PUBG saw little to no improvement.
MIDRANGE
Having established that clock speed is still a major factor in PC gaming
speed, and that there’s not a huge advantage in having more than six cores,
any of AMD or Intel’s processors with six or eight cores will be fine for a midrange gaming system, especially if you get overclocking. The £300 Ryzen 7
3700X is a great choice here, as is Intel’s £340 Core i7-9700K.
TOP DOG
AMD and Intel reserve their fastest clock speeds for their flagship
processors, so if you want to maximise clock speed (without overclocking,
at least), you’ll have to stump up the cash for the AMD Ryzen 9 3950X or
Intel Core i9-9900K. You won’t see much benefit from all the extra cores
on the former, but that clock speed will pay dividends. Alternatively, you
couldjustoverclockcheaperoptionswithfewercores.
A 6-core CPU, such as AMD’s
Ryzen 5 3600X, will be fine for
most gaming needs
ESSENTIAL
Our tests show that a quad-core CPU is the minimum for a decent gaming
PC these days, but you don’t have to go much higher to maximise your
gaming performance – six will probably do for most users. As for clock
speed, the more the better, but any chip that can hit around 4GHz will have
enough power to put the focus back on a graphics card upgrade. The
6-core Ryzen 5 3600X is a great option, or alternatively, the 6-core Intel
Core i5-9600KF is a decent gaming choice for under £200.
Intel’s Core i9-9900K
and 9900KS are the clock
speed kings at the moment,
with the latter boosting to
5GHz on all cores
CPU clock speed (average fps)
1,920 x 1,080
3.6GHz
4.2GHz
Rise of the Tomb Raider
118
123
124
PUBG
144
165
168
Dota 2
163
179
185
Ashes of the Singularity
46
54
55
CS:GO
172
197
210
3,840 x 2,160
3GHz
3.6GHz
4.2GHz
Rise of the Tomb Raider
48
48
48
PUBG
65
73
70
Dota 2
136
139
137
45
53
54
166
195
189
Ashes of the Singularity
CS:GO
80
3GHz
MEMORY
RAM speed (average fps)
1,920 x 1,080
2133MHz
2666MHz
3000MHz
3600MHz
RAM is often one of the most confusing components
Rise of the Tomb Raider
119
122
123
123
when building a PC. With DDR4 speeds ranging from
PUBG
163
167
165
180
2133MHz all the way up to over 4000MHz, it’s not
obvious how fast you need to go. Likewise, there’s a lot
Dota 2
170
175
179
178
of misinformation about how much RAM you need.
Ashes of the Singularity
49
54
54
56
So, to (mostly) settle the situation for gaming needs, we
put six different configurations to the test. First, we checked
CS:GO
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204
197
196
out the difference between using 8GB (2 x 4GB) and 16GB
(2 x 8GB) to see what difference the extra capacity makes.
3,840 x 2,160
2133MHz
2666MHz 3000MHz 3600MHz
We didn’t test with 32GB of memory, as our testing
Rise of the Tomb Raider
48
48
48
48
conclusively showed there was no point in doing so.
PUBG
73
70
73
70
The difference between 8GB and 16GB of RAM was
essentially non-existent in all but one of our tests. Only
Dota 2
132
132
139
133
in PUBG at 1080p did we see a difference significant
Ashes of the Singularity
49
52
53
52
enough to be notable. As such, moving up to 32GB is
clearly not going to offer any further benefit for gaming.
CS:GO
199
182
195
193
There are, of course, many other benefits to having
more memory, such as running multiple virtual
RAM speed makes a noticeable difference up to a point. Our performance figures
tailed off at around 3000MHz
machines and having multiple applications open at once
– it basically limits the amount of paging between Windows and
your SSD. However, in terms of raw frame rates, the benefits of
having more memory are limited.
We then ran all our other tests with 3000MHz RAM, and then
downclocked this kit to 2133MHz and 2666MHz, before finally
installing some 3600MHz RAM to see what difference they all
made. Here, we saw a much more linear improvement, with
2133MHz clearly holding back performance across the board.
However, moving up to 2666MHz saw us equalling our maximum
frame rates in several games. There are a few examples, such as in
PUBG, where 3666MHz made a difference, but by and large,
2666MHz or 3000MHz
is ample where frame
RAM amount (average fps)
RGB LEDs are far from essential
rates are concerned.
for
gaming, but they do look nice
1,920 x 1,080
8GB 16GB
The big caveat here
is that DDR4 prices
Rise of the Tomb Raider
125
123
are now so low that
be a few exceptions of games that are memory-hungry, but if
PUBG
146
165
you can pick up a 16GB
you’re really looking to cost-cut then it’s a good way to save £303600MHz kit for around
£40 over a £16GB kit. In terms of speed, 3000MHz is plenty and
Dota 2
179
179
£90, so you’re only
you can pick up a dual-channel 8GB kit at that speed for around
Ashes of the Singularity
54
54
saving £20 or so over
£35 inc VAT.
3000MHz kits, and
CS:GO
176
197
the higher frequency
MIDRANGE
can net you other
To be on the safe side, it’s worth stepping up to 16GB, especially given
3,840 x 2,160
8GB 16GB
performance gains
current DDR4 prices. However, 32GB simply isn’t necessary – save
Rise of the Tomb Raider
48
48
outside of gaming too.
your money and spend it elsewhere. Again, when it comes to clock
speed, 3000MHz is the gaming sweet spot, but you don’t have to
PUBG
69
73
spend much more to get a little extra performance.
ESSENTIAL
Dota 2
136
139
If you’re really strapped
Ashes of the Singularity
52
53
for cash, you can still
TOP DOG
comfortably get away
We didn’t test the very fastest RAM available, but our tests certainly
CS:GO
187
195
with running just 8GB
suggest that there’s minimal benefit to pushing much beyond the
of RAM when it comes
3600MHz. Also, the prices for faster memory kits ramp up quickly
Dropping to 8GB of RAM made little difference in
to gaming. There will
beyond this point – 3466MHz is a sensible frequency for a gaming rig.
most of our tests
81
F E AT U R E / ANALYSIS
GRAPHICS CARD
Graphics card (average fps)
1,920 x 1,080
GTX 1050
RTX 2060 Super
RTX 2080 Super
The graphics card is the heart of any gaming PC, but there’s
Rise of the Tomb Raider
30
123
141
a crossover point where you can have too much graphics
PUBG
49
165
197
power for the rest of your PC. Maybe your CPU is too slow,
or the resolution or refresh rate of your monitor is too low to
Dota 2
127
179
176
get any benefits from the hundreds of frames per second
Ashes of the Singularity
51
54
55
(FPS) your graphics card can deliver.
To get a sense of where this crossover lies, we tested
CS:GO
146
197
201
three cards from across the spectrum – a last-gen £150
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050, the £400 MSI Gaming X RTX
3,840 x 2,160
GTX 1050 RTX 2060 Super RTX 2080 Super
2060 Super and the £800 MSI Gaming X Trio RTX 2080
Rise of the Tomb Raider
10
48
65
Super. For this feature, we’ve tested performance using
the same tests as the other components, so you can see
PUBG
6
73
95
how the figures compare with other component changes.
Dota 2
42
139
171
However, to get a better idea of which graphics card you
Ashes of the Singularity
36
53
52
should buy for games with more advanced graphics, you’ll
need to check our regular graphics card reviews, where
CS:GO
73
195
210
we test with new features such as real-time ray tracing
and DLSS, and also test more demanding games at very
The graphics card is still the most important place to spend big for gaming
high graphics settings.
performance, but you can spend too much if your monitor isn’t good enough
Anyway, back to the tests for this feature. Not surprisingly, the GTX
1050 struggles to keep up with the demands of 4K in all but CS:GO and to compete at that frame rate in PUBG. Nonetheless, with Rise of the
Tomb Raider (ROTTR), it struggled to deliver any sort of playable frame
Dota 2. Even then, the average of 42fps in Dota 2 is only just about
rate at either resolution – you’d have to drop detail settings to Low/
playable for a fast-paced multiplayer game. However, at 1080p, the
Medium in order to get a playable frame rate at 1080p. If esports
GTX 1050 fared much better, churning out well over 100fps in both
games are your priority, a low-end GPU will do the job fine at 1080p,
Dota 2 and CS:GO, which is good enough for competitive play.
It also managed nearly 50fps in PUBG and Ashes of the Singularity but you’ll need more power for the latest graphically demanding
games, and for higher resolutions.
(AOTS), making both these games playable, although you’d struggle
Rise of the Tomb Raider is almost completely
limited only by graphics card performance
82
Moving up to the RTX 2060 Super sees all the
numbers leap up, although that’s hardly surprising for
such a big jump in price. We didn’t test a GeForce GTX
1660 Super (see p30) or Radeon RX Vega56 for this
specific feature, but in our other tests, these cards
have proved themselves to be decent choices in the
middle ground.
The RTX 2060 Super proved ample for playing
these games at both resolutions. Only in ROTTR and
AOTS did it not hit 60fps at 4K. What’s telling here are
the huge leaps in the most graphically intensive
games, at both 1080p and 4K. In the likes of PUBG
and ROTTR, the frame rate more than quadrupled.
Even in the likes of CS:GO, the frame rate tripled at 4K.
However, at 1080p, we see our first sign of why
balancing your hardware is important. In Dota 2,
performance only increased from 127fps to 179fps
compared to the GTX 1050, while in CS:GO it went
from 147fps to 197fps. Those are still substantial
leaps, but if your main focus is playing competitive
MSI’s Gaming X RTX 2060 Super enables you to
turn on some ray-tracing eye candy
IF YOU’RE THINKING OF UPGRADING YOUR
GRAPHICS CARD, YOU NEED TO KNOW IF
YOUR CURRENT ONE IS THE BOTTLENECK
Nonetheless, the tests in this feature do bring home the point that, if
you’re thinking of upgrading your graphics card, you need to know if
your current one really is the bottleneck. If you’re only using a 1080p
monitor to play esports titles, then you don’t need a £700 graphics card.
games at a high frame rate, and you only have a 1080p monitor,
there’s clearly potential for you to save some money by getting a
cheaper graphics card.
Finally, the RTX 2080 Super costs twice the price of the RTX 2060
Super, yet the largest increase in average frame rate in these tests was just
34 per cent, while most of the larger increases were only around 20 per
cent. What’s more, for three out of the five games at 1080p, and two out of
five games at 4K, there was no meaningful increase in performance at all.
The RTX 2080 Super represents the peak of sub-£1,000
graphics performance at the moment, and our graphics card tests in
other, more demanding games show that you do indeed get a clear
benefit if you’re enabling new features, such as real-time ray
tracing, at higher resolutions.
For basic 1080p gaming, you can get away with quite a basic graphics
card, even if you play fairly modern, competitive titles. Just be sure to
turn down the in-game detail settings. For esports games at 1080p,
Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1650 (the modern cousin of the GTX 1050) is fine,
but for any more demanding games we recommend stepping up to the
GTX 1660 or, even better, AMD’s Radeon RX Vega56.
ESSENTIAL
MIDRANGE
The next step up is gaming at 2,560 x 1,440, for which AMD’s
Radeon RX 5700 is currently the performance king. However,
while the Radeon RX 5700 does offer fast frame rates, it
doesn’t have any dedicated hardware for real-time ray tracing,
which enables much more realistic lighting and reflections
in games. If you’re more likely to be playing games with ray
tracing (such as Control, Metro Exodus and Battlefield V), then
we recommend stepping up to the GeForce RTX 2060 Super
– the MSI card we tested for this feature is a good example.
TOP DOG
AMD’s latest Navi GPUs offer very fast performance
in the mid-range price bracket, but there are no raytracing abilities
If you’re looking to spend big, you want to be running a display with at
least a resolution of 2,560 x 1,440 to make the most of a top-end card
though. The £500 RTX 2070 Super is a great option for those seeking
to balance the ultimate in performance and image quality with price. If
you want to play games at 4K, you can get away with a mid-range card
for esports, but for more graphically demanding games, you ideally
want to step up to Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 2080 Super. Even that GPU
struggles with ray tracing at true 4K though – if you want to play games
at 4K with all the bells and whistles, you’re looking at the ultimate top
dog – the very pricey GeForce RTX 2080 Ti.
83
F E AT U R E / ANALYSIS
STORAGE
If you’re still booting your system and running games from a hard
drive, just go out and upgrade to a solid state drive (SSD). You can
get highly capacious SATA SSDs for very little outlay these days, so
there’s no need to be burdening yourself with the minute-long load
times and mid-game stutters of using a hard drive.
However, when it comes to upgrading to faster SSDs, the picture
is less clear. We’ve said it before and we tested again here to be
sure, and the results are conclusive: in terms of game and level
loading times, there’s no benefit in upgrading from a decent SATA
g an
SSD to a lightning fast NVMe SSD. However, it’s worth getting
M.2 SSD just for convenience and tidin s – you can remove your
drive
s and have fewer cables getting in the way.
ESSENTIAL
Even just a few months ago, SATA drives were still slightly cheaper
for any given capacity compared with their NVMe siblings. These
days, though, there’s so little in it that you might as well get the
convenience and speed of an M.2 NVMe drive. The WD Blue SN500
costs just £70 inc VAT yet offers 500GB of capacity, which is ample
for a basic gaming system.
MIDRANGE
Splash a little extra cash and you can get a larger capacity that
will ensure you can store more of your games on the one drive.
The 960GB Corsair MP510 costs just £110 inc VAT and, outside
of gaming, it also offers lightning fast sequential read and
write performance.
TOP DOG
NVMe SSDs aren’t essential for gaming
but they’re compact and convenient
The one disadvantage of M.2 SSDs is that their capacities top out at
2TB, so you’ll need a motherboard with two M.2 slots if you want to
store large volumes of data on these convenient tiny drives. In terms
of price and performance, you won’t see much benefit in gaming
from spending big, but the 2TB PCI-E 4 Corsair MP600 offers the
fastest performance you can get on an X570 (3rd-gen Ryzen)
system for £390 inc VAT.
MOTHERBOARDS
There’s a pretty simple rule when it comes to buying a motherboard
for a system that’s primarily aimed at gaming: they don’t really matter.
If you want to run multiple GPUs, then you’ll need a motherboard that
supports SLI for Nvidia GPUs or CrossFire for AMD GPUs, but
otherwise the only one factor that affects gaming performance is
overclocking. Some motherboard chipsets allow you to overclock
your CPU, while others don’t. If you’re not interested in overclocking,
then buying a motherboard based on a cheaper chipset is a great way
to save money.
There is, of course, also the question of just how well a
motherboard may overclock a processor, with factors such as the
power circuitry and cooling capabilities coming into play (especially
for the rather toasty X570 chipset). However, this varies greatly
between boards – your best bet is to read our motherboard reviews
to find out which ones overclock better than others.
MIDRANGE
Ifyou’respendingalittlemoremoneythenyoumightaswellgiveyourself
atleasttheoptionofCPUoverclocking,sojumpinguptoanIntelZ390
motherboardisthewaytogoforIntelCPUs.Whilewe’rewaitingfora
budget500-serieschipsetfromAMD,yourbestbetforAMDCPUsisa
boardbasedonlastyear’sB450orX470chipsets–again,though,youmay
needaBIOSupdatetorunthe
latestCPUs–asktheretailer
aboutthisbeforepurchasing.
TOP DOG
You can pay top dollar for
high-end motherboards
that come with some
mighty fine extras.
Again, though, if gaming
performance is your main
ESSENTIAL
concern, there’s very little
Optingforamotherboardthatdoesn’tsupportoverclockingisagreatway
in it. However, if money is
tosavesomecash,especiallyifyou’rethinkingofbuyinganIntelboard.A
B360-basedboard,suchastheGigabyteB360HD3,offersallthefeatures less of an object then, for
you’llneedandcostsunder£90incVAT.AsforAMD,buyingaslightlyolder AMD systems, we’d jump
up to an X570 motherboard,
B450boardandpairingitwithamodernRyzen3processorisagreatbet
(andyoustillgetoverclocking),althoughyoumayneedtoupdatetheBIOS such as the MSI X570 ACE
we’ve used for our testing.
first.TheMSIB450TomahawkMaxisagoodbuyforunder£100.
84
Your choice of motherboard doesn’t have a
huge effect on gaming performance
MONITORS
If CPUs and GPUs are the heart of gaming performance inside your PC, it’s
your monitor that’s the next most important consideration when weighing
up your gaming priorities. The wrong display may make games look worse,
perform badly or limit the potential of your powerful PC. The first factor to
consider is resolution. The resolution at which you play is intrinsically
tied to the frame rate you’ll get from any given PC: the higher the
resolution, the lower the frame rate. Conversely, the higher the
resolution, the better your game will look (to a point).
The next criteria is the speed of the monitor, or more precisely, its
maximum refresh rate and average response time. The faster the refresh
rate and the lower the response time, the snappier and more responsive
a game feels. However, if your system isn’t fast enough to deliver over
200fps, or you tend to play games that aren’t so reliant on having
lightning-fast reactions, there’s no point buying the latest 240Hz displays.
It’s also well worth considering a monitor with active sync tech here.
As standard, a monitor will have a fixed refresh rate – a hangover from
the days of CRT monitors. That’s fine if your graphics card is churning
out frame rates at the same frequency as the monitor, but it results in
horrible tearing artefacts and stuttering on LCD monitors if the refresh
rate and frame rate ever go out of sync.
If a monitor supports G-Sync then it will dynamically synchronise its
refresh rate with the frame rate from an Nvidia GPU, while monitors that
support ‘active sync’ or FreeSync will do the same on AMD GPUs. There
are also now some monitors that support both technologies. It’s well
worth making active sync a priority for gaming.
Finally, there’s the image quality of a screen. There’s a very rough rule
of thumb that the more extreme a monitor’s gaming performance, the
lower its image quality (both in terms of resolution and other image
quality criteria like colour accuracy), so you ideally want to find a display
that balances the two.
In our testing, we compared the Acer XB252Q (240Hz, 1080p, 1ms
TN), the Asus PG279Q (165Hz, 1440p, 4ms IPS) and the MSI
MAG321CURV (60Hz, 4K, 4ms VA), and we found that the competitive
fps games, such as CS:GO and PUBG, benefited from the fastest refresh
AOC’s G2460VQ6 is a great budget buy for just £126 inc VAT
rate possible, so we recommend an absolute minimum of a 100Hz refresh
rate, and ideally at least 144Hz, for these competitive first-person shooters.
A proper 1ms response time is crucial for these games too. By proper, we
mean TN displays that actually feel like they have a response time that
quick. Some monitors that use VA or IPS type LCD panels claim to have a
1ms response time on the packaging, but they don’t feel like it in action.
At the other end of the scale are cinematic games, where the whole
experience is greatly elevated by playing on the largest, highest resolution
display possible, even if it’s locked to 60Hz. These sorts of single-player,
graphically intensive games are all about immersing yourself in the game
world, so as long as the frame rate of your game is high enough to feel
smooth, you can accept some compromise on performance.
These games are also where you care most about image quality.
There’s no point having a high resolution, if the image looks washed out
or has poor viewing angles. The MSI monitor we tested was good here.
Then there’s the category into which most of us fall, where we want
a little of both. Can we have good image quality, a higher resolution and
good gaming performance? Well, yes, you can. The Asus PG279Q
excelled in all of our games, providing enough performance for
competitive, fast-paced titles but still looking fantastic in cinematic
games. It’s not the best for either extreme end of the scale but if you can
only buy one monitor, it’s this type of display we’d recommend.
ESSENTIAL
Pretty much any 144Hz, 1ms TN monitor with a 1080p resolution will
provide you the speedy feel you need for competitive gaming. The AOC
G2460VQ6, at just £126 inc VAT, is our current budget choice.
MIDRANGE
A 2,560 x 1,440 screen with an IPS panel type is a great mid-range screen
option. Games look great, while you still have plenty of speed too, without
the huge performance hit of a 4K screen. The Asus PG279Q or Acer
XB271HU are a bit pricey, at £600 inc VAT, but they’re great all-rounders.
TOP DOG
A 240Hz monitor is fantastic for first-person shooters,
but not essential for other game genres
For 4K and HDR visuals, the Asus PG27UQ is dazzlingly good, while the
MSI MAG321CURV is a great entry-level 4K option. Acer’s ultra-wide,
120Hz, 3440 x 1440 X34P is also a great option that will set you back
£900 inc VAT.
85
F E AT U R E / ANALYSIS
KEYBOARDS
Do you need a gaming keyboard? Essentially, no. That was the broad
conclusion we reached in our testing. There are all sorts of reasons to
buy one keyboard over another, but across the handful of keyboards
we tested for gaming, there were just a couple of factors that made
any significant difference.
The first was overall build quality. A sturdy keyboard that sits
securely and has keys that respond precisely makes for a more reliable
experience. In this regard, a premium keyboard with mechanical
keyswitches is worthwhile. It won’t make you a better gamer, but it will
last longer and prove more reliable.
The second factor was having a Windows key lock button. That is,
a button you can press that disables the Windows keys, so you don’t
accidentally go to the Windows desktop during a game. Other than that,
RGB and macro keys and all the other bells and whistles didn’t affect
our experience in the games we tested. In other words, scrimping on
your keyboard is fine for pure gaming.
MIDRANGE
The big upgrade you can make here is going for mechanical keyswitches,
which are more reliable and longer-lasting than rubber membrane keys.
Add in a button for disabling the Windows key and you’re good to go. The
Cooler Master CK550 is a great choice for £75 inc VAT.
TOP DOG
There are plenty of ways to spend more money on the latest
keyboards but we’ve seen little reason to look beyond the excellent
Corsair K70 MK.2 Low Profile. It looks fantastic, it’s built to a very high
standard and has wonderful low-profile mechanical keyswitches,
which is why it costs £160 inc VAT.
VAT
ESSENTIAL
You can absolutely get away with using a cheap, basic keyboard for
gaming. Just as long as the keys still strike reliably, you’ll be good to
go. You can pick up a basic model such as the Logitech K120 for £10.
Alternatively, the Corsair K55 is a great entry-level option that’s stylish
and includes that all-important Windows key disable button.
Fancy keyboards
add little to raw
gaming performance,
but quality switches
are worth having
MICE
Getting just the right mouse can be a revolutionary experience when
it comes to PC gaming. The combination of a high-quality sensor, the
right shape, your ideal button layout and the features you need can
take your gaming skills from being adequate to exemplary.
However, testing all those features across all the games we were
testing, and accounting for personal preferences on shape and style,
is well beyond the scope of this article. For a basic example, we
compare the Logitech MX Master 3 and a cheap Microsoft Classic
Intellimouse with a range of proper gaming mice (old and new), and
three core factors came to the fore.
The first is the sensor. The past few years have seen a return to
optical sensors that, when used with the right mousemats, make for
a truly flawless tracking experience. So, if you’re holding onto your
favourite mouse from ten years ago (especially if it uses a laser
sensor), be in no doubt, it’s worth an upgrade.
What’s more, non-gaming mouse sensors are often designed not
with performance in mind. Using the Logitech MX Master 3 or Microsoft
Intellimouse in our gaming tests, for instance, proved a poor experience.
The second factor to consider is the number of buttons and other
features you want. For most of the games we tested, we preferred a
very simple set of buttons that didn’t crowd our hands. However, for
games where a lot of macros are required, such as some RPGs, mice
that include extra buttons can be really handy. The style and location of
buttons is also important. The extra buttons on the MX Master 3, for
instance, proved more of a hindrance in gaming.
86
Thirdly, there’s the arrival of modern wireless technology in the latest
gaming mice. Just in the last year or so, wireless technology has finally
reached a point where it can be as responsive in games as using a wired
mouse. If you have the money, it’s definitely worth taking the plunge
into the wireless world for a cable-free experience.
ESSENTIAL
Almost any proper gaming mouse will do the trick here, but we really
like the SteelSeries Rival 110. It’s small and simple, but has a good
gaming-centric sensor. It provides great performance and costs just
£30 inc VAT. For competitive first-person shooters, the lightweight
Glorious PC Gaming Race Model O is also brilliant.
MIDRANGE
If you want more buttons, you can opt for an MMO-centric mouse such
as the Razer Naga Trinity or Roccat Nyth. However, those mice aren’t
well suited to other types of games. Instead, the SteelSeries Rival 600
offers a couple more buttons than some, while also being an excellent
mouse for a wide variety of games.
TOP DOG
Adding in the convenience of wireless is a great way to keep your desk
tidy and prevent cables snagging mid-game. The Logitech G Pro
Wireless is a fantastic wireless mouse that we simply loved using in all
the games we tested. It is pricey though.
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F E AT U R E / ANALYSIS
ALL ABOUT
ANTI-ALIASING
88
Technologies such as Microsoft ClearType provide anti-aliasing
for text, ensuring that text looks smooth and easy to read
What is anti-aliasing?
WE’VE ALL HEARD OF
IT, AND PROBABLY ALL
USED IT, BUT WHAT
EXACTLY IS ANTI
ALIASING AND WHAT’S
THE DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN ALL THE
VARIOUS TECHNIQUES?
EDWARD CHESTER
INVESTIGATES
f all the graphics settings
that confront you when
tweaking a graphics card
driver or setting up a new
game, perhaps the most common option
– after choosing the resolution – is
whether you enable anti-aliasing (AA).
It’s so commonplace, and it’s been
around for so long, that the proverbial
rock under which you’d have to be living
in order to not be aware of AA would give
the moon a run for its money.
However, for all its ubiquity, many of us
struggle to understand all the many ways
in which it can work, and their impact on
image quality and performance. So that’s
what we’re here to find out.
At its broadest definition, aliasing refers to
any situation where distortion is introduced
when a signal is reconstructed from
samples, making it fundamentally different
from the original signal. In audio processing,
the signal is the original sound, and the
sampling is the chopping up into time slices
that’s performed when converting sound
to a digital signal (and performing other
calculations such as compression).
In the case of computer graphics, the
signal is the original data that describes the
objects making up a scene or image, and the
sampling refers to compressing, resizing
or other manipulation of that scene that’s
needed to make it appear on screen. Most
obviously, this refers to the resolution at
which you’re trying to render a scene. You’re
sampling the scene/image at each pixel.
screen resolution and text size you’re using.
However, you can also get other visual
artefacts, such as the moiré (or ripple) effect
that can distort regular patterns, such as in
cobblestone roads or brick walls. There’s
also the effect where, as objects or patterns
get more distant from the viewpoint of the
screen, the pattern can break down in an
unnatural-looking way.
These effects all occur because the
sampling involved doesn’t have the
granularity to correctly display what the scene
is trying to convey. Going back to the example
of the jagged edges, if you consider a diagonal
line created by the edge of a brick wall against
a blue sky. For each pixel that intersects this
line, some of the pixels will be covered more
by the brick and others more by the sky.
With normal rendering, the system simply
checks for whetherthebrickorthesky covers
ALIASING REFERS TO ANY SITUATION WHERE
DISTORTION IS INTRODUCED WHEN A SIGNAL IS
RECONSTRUCTED FROM SAMPLES
This aliasing can result in several
undesirable visual effects, the most obvious
one being the dreaded jagged edges (jaggies),
where you have a stepped, unnatural looking
edge to the borders of objects. This isn’t just
a problem in 3D graphics – it’s also a factor
in everyday computing. Technologies such
as Microsoft ClearType, for instance, provide
anti-aliasing for text, ensuring that text looks
smooth and easy to read, no matter what
thecentre of thepixel(itssamplepoint)and
then showsonlyoneofthetwocolours(the
brickorthesky),creating a jaggedlooktothe
linewhere they intersect. If we’rerendering at a
highenough resolution,thejaggedness ofthe
linebecomes imperceptible(although you can
oftenstill see ashimmeringpatternaspixels
flip sharplybetween one colour ortheother)
but at realisticreal-timerendering resolutions,
the pixels andjaggedlinesare easilyvisible.
89
F E A T U R E / ANALYS
S IS
AA enabled
sample the final 2D image and average out
the adjacent pixels.
The former technique works during
the actual rendering process, where the
computer knows about the 3D construct of
the scene and can use that information to
its advantage to create a better effect. The
latter, though, happens only after all the
other rendering has been performed, so
it’s just working on a flat 2D image, where it
doesn’t inherently know about the geometry
of the underlying scene. These sorts of AA
techniques are known as post-processing AA.
We’ll discuss each AA type in more detail later,
but first we wanted to set the scene in terms
of how we’ve tested each method.
AA disabled
Without AA, edges and thin lines looked jagged and
broken up. With AA, the image is smoothed out
THIS ALIASING CAN
RESULT IN SEVERAL
UNDESIRABLE VISUAL
EFFECTS, THE MOST
OBVIOUS ONE BEING THE
DREADED JAGGED EDGES
How we test
With anti-aliasing, in all its various forms,
we’re looking to find a way of cheating the
lack of resolution by allowing those border
pixels to be not just one or other of those
two final colours but a blend. This softens
the appearance of those edges, making for a
more natural overall look to the image. This
same principle also allows us to reduce the
other undesirable effects described earlier.
How does anti-aliasing work?
In computer graphics, there are myriad
types of anti-aliasing algorithms, and we’ll
be exploring the most relevant ones for 3D
graphics later, but the fundamental principle
of all these techniques is the same. Either
they sample the 3D scene (or some portion
of the scene) at a higher resolution and
average out the result to create the final,
lower-resolution image, or they simply
One of the difficulties when testing AA is the
sheer number of options available and the
fact that there’s significant overlap (or indeed
gaps) in the systems built into a game, what
it offers as options and what can be forced
via a graphics card driver. For instance,
several games offer few conventional
mid-rendering AA methods, as they use
several post-processing effects or deferred
rendering, which means these techniques
simply don’t work.
AMD and Nvidia also have slightly different
terminology for features, as well as some
unique technologies of their own. For
instance, Nvidia doesn’t offer conventional
super-sampling AA but instead has Dynamic
Super Resolution (DSR), while Nvidia’s latest
DLSS technique is unique to the green team.
As such, finding a game that worked
across a wide range of AA techniques, and
offered a meaningful comparison was tricky,
and in the end we settled on an old classic:
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. This game
supports all the conventional AA techniques,
as well as several of the latest postprocessing techniques.
What’s more, this game also makes it easy
to make comparisons using a low resolution
and a modest AMD Radeon RX 560 GPU. The
low resolution simply makes it easier to pick
out differences (and is still reflective of many
people’s gaming experience), and AMD’s
driver also supports super-sampling AA.
Crucially, the modest RX 560 GPU isn’t CPU
limited at the upper end of performance, so it
shows a very clear change in performance as
different AA techniques are applied.
From left to right: No AA, 2x SSAA, 4x SSAA and 8x SSAA
Super-sampling (SSAA or FSAA)
The first and most brute-force approach to
anti-aliasing in a 3D scene is super-sampling
AA (SSAA), which is also known as full-scene
AA (FSAA). Here, for every pixel of the final
image, instead of sampling the 3D scene
once, multiple samples of the scene are taken
at different locations within each pixel (subsamples). The result of these multiple tests is
technique blends all pixels to the same level.
This effect is most noticeable on vertical or
horizontal lines, or on the textures used to
paint the outside of polygons that make up
a 3D scene. Some people find this softness
particularly distracting, while for others it’s far
less of an issue. We tend to feel the overall
image quality improvement compensates for
the slight loss in sharpness.
FOR EVERY PIXEL OF THE FINAL IMAGE, MULTIPLE
SAMPLES OF THE SCENE ARE TAKEN AT DIFFERENT
LOCATIONS WITHIN EACH PIXEL
thencombinedtoformthecolourofthefinal
pixel. Essentially, it’s the equivalent of rendering
the entire scene at a higher resolution, then
downsampling it to the final lower resolution.
This approach works very well, providing
a consistent AA effect across a broad range
of games that adds significantly to the
overall image quality. As a result, scenes look
more realistic and have more depth, lending
a smooth, almost filmic quality to them.
Older games that don’t employ particularly
sophisticated post-processing techniques
to improve image quality can be greatly
improved with the addition of SSAA.
However, there are a couple of major
downsides. The first is that it makes the whole
image look slightly soft, as the anti-aliasing
The other, more pressing, problem is the
huge performance cost. Because you’re
rendering every aspect of a scene multiple
times for each pixel, it takes far more
processing power. Although it doesn’t quite
scale linearly – as there are a few other factors
that determine overall performance – it’s a
rough rule of thumb that 2x SSAA will nearly
halve normal performance, 4x SSAA will
halve it again and 8x will, you’ve guessed it,
halve it again. In our testing, we saw a drop in
frame rate of 85 per cent between no AA and
8x SSAA. For this reason, it’s an option that’s
seldom offered in games, and Nvidia doesn’t
even include a way to force it on in its driver.
As a general tip, though, some games can
be made to look much better by turning down
some of the in-game detai
on SSAA in the driver. The overall smoothness
can make up for the loss of a few effects.
Dynamic Super Resolution (DSR)
Nvidia doesn’t offer a conventional SSAA
option in its driver. Instead it has Dynamic Super
Resolution, which essentially offers the same
idea but almost in reverse. Here, Nvidia renders
the whole game – menus and all – at the higher
resolution and scales it back down. As a result,
this feature doesn’t work on games that don’t
support scalable user interfaces, or games with
maximum resolutions of 1,920 x 1,080.
You also have to jump through more hoops
than with conventional SSAA to get it working.
Rather than just enabling SSAA in the driver,
as with AMD, you have to jump into the Nvidia
driver and enable the DSR factors that you’d
like the game to be able to use. The driver then
tells the game that it can run at resolutions that
equate to the native resolution of your display
multiplied by that factor. So, for a 1.2x factor on
a 1,920 x 1,080 screen, you’re telling the game
that it can offer a resolution of 2,304 x 1,296,
which DSR will then scale back down to 1080p.
You can also select the smoothness of the final
image via a sliding scale.
On the other hand, it does offer the ability
to scale the game at peculiar resolutions, so
you can potentially find a better balance of
performance and image quality than with the
strict 2x, 4x and 8x modes for conventional
91
F E A T U R E / ANALYS
S IS
From left to right: No AA, 2x DSR, 4x DSR, 4x SSAA
super sampling. Moreover, because DSR is
applied after the game has finished rendering,
you can apply DSR on top of other antialiasing, or indeed on top of any other postprocessing effects that aren’t captured by
conventional AA techniques.
Nonetheless, it does seem a bit odd that
Nvidia doesn’t offer conventional SSAA as
well, because DSR on its own simply doesn’t
do the single most important job you want
from an AA technique: get rid of the jaggies.
Testing at a 4x DSR factor – equivalent to
4x SSAA – there are still very clearly visible
jagged lines in our test images. We also found
that, at 2x DSR (the game ran at a resolution
of 2,715 x 1,527 and downscaled to 1,920 x
1,080), image quality was noticeably worse
than with 2x SSAA, while the performance hit
was roughly the same.
sharp, such as textures, aren’t blurred and
softened. Moreover, it means there’s far less of
a performance hit, as the extra calculations that
are required are only performed on some pixels.
MSAA still samples at a higher resolution,
as with SSAA, but for any instance where only
one polygon of the 3D scene covers all the
sub-samples, the renderer only performs the
required calculations once and applies it to all
the sub-samples. However, where more than
one polygon covers the sub-samples – as with
the edges of objects – the full sub-sample
rendering process is undertaken.
As a result, performance is massively
improved over SSAA in most instances
although, in theory, a scene could have so
many edges that the whole scene effectively
still needs to be fully super-sampled. Even
outside of extreme cases, the performance
DSR ON ITS OWN SIMPLY DOESN’T DO THE SINGLE MOST
IMPORTANT JOB YOU WANT FROM AN AA TECHNIQUE:
GET RID OF THE JAGGIES
We weren’t able to directly test the
performance scaling of DSR versus SSAA, as
AMD doesn’t offer DSR and Nvidia doesn’t
offer SSAA, but our tests suggest that they
have roughly the same impact for any given
sampling rate/DSR factor.
Multi-sample AA (MSAA)
Thesecondmostcommonformofanti-aliasing
isknownasmulti-sampleanti-aliasing,andit
improvesonbothofthemainshortcomings
ofSSAA,althoughitalsointroducesitsown
issues.Insteadofsofteningthewholescene,it
specificallyonlyworksontheedgesofobjects
ina3Dscene.Thisapproachensuresthat
elementsofthescenethatshouldremain
92
hit from MSAA can still be substantial in
today’s highly complex 3D games, where
a significant proportion of pixels may still
intersect the edges of polygons. In our testing,
we saw a drop of 42 per cent from running
with no AA to using 8x MSAA.
What’s more,MSAAhas several image
quality issues. Thefirst isthat it can’t correct
anyaliasing thatoccursinside apolygon,asthe
techniqueonly affects the edges ofpolygons.
So,ifatexturethat’susedtopaintthesurfaceof
a polygon produces an aliased,jagged-looking
image, MSAA can’tfix this problem.
Thiseffect isoftenparticularlynoticeable
whenviewingobjectsthatuse transparent
textures. Thesetextures areappliedto
From top to bottom: No AA, 2x MSAA, 4x MSAA
and 8x MSAA
the surface of an object to simulate actual
transparent substances, such as glass, as well
as more complex 3D forms that would be too
complicated to render fully, such as wire fences
or foliage. With conventional MSAA, these
textures are left untouched and can produce
some of the worst and most noticeable jaggies
and flickering as you move around a scene.
MSAA also has the most trouble working
effectively with some of the sophisticated
post-processing techniques used in modern
games, so it’s often not available as an AA
choice in game menus.
version where, because of the relative
simplicity of the scene we were using, it
had almost no performance impact, while
noticeably improving the image quality of the
foliage in the scene. For some reason, the wire
fencing is already anti-aliased in CS:GO when
normal MSAA is applied – further proving
just how much AA is intertwined with the
development of games now – so applying
transparency AA didn’t make a difference here.
Overall, as a general rule of thumb, for
those games that support it, MSAA with
transparency AA offers a great compromise
MSAA CAN’T CORRECT ANY ALIASING THAT OCCURS
INSIDE A POLYGON, AS THE TECHNIQUE ONLY AFFECTS
THE EDGES OF POLYGONS
Transparency anti-aliasing
(TSAA, adaptive MSAA)
From top to bottom: No AA, 2x Adaptive
MSAA, 4x Adaptive MSAA and 8x
Adaptive MSAA
It should come as no great surprise that the
next big innovation in anti-aliasing was fixing
that inability to apply MSAA to transparent
textures. Both AMD and Nvidia now have
settings that allow you to independently
turn on transparency AA as an extra option
on top of conventional MSAA. AMD calls
this feature ‘adaptive AA’ while Nvidia calls it
simply ‘transparency AA’ (TSAA).
The key here is that, with normal
MSAA, the transparency information of
the textures simply isn’t relevant to the
algorithm – the edge of the textures aren’t
edges of polygons so they aren’t treated as
such. With transparency MSAA, a technique
called alpha-to-coverage is used to create
a mask or template of all the transparent
textures that need AA applying to them.
This mask or template is then injected into
the normal AA algorithm, where it will treat
the edges of the transparent objects as
normal edges.
To make the situation even more
complicated, you can choose whether to
have the transparent parts processed in an
MSAA fashion – so that only the edges of
the transparent part are anti-aliased – or
in a super-sampling fashion, where the
whole texture is just anti-aliased with super
sampling instead. As you can imagine,
the latter looks even better but is more
demanding on your graphics hardware.
In our tests, we stuck to the multi-sampled
between image quality and performance.
With AMD’s adaptive AA turned on (8x), we
saw just a 42 per cent drop in performance
compared with no AA, while achieving a
striking improvement in image quality.
Super sampling still looks better on the
whole, but MSAA with transparency AA is a
great compromise, which is why it has been
essentially the pinnacle of conventional AA
methods for many years. For the next wave
of AA options, we have to turn to postprocessing techniques.
Morphological AA (MLAA) and
Fast Approximate AA (FXAA)
Now let’s move onto the second class of antialiasing techniques, the single most popular
of which is called Fast Approximate AA or
FXAA. It’s a variation of the more general
morphological class of AA techniques that,
instead of working on the 3D scene, just deal
with the final 2D pixels. It looks to provide an
approximation of conventional AA techniques,
but without the huge performance hit.
It does this by operating purely on the
pixels that have already been rendered earlier
on in the graphics pipeline, rather than the
underlying geometry. This approach vastly
reduces the number of calculations that
need to be performed. Basically, it looks for
places where there’s a high contrast between
neighbouring pixels, and then blends those
areas. It can blend in different directions and
at different rates, and keeps track of edges to
ensure the most natural-looking blends.
93
F E A T U R E / ANALYS
S IS
At least that’s the theory. In practice, FXA
can look a bit blurry, and in a way that isn’t
offset by the significant step up in realism and
depth of full-scene super sampling. On the
flip side, it’s astonishingly efficient in terms of
performance. It takes upso littleprocessing
power that youcanenable itonallgames
andat all resolutions essentiallyforfree. In
ourCS:GOtesting,enabling FXAAdropped
performanceby just 8 percent.
There are further key benefits too. One
is that it works on all parts of a scene, such
as the edges of transparent textures. More
importantly, FXAA can be processed on top
of any other rendering processes, including
other types of AA. This is particularly
important for many modern games that
use sophisticated pixel shaders, as normal
AA techniques can’t be applied after these
shaders have done their work.
All told, though, the results of this technique
aren’t particularly attractive, especially as it
doesn’t do a lot to fix flickering and
shimmering issues, where pixels rapidly
change colour in an unnatural-looking way
when there’s movement on screen – an
effect that’s often fixed by anti-aliasing. The
changes in colour are slightly subtler than with
no AA, due to the blurring, but you still see the
sudden changes because the underlying
scene isn’t truly anti-aliased.
From left to right: No AA, FXAA, SMAA
94
ook particularly bad in complex
scenes where there’s a lot foliage or other
transparent textures. It just blurs into an
indistinct mass that lacks the sense of depth
that other conventional AA techniques provide,
while also doing littleto resolve flickering.
The downside is that enabling it results in a
greater performance hit than FXAA, although
SMAA is still far less demanding than
conventional AA. Unfortunately, we didn’t
have a way of enabling SMAA in CS:GO for a
direct comparison to our other tests, but we
BASICALLY, IT LOOKS FOR PLACES WHERE THERE’S A
HIGH CONTRAST BETWEEN NEIGHBOURING PIXELS, AND
THEN BLENDS THOSE AREAS
Ata push, if you’rereally squeezed for
performance,youcouldapply 2xMSAAand
FXAA or perhaps 2x adaptiveAA andFXAA.
The2xMSAAandadaptiveAAwilltakecareof
theworstjaggies andshimmering, whilethe
FXAAwill help soften upthe restofthe scene.
Enhanced Subpixel
Morphological AA (SMAA)
SMAA is animprovement on FXAA that more
effectively detects patternsintheunderlying
image, such as the lines and curves that define
the boundariesofobjects thatneedantialiasing. It then blurstheseboundaries in the
direction of the pattern.This approachgreatly
enhances thistechnique’sabilitytoreduce
both jaggiesandtheshimmeringeffectthat
plagues FXAA andnon-anti-aliasedscenes.
could test it in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Here,
the game delivered 53.6fps with no AA,
52.5fps with FXAA and 48.6fps with SMAA.
That’s almost certainly a performance hit
most of us would be willing to take.
Moreover,thisgameprovidedaparticularly
goodwaytoshowthedifferenceinquality
betweenFXAAandSMAA.Itsdensefoliage
andparticleeffects,suchasrainandsnowreally
showedupFXAA’stendencytojustmakethe
imagelookblurry,whereasSMAAdidabetter
jobofpreservingdetail.Inthescreenshots
below,there’slessofthefoliage,butyoucan
clearlyseehow,withnoAA,theoutlineofLara
Croft’sheadisjaggedand,withSMAA,the
imageissmoothedoff.WithFXAA,though,
thewholeimagelooksfarmuddier,although
theoverallAAeffectisadmittedlystronger.
From left to right: No AA, FXAA, TAA
Temporal AA (TAA)
WE’RE NOT TALKING
TIMETRAVELLING
PIXELS HERE, BUT
TAATYPE ALGORITHMS
COMPARE ASPECTS OF A
PREVIOUS FRAME TO
THE CURRENT ONE
There’s yet another general type of AA
that’s fundamentally different from both
the classic and the post-processing AA
techniques we’ve previously discussed, and
that’s because this type work across time.
No, we’re not talking time-travelling pixels
here, but TAA-type algorithms compare
aspects of a previous frame to the current
one, to help identify the colour of each pixel.
There are several techniques that use
the temporal AA principle. The first is the
most general form, which you’ll often find
labelled as just TAA in games. This is a
variation on post-processing techniques,
and it compares the previous frame to the
current one to help determine the best
colour for each pixel.
It does this by shifting the sampling
positions for each pixel in each frame,
and then averaging out the results when
calculating the final colour for each pixel.
There’s an exponential quality to this
algorithm, as each pixel is informed by the
last one, which in turn was informed by the
last one and so on.
In theory, this approach can make it quite
accurate. Where motion is involved, the
algorithm finds the history of any given
pixel by tracking the motion vector of that
pixel (an attribute that the game’s engine
can add to each sample location), in order
to find the current pixel’s location in the
previous frame. If the two are significantly
different, the algorithm performs a more
basic FXAA-style ‘nearest neighbour’
averaging technique.
The results of TXAA or TAA can be
impressive, with jaggies significantly
reduced and shimmering or pixel crawl
all but eliminated, without introducing a
distracting level of softness. However,
where fast motion is involved, TAA can look
blurry, making fast-response games, such
as first-person shooters, feel less clear and
more sluggish in action. Otherwise, though,
it’s a big step forwards in overall fidelity.
Multi-fra
ed AA (MFAA)
MFAA is anoth
hat adds an
element of time i r cessing but, unlike
TAA, it isn’t based on analysing previous
95
F E A T U R E / ANALYS
S IS
At least that’s the theory, but we found
the difference in image quality between
TAA and MFAA to be subtle to the point of
imperceptible. Meanwhile, the performance
difference was minimal, with less than a 2 per
cent improvement in the frame rate for any
given AA sample rate. Like other temporalderived AA methods, we also felt like MFAA
made for a slightly less responsive-feeling
experience – if you have the hardware for it,
MSAA is better for first-person shooters and
other faster-paced games.
Deep Learning Super
Sampling (DLSS)
Top: Final Fantasy XV at
4K with TAA
Bottom: Final Fantasy XV
at ‘4K’ with DLSS
96
mes and performing post-processing.
tead, it’s an enhancement of the classic
AA method. Here, the temporal element
is the fact that each alternate frame uses a
different sampling pattern, and MFAA then
combines the two frames.
So, for conventional MSAA, you may have
four sample points per pixel, which are averaged
out in each frame. However, for MFAA, you only
have two sample points per pixel per frame,
but the points move to a slightly different
position in the next frame. If you average the two
results, you get the effect of 4x MSAA with the
performance hit of 2x MSAA.
The latest innovation in AA comes courtesy
Nvidia’s very latest RTX graphics cards,
and in some ways it’s the direct opposite
of so many conventional AA techniques.
Instead of sampling at a higher rate and
downsampling, DLSS all about upscaling
from a lower resolution.
It works in three steps. First, Nvidia submits
screenshots of a game to a neural network,
taken with up to 64x SSAA applied, along with
screenshots with no AA applied. It then gets
the network to learn how to best approximate
the 64x SSAA images from the 0x AA
images. This trained data is then packaged
into Nvidia’s drivers, where it’s used by the
Tensor cores of RTX cards to rapidly apply the
best techniques to upscale any given game.
When the game runs with DLSS enabled,
the system dynamically reduces the
resolution of the scene then upscales it using
the learned DLSS optimisations. In this way.
you can run a game at an apparent native
4K resolution, say, but with up to twice the
frame rate. The results are impressive. with
image quality that rivals TAA but without
TAA’s problems with fast motion. However,
there are two big caveats. The first is that it’s
only available for games that have built-in
support, with Nvidia also having to run the
optimisations on its side and upload them to
its driver. Currently, there’s just a couple of
dozen games that support it.
The other caveat is that it’s only really useful
on games that don’t require a fast frame rate.
Because the algorithm uses the Tensor cores,
it’s intrinsically linked to how fast they can
work. As such, DLSS is best used for getting
maximum image quality in slower-paced
games, rather than getting slightly better
image quality in faster-paced games.
Apex Legends with anti-aliasing enabled
Because it requires RTX cards to test, and
the fact that it’s in some ways not a direct
rival to other AA techniques, we haven’t
directly compared DLSS with most of the
other techniques here. However, we have
Apex Legends with anti-aliasing disabled
Choosing your AA setting
In the end, the right AA setting for you will
depend on your preferences and the games
you’re playing. Some people find particular
artefacts more distracting than others, while
THE SYSTEM DYNAMICALLY REDUCES THE RESOLUTION
OF THE SCENE, AND THEN UPSCALES IT USING THE
LEARNED DLSS OPTIMISATIONS
tested how its upscaling to 4K compares with
running at true 4K and there’s a significant
performance benefit. Running Final Fantasy
XV Benchmark, a GeForce RTX 2080 Ti drops
to a minimum of 28fps and an average of
43fps at 4K with TAA, but at ‘4K’ with DLSS
that minimum goes up to 36fps, with a 58fps
average. The DLSS image is blurrier than the
full-res 4K image, but it still looks good.
somegames either don’t support certainAA
types, or the exact type of AA it uses is masked
behind a generic ‘AA Low’ to ‘AA High’ scale.
As such, the best advice is to give each setting
a go, and then have a play around your GPU
driver settings. With modern graphics card
drivers now able to recognise different games
and apply different settings for each one, it’s
easy to fine-tune each game individually.
If you’re mainly into playing fast-paced
games such as first-person shooters, most
anti-aliasing modes aren’t your friend.
Post-processing AA methods blur the
image, making it difficult to pick out crucial
details, while temporal methods, such
as TAA and MFAA, can introduce a laggy
feeling. Meanwhile, SSAA and MSAA look
good, but they have a severe impact on
frame rates. That said, if you have the GPU
hardware to get the performance you need
with MSAA or even SSAA turned on, these
AA methods are still your best bet.
Otherwise, if you’re looking at slightly
slower-paced, more graphically indulgent
games, there are many more options that
make sense. Again, SSAA and MSAA look
great, while TAA in particular looks fantastic
when there isn’t rapid movement. SMAA
also provides a very easy win if it’s an option
included in the game.
97
C U STO M I SAT I O N / HOBBY TECH
G A R E T H H A L FAC R E E ’ S
Hobbytech
The latest tips, tricks and news in the world of computer hobbyism,
from Raspberry Pi, Arduino and Android to retro computing
REVIEW
Argon 1 Pi 4
A
rgon 40’s original Argon One case
for the Raspberry Pi (reviewed in
Issue 188) was clever, but flawed.
Using an aluminium upper part and a plastic
lower part, the case served as both housing
and heatsink, while a GPIO extension board
provided a smart power button and
software-controlled cooling fan. There was
even a daughterboard that brought all the
Pi’s connectors around to one side, finally
solving the problem of messy cabling.
A tweaked version of the Argon One for the
Raspberry Pi 3, the Argon 1 Pi 4 fixes a lot of its
predecessor’s issues
98
The Argon One was a great design,
but far from perfect. The cooling fan
was largely pointless, while the smart
power board – which allows the Pi to be
safely powered off or reset if it becomes
unresponsive – drew enough power on its
own to cause the ‘lightning-bolt’ undervoltage symbol to be displayed with
annoying regularity, unless you splashed
out on the higher-power 5.25V PSU.
The Argon 1 Pi 4, which alternates
between that name and ‘Argon One’
depending on which part of the
packaging you’re viewing, is
Argon 40’s attempt to right the
wrongs of the original design.
Overall, it’s hard to tell the two
apart. There’s still an aluminium
upper part and plastic lower
part, there’s still a GPIO breakout
with a smart power button
and cooling fan, and there’s still a
daughterboard to shift the audio and video
ports. This time, though, the daughterboard
includes the two micro-HDMI ports required
for the Raspberry Pi 4 family.
A magnetic cover hides a colour-coded and labelled
GPIO extension
A closer look reveals some subtler changes.
The underside of the aluminium upper section
has two pillars to mate it to the SoC and RAM,
shifted to accommodate the new layout of
the Raspberry Pi 4. Sadly, though, it’s not
joined by a third pillar to cool the hot-running
power management IC (PMIC) circuitry to
the bottom left of the board. The GPIO board
is also modified, with a promise to banish
undervoltage warnings.
Installation is relatively straightforward,
although fitting the oversized thermal pads to
the pillars is a little fiddly. Once assembled, the
control software is downloaded and installed
in a single command. This time it also comes
with a shortcut on the desktop to set the
A daughterboard pulls the audio and two HDMI
ports to the rear of the case
temperature at which the fan triggers and how
fast it should spin.
Thecoolingabilityis littleshortof remarkable.
Thebenefitof usingtheentirety of theupper
caseasa giantheatsink isobvious;duringa
ten-minute, CPU-heavy test run, theRaspberry
Pi 4’sSoC,whichruns notoriouslyhotwithout
third-partycooling,notonly stayed belowthe
80°Cpointatwhichit beginsthrottling, butalso
below thedefault55°C threshold atwhichthe
Argon1’sfanbeginsspinningat 10percentof its
maximumspeed.
It’shardtosay how theothercomponents
fare.WiththebulkoftheSoC’sheatoutput
going intothe lidratherthanthePCB,thePMIC
shouldberunning cooler.However, withouta
connection ofitsowntothelid,there’sa chance
thatitcouldstillreachunhealthy temperatures
withoutrunningthe fan.Thankfully, that’seasy
to fix, as thefan can be set to run permanently,
torunatlower temperaturesortonotrunatall.
Whilerunning,it’sreasonablyquiet, although
it’saudible and,unliketheoriginal design,it also
appearstocoolwell.
There are a few aspects of the Argon
1 that still need improvement, however.
The plastic underside is designed to be
transparent to infrared, and the smart
power board has unpopulated pads
for an infrared receiver; populating
these areas as standard would have
been a good touch for the money.
Also, while the Argon 1 Pi 4 cools
impressively, tidies your cables
and looks good doing it, our review
unit died around five days after
arriving, seemingly the victim of a
blown and non-user-replaceable fuse.
Thankfully, the fuse did its job and protected
the Pi inside, but this occurrence suggests
there may be an issue to be investigated in the
power board’s design.
It’s impossible to fault Argon 40’s response
though. Mere hours after contacting the
company’s customer services department
via email, a full refund, including shipping,
was on its way. The chief operating officer
then reached out to arrange gratis shipment
of another power board in exchange for
returning the faulty one for analysis – with
return postage paid, impressively enough.
It could be that the review unit’s failure
was a one-off, or it could be that there’s a
bigger issue with the design changes from
the first Argon One. In either case, though,
there appears to be little risk in rolling the
dice and giving it a try. In the worst case,
you’ll get your money back should your
unit suffer the same fate. The Argon 1 Pi 4
is available now from argon40.com, priced
at $25 US (around £19.50 ex VAT).
The redesigned power and fan board no longer
triggers voltage warnings
Routing all the cables out of the same place makes
the setup much neater
NEWS IN BRIEF
Arduino launches
professional IDE
The Arduino IDE is dead, long live the
Arduino Pro IDE – with a long-awaited
dark mode. Announced during Maker
Faire Rome 2019, the Arduino Pro IDE
is a new integrated development
environment that ditches the legacy IDE
in favour of a much more accessible
design, although there’s also a Classic
Mode for purists. Based on Eclipse
Theia, and thus Electron, the IDE is as
cross-platform as the original. The
Arduino Pro IDE isn’t quite ready for
prime time yet. An alpha build is
available from github.com/arduino,
with no word on when it will replace the
original Arduino IDE.
Coupling the SoC to the large aluminium chassis really helps to keep down temperatures
99
C U STO M I SAT I O N / HOBBY TECH
REVIEW
Sipeed Longan Nano
hen the first microcontrollers based
on the open RISC-V instruction set
architecture (ISA) hit the market,
they weren’t exactly competing with the likes
of ARM and Atmel on price. SiFive’s popular
HiFive1 (reviewed in Issue 164) launched at
$79 US, dropping to $59 if you were happy to
wait for the second production run (around
£62 and £46 respectively, ex VAT).
Plus, while the clock speed was
considerably higher than that of
the Arduino Uno on which it
based its layout, actually gaining
access to that performance
wasn’t straightforward.
A couple of years on, and the cost of
SC-V development
getting started with a RIS
board has absolutely fallen through the floor.
The latest design from Sipeed, the
no, is a great example.
Longan Nan
It offers a fully functional,
ontroller-class RISC-V
microco
chip ffor $4.90 US (around
£3.80 exc VAT) –
ccomplete with a case
and a colour LCD.
While the
Seeed Studio
Grove AI HAT
(reviewed in Issue
195) used a highperformance dualp
core 64-bit RISC-V
Bundled assets, including 2D, 3D and audio files, enable you to get started quickly
With a RISC-V chip at its heart, can the Longan Nano
takeontheArduinofamily?
W
100
A micro-SD slot on the underside
provides storage expansion
part from Kendryte for its Sipeed-provided
system-on-module (SOM), the Longan
Nano opts for a GD32V microcontroller
from GigaDevices. The GD32V is an
interesting beast, introduced by the Chinese
chipmaker earlier this year as a direct drop-in
replacement for its ARM Cortex-M3-based
GD32, and it promises to draw just a third of
the power of its predecessor.
The small GD32V is mated to a
breadboard-friendly Arduino Nano-esque 46
x 20mm PCB with two rows of pin headers,
left unpopulated but with 2.54mm pins
provided. One end of the board features a
USB Type-C connector, used for data and
The LCD is serviceable, and fast enough for
basic animation tasks
A debug header is pre-populated,
but not the general GPIO pins
power; the other end has a JTAG debug
header that is, unusually given the lack of
pre-populated general-purpose input/output
(GPIO), already populated with pins.
The primary retailer for the Longan Nano,
Seeed Studio, has added its own twist to
the design: a tiny 0.96in colour LCD panel.
It’s based on in-plane switching (IPS)
technology for improved viewing angles,
and it arrives pre-installed, though rather
precariously mounted via a double-sided
foam pad. A poorly made but serviceable
transparent plastic case is also included with
each purchase. There’s an RGB LED and a
micro-SD slot too, which are both welcome
additions. In particular, the latter allows
programs to access considerably more
storage than the 128KB of flash and 32KB
of static RAM (SRAM) on the GD32V.
The RGB LED, meanwhile, is covered by the
screen, but it’s still visible by reflection or by
viewing the board at an angle. Getting started
is also harder than necessary. A look through
the Sipeed developer documentation reveals
a list of udev rules that need to be installed on
a Linux host in order to recognise the board.
Once installed, the Longan Nano still fails to
operate – unless and until it’s booted into the
DFU bootloader by holding the Boot button
and toggling the Reset button.
That gets you a step closer, presenting the
device to the system, but the supplied udev
rules don’t cover the Longan Nano. To make it
actually work, you need to manually find the
vendor and product IDs via lsusb and add them
manually – noting, if you’re copying the line
above, that Sipeed places them in the rules list
in reverse order, with the product ID first.
NEWS IN BRIEF
Dangerous Prototypes teases Bus Pirate Ultra
Dangerous Prototypes has confirmed
that it’s working on an upgraded version
of its Bus Pirate universal bus interface
device, dubbed the Bus Pirate Ultra and
replacing the original device’s
microcontroller with a Lattice iCE40
field-programmable gate array (FPGA).
The Bus Pirate Ultra aims to achieve
the original device’s accomplishments,
allowing users to communicate with
hardware on a range of bus types, while adding considerably more features, including the
ability to drive an on-board colour LCD. No release date or pricing has yet been announced
for the Bus Pirate Ultra, but interested parties can visit dangerousprototypes.com/blog to
read about the device’s development process.
Eventually, the Longan Nano will show up
as a usable DFU device. The next step is to
program it, using the Platform.io extension
to Microsoft’s free Visual Studio Code
integrated development environment.
Installation is easy, and three example
programs are included: simple LED blinkers
written in three different ways. Sadly, none
of them works until you manually modify
the configuration files to flash the Longan
Nano via DFU, rather than using the default
serial method. This isn’t mentioned in the
documentation either.
That documentation itself is also sparse.
There’s a lot more to be found if you go
digging around the company’s GitHub
repositories, but the bulk – including a handy
driver and example program for the bundled
LCD – is only available exclusively in Chinese.
It doesn’t all work either. The software
development kit allows you to program the
Longan Nano as a native GD32V device or
via an abstraction layer designed to offer
compatibility with Android sketches. While
the latter works for the simplest sketches,
anything more complex falls over. Using
printf is enough to abort compilation until
you edit the library by hand, and there
appears to be no way to open the UART
serial port in Arduino mode.
The small number of examples that are
available, though, show that there’s real
power in the device – and it’s hard to argue
with the price. For the beginner, the lack
of documentation makes it a no-go; for a
more experienced developer, particularly
one fluent in Chinese, the Longan Nano will
be a lot more tempting. The Longan Nano
is available now from seeedstudio.com for
$4.90 US (around £3.80 ex VAT).
101
C U STO M I SAT I O N / HOBBY TECH
REVIEW
Arcade Game Typography
N
ostalgia is now officially big
business. From the launch of
innumerable ‘mini’ consoles, based
on systems of yesteryear, to the swelling tide
of coffee table books often featuring little
more than emulator screenshots with a
‘remember this, eh, do you?’ vibe, the market is
beginning to feel crowded.
ToshiOmagari’sbooklandsintothiscrowded
market,butwhileitisindeedacoffeetablebook
withemulator-basedscreenshotsofarcade
gamesofyore,ithasauniqueassetupitssleeve:it
concentratesonthetypographyineachtitle,rather
thanthegamesthemselves.Thisshouldhardlybe
surprising,givenOmagari’shistoryasatypeface
designerfordesignhouseMonotypeUK.
Not massively dissimilar in concept to
Dave Addey’s Typeset in the Future, which
investigated typography and typographical
design in science fiction films to great effect,
Arcade Game Typography looks at classic
titles through the lens of their use of typefaces.
In doing so, it distances itself from being yet
another cash-grab screenshot fest.
A nostalgia grab with a difference, this book
concentrates on typefaces rather than games
A limited edition hardback variant is available from Read Only Memory (ROM)
What makes Omagari’s book possible is that
classic games, a few vector-based titles aside,
used bitmap fonts – typically on an 8x8-pixel
grid. Omagari has extracted these fonts from
a range of games – A.D. 2083 to Zero Hour in
alphabetical order, spread across a generous
272 pages. He presents them enlarged to
show texture, and redraws them onto a grid to
illustrate how the surprisingly limited pixel count
makes up the greater whole.
The results arestriking, particularlywhere
a single character is sized tofill apage. Some
games are representedby afull dumpof the
character set alone; others includea screenshot
toillustrate the typeface’s use in-game.In all
cases, it’s a full-colourfeast for theeyes – aside
fromearly blackand white titles, of course.
The book islaidoutintorough chapters,each
of which concentratesoneither asingletypeface
familyanditsderivatives,or agiven styleof type –
SansRegular, Bold and Light,Serif,MICR,Slanted,
Calligraphy andLettering,HorizontalStress,
Stencil and Decorative. These chaptersarejoined
by short essays,oneor twopages inlength,
expoundingona particular style or unusual
technique, as well as an explanationof the ‘rules’
of arcadegame typography.
There’salsoaforewordby Kiyonori Muroga, best
knownastheeditor-in-chief of Japanese graphic
designandtypographypublication IDEA Magazine,
andaconcludingessayby Omagari himself.
Whileeachgameenjoys a brief summary,
includinglinkstoothertitles either in terms of the
gamesthemselvesorinthe typography used, the
bookconcentratesprimarily on showing rather
thantelling.Asaresult,you’re unlikely to read it
covertocover,butdipping in and out is enjoyable.
Plus,foranyoneworkingin the field of pixel art, it
couldproveaqualityreference manual divorced
fromthe‘Irememberthat game’ nostalgia-fuelled
tuggingatvintagegamers’ heartstrings.
For those whose interest has been piqued,
there’s a decision to be made: the standard
paperback release, which is finished to a high
standard, is published by Thames & Hudson
and generally available for £19.95 from
amazon.co.uk and other booksellers under
ISBN 978-0-500-02174-3. For the collector,
however, Read Only Memory has a hardback
variant, limited to 1,000 copies, available on
readonlymemory.vg for £35 (both prices exc
VAT) with copies left at the time of writing. The
content of both versions is identical – and well
worth picking up, whichever you choose.
Gareth Halfacree is the news reporter at www.bit-tech.net, and a keen computer hobbyist who likes to tinker with technology
102
@ghalfacree
F O R T H E W I N / COMPETITION
WIN
A 27IN IIYAMA RED EAGLE 144HZ
GAMING MONITOR
Here’s an awesome opportunity to get your hands on a 217in 144Hz FreeSync
gaming monitor, courtesy of the lovely folks at Iiyama. One lucky Custom PC
reader will get an Iiyama G-Master GB2760QSU monitor sent to their home.
•
27in TN LED panel
•
FreeSync support
•
144Hz refresh rate
•
1ms response time
•
2,560 x 1,440 resolution
•
HDMI, DisplayPort and DVI inputs
•
USB 3 hub
WORTH
£300
SUBMIT YOUR ENTRY AT
CUSTOMPC.CO.UK/WIN
Whether you’re already a hardcore gamer, or aiming to be one,
the 27in G-Master GB2760QSU (known as Red Eagle) offers the
competitive edge you need to unleash your full gaming potential.
Armed with FreeSync technology, a 144Hz refresh rate and a
blistering 1ms response time, you can make split-second decisions,
and forget about ghosting effects or smearing issues.
The WQHD (2,560 x 1,440) resolution offers 77 per cent more on-screen space than a standard 1,920 x 1,080 full
HD monitor. Meanwhile, the ability to adjust brightness and dark shades with the Black Tuner delivers greater
viewing performance in shadowed areas. Nothing will skip your attention. You get a triple input setup (DVI, HDMI and
DisplayPort), as well as speakers, a headphone connector and a USB 3 as well. No matter which games you prefer –
RTS, FPS, MOBA and MMO – with the Red Eagle on your desk, you’ll be at the top of the gamer food chain.
Competition closes on Friday, 10 January 2020. Prize is offered to participants in the UK aged 13 or over, except employees of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, 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. Participants agree to receive occasional newsletters from Custom PC magazine. 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.
103
MODDING / OPINION
A N TO N Y L E AT H E R ’ S
Customised PC
Case mods, tools, techniques, water-cooling gear
and everything to do with PC modding
T
hree new CPUs, but no
new socket mounts
If you own an expensive CPU
cooler, the thought of upgrading to one
of the new CPUs this month might have
prompted you to think about purchasing
a new CPU cooler too. Some cooler
manufacturers have previously been
delighted by the fact that PC enthusiasts
had to fork out for new mounting
gear, or even entire new coolers, to
cater for their shiny new hardware.
The last time this happened was with
AMD’s AMD 4 and TR4 sockets. The
former had slightly wider mounting
holes than previous mainstream AMD
sockets. It forced manufacturers to
reassess their coolers and come up with
different mounting mechanisms, while
also accounting for the very different
CPU lurking under the heatspreader.
The same was doubly true for
AMD’s Threadripper CPUs. With their
massive heatspreaders, they required
larger contact plates to be used on
coolers, and coolers that instead used
the existing contact plates for Intel’s
smaller HEDT CPUs usually performed
poorly. As a result, many of the better
air and liquid coolers for Socket TR4
have focused purely on dealing
with Threadripper CPUs, and aren’t
compatible with other CPU sockets.
104
Noctua’s
Threadripperspecific coolers
are just one
example of a new
CPU socket
encouraging
innovation
This month, we’re looking at CPU
launches across three different CPU
sockets, but thankfully, none of them
differs from their predecessors in terms
of physical socket requirements. The
Ryzen 9 3950X uses Socket AM4, Intel’s
Cascade Lake-X CPUs are compatible
with current X299 motherboards, and
while AMD has updated the name
of the socket used on its 3rd-gen
Threadripper CPUs from Socket TR4
to TRX4, the mounting system is
identical to that of its predecessor, so
existing coolers will be compatible.
This is mostly great news, as it means
there’s no need to invest in a new cooler
for any of the new CPUs launching this
month in terms of socket compatibility.
However, part of me is longing for some
movement here. Usually CPU cooler
manufacturers scramble to release
new products to coincide with big CPU
launches, and often some real gems
emerge from the mix of designs.
However, with core counts now
ranging from four to 16 on a single
socket, and with Threadripper 24 and
32-core CPUs sitting in the same socket
style as their predecessors, it’s likely
that many coolers designed for lower
core counts could now fall short of being
able to deal with these monster CPUs.
Thankfully, as far as AMD goes,
it’s moving to a 7nm manufacturing
process at the same time, so heat loads
and power consumption will drop
compared with previous generations
of CPUs. However, that doesn’t change
the fact that many of the Socket
TR4-compatible coolers that are still
available were designed with the Zen
and Zen+ 12 and 16-core Threadrippers
in mind, and not 32-core monsters.
We hope that AMD’s new socket
name will push some cooler
manufacturers to tweak their models
and packaging, but ultimately you’ll
still need to pay careful attention to
a cooler’s specifications in order to
check whether it can cope with your
CPU. Similarly, AMD isn’t equipping
the Ryzen 9 3950X with a cooler
for this reason – it expects owners
will want to use powerful cooling,
and is even releasing a list to advise
people which coolers work best.
US eBay seller
inspiredlaserdesigns
offers various
reasonably
priced grilles
With their massive
heatspreaders,
Threadripper CPUs
require larger
contact plates to be
used on coolers
It’s a strange situation. In the past,
I’ve raved about waterblocks being
transferrable between multiple
generations of CPUs thanks to sockets
staying the same. However, while
that will save us some cash, I also like
the innovation that new CPU sockets
bring to cooler line-ups, as it forces
manufacturers to stay competitive.
Where are all the radiator grilles?
This month I set about creating a
radiator blowhole in a PC case with a
sealed front panel (see p104). It’s been
a while since we’ve done a blowhole
guide, and I thought a refresh with a
modern case and components was in
order. I’m very pleased with the result
too. This mod was relatively easy, and
the Metallic Gear Neo Mini case I used
can now house not one but two
240mm radiators at the same time –
one in the side another one in the front.
This massively boosts its cooling
potential, and I’m now quite tempted to
push this great case to its limit. This
isn’t the first time I’ve done this mod
with a Phanteks case. I cut a hole in
the roof of Phanteks’ first mini-ITX
offering – the Evolv ITX. Phanteks
cases look great, but the frequently
sealed panels do hamper airflow,
especially where water cooling is
concerned. I know PC modding is still
a niche part of being a PC enthusiast,
but what really struck me when I was
working on this month’s guide was the
severe lack of radiator grilles available.
Antony Leather is Custom PC’s modding editor
You used to be able to get them in all
sizes and various colours, but I struggled
to find more than a couple of patterns,
even in the hugely popular 240mm size.
I can appreciate that there’s plenty of
cases with great water-cooling support
these days, but there are also lots of
cases with sealed panels, and these
cases actually look quite funky with a
modded panel and radiator grille, as this
month’s modding guide shows. I can
only assume it’s not a very common
modification now, although you can of
course make a grille yourself without
too much trouble.
You don’t have to be cutting a radiator
blowhole into your case to use a grille
either. They can also be used to sit on top
of fans in your case, or on a radiator, or
they can simply be used as an aesthetic
tweak to an otherwise plain case.
In any event, if you do fancy having a
go at this month’s modding guide, be
aware that UK stock of radiator grilles is
quite limited and that you might need to
look further afield to find a design you
like. I spotted a US seller on eBay called
inspiredlaserdesigns (ebay.co.uk/usr/
inspiredlaserdesigns), which offers
various reasonably priced grilles,
for example.
You could even get a grille custom
made for you using a local machining
service. However, at that point it
would be cheaper to get the case
panel itself machine-cut with vents
and holes, which takes the fun out of
doing it yourself.
@antonyleather
105
M O D D I N G / HOW TO GUIDES
How to
Create a
radiator
blowhole
Antony Leather shows you
how to boost your case’s watercooling potential
1 / DECIDE ON SIZE OF RADIATOR
Before you start, work out what size radiator you need. If you want to
keep costs and size to a minimum, there’s no point opting for a radiator
with excessive cooling capacity. Equally, you might want to focus on
low noise or maximum cooling, in which case larger is usually better.
TOTA L P R OJ E C T T I M E / 4 H O U R S
he design of many cases has started to slip backwards in
terms of airflow and water-cooling support. Many new cases
include sealed panels that make it difficult to mount radiators
in those locations, as the panels drastically restrict airflow.
Thankfully, there’s a tried and trusted method of boosting airflow if
you’ve set your heart on a case with sealed panels. Cutting a blowhole
for your radiator and fans can not only look great, but will massively boost
your PC’s cooling potential. In this guide, we’ll show you how to create the
blowhole, fit your hardware and make it look great from the outside too.
T
2 / REMOVE HARDWARE
TO O L S YO U ’ L L N E E D
If you’re not working on a new case, it needs to be fully stripped of all
hardware. You’ll be making plenty of mess, including metal shards and
dust that you don’t want anywhere near your components.
Radiator grille
watercoolinguk.co.uk
Jigsaw, mini circular
saw or Dremel
Most hardware stores
Fan dust filters
overclockers.co.uk
Drill and drill bit
Most hardware stores
Metal files
Most hardware stores
106
3 / CHOOSE RADIATOR LOCATION
Masking tape
Most hardware stores
You have several options when it comes to installing your radiator. The
most effective locations are in the roof or front of your case, where
solid panels are common. However, you could also install a radiator in
the side of the case, with air passing through the side panel.
4 / WORK OUT AIRFLOW
Before you start altering existing fan mounts, decide on your case’s new
airflow arrangement. You’ll need to work out if you want to see the fans,
whether you can factor in dust protection and how to balance the airflow
in your case. You also need to decide whether you’re using the radiator as
an intake or exhaust.
5 / CONSIDER RGB FANS
Plenty of high-profile case mods use RGB fans with custom radiator
blowholes. If you’re using RGB fans, you’ll need to arrange them so they’re
visible. You might want to position them so that they exhaust air through a
side radiator, or they could be visible through front panel blowholes.
6 / INSPECT CASE PANEL
Measure the chosen panel for your particular radiator. Make sure it’s
large enough to support your radiator, and ensure that it has enough
free space to cut out the blowhole. It’s also worth checking the
material from which it’s made, as steel will take much longer to cut
than aluminium.
7 / CHECK CLEARANCE
Use a tape measure to check the clearance for the radiator. Make sure
there’s enough free space for the radiator’s width and height, as well as
enough depth behind the panel for the radiator and fans.
8 / EXAMINE FAN MOUNTS
You might find that your existing fan mounts will be useful for mounting
your radiator, removing the need to drill fan holes to mount it. However,
the fans or radiator need to sit flush with the panel, in order to avoid dust
ingress or hot air spilling back into the case.
9 / REMOVE PANEL
Remove the panel from the case if possible. This will make cutting
it much easier, and it also means the rest of your case won’t be
showered with metal dust from cutting. Consider de-riveting the
case if it’s not held together using screws or push fittings.
107
M O D D I N G / HOW TO GUIDES
10 / DRAW AROUND FITTINGS
To avoid the blowhole clashing with any fittings, draw around them
prior to removing them. You’ll now be able to work around them and
line up your hole accordingly.
13 / TEST-FIT RADIATOR
With the space behind the panel cleared, offer up the radiator to your
panel to work out where you need the blowhole situated. Pay careful
attention to the resulting airflow from the fan locations, as well as the
visibility of any RGB lighting.
11 / REMOVE FITTINGS
It’s best to remove any fittings from the panel first, whether you
need them or not. This is especially true if they obtrude and prevent
you laying the panel flat for cutting, but it also prevents you from
damaging them.
12 / REMOVE OLD FAN MOUNTS
If the existing fan mounts in the panel aren’t usable, and are in the way,
you may need to cut them out to mount your hardware. The radiator can
instead be secured onto the panel using radiator screws.
108
14 / CHECK CLEARANCE FOR OTHER MOUNTS
If your case has adjacent fan mounts you want to use, consider
offsetting the radiator blowhole to allow you to continue using them.
This could be the situation with cases that have side fan mounts, or if
your blowhole is in the roof of the case with fan mounts in the front.
15 / USE MASKING TAPE
Apply masking tape to the panel area you want to mark up for cutting.
This will eliminate the need to draw directly onto your panel, and also
protect it if you slip with your chosen cutting tool.
16 / MARK UP FRONT PANEL
To cut a single rectangular hole that’s hidden under a grille, connect the
radiator, fans and grille together, offer up the panel and sit them in the
case. Once they align, lay them flat, draw around the grille and draw
your actual cutting line 5mm inside that line. Your cuts will now be neatly
hidden under the grille.
17 / CUT PANEL
When dealing with metal panels, you want as much power as possible.
A mini circular saw is ideal, as are jigsaws, but you can also use a Dremel
with reinforced cutting discs to cut metals. Wear a mask and protective
glasses to shield you from any shards and sparks.
18 / FILE EDGES
Once you’ve cut out the blowhole, use a metal file to get rid of any
large shards, and also to level off any uneven edges or corners.
19 / SAND EDGES
If you intend to make the edges visible, spend a bit more time on the
finish. You can use finger files and sandpaper from 600-1,000-grit to
smooth the surface further.
20 / SECURE RADIATOR GRILLE
Once you’ve finished sanding, offer up your radiator grille to the panel.
Make sure it’s the right way around if it has a painted or glossy finish, and
align it so that it covers the edges of your blowhole if necessary.
21 / CONSIDER DUST FILTERS
It’s worth using dust filters to protect your radiator. Ideally, they should sit
between the fans and panel, but if you want a better view of your RGB
fans, you can also mount them between the fans and the radiator.
109
M O D D I N G / HOW TO GUIDES
22 / INSTALL FANS
Place the fans underneath the grille and insert the mounting screws. If
your panel opening and chassis allow you to mount the radiator now,
do that next. If not, lift the fans and grille as one unit, and move them
over to the chassis.
23 / SECURE RADIATOR
Fittings inside the case may prevent you from mounting the radiator to
the panel before you install it back on the case. If that’s the case, you’ll
need to put the fans and grille in place first, then secure the radiator in
place from inside the case.
24 / APPLY MASKING TAPE
Apply masking tape over each corner of the grille where you want the
screws to sit. Measure from the point and sides of each corner to replicate
the screw positions and mark them.
110
25 / DRILL FAN HOLES
Use a 3mm drill bit to drill the holes in the panel. This will give you enough
material for the M3 screw to bite, but the hole also won’t be too small to
prevent it tapping into the metal, which can happen with a 2.5mm drill bit.
26 / TAP IN M3 SCREW
The M3 screw will tap its way easily into the aluminium and hold fast
once it’s tightened all the way in. Remove the screw, check the threads
and replace it with a fresh screw if the threads are worn.
27 / FINISH INSTALLING SCREWS
Now go ahead and install the rest of the screws, taking care not to
tighten them too much, otherwise the threads might strip if your panel
is made from soft aluminium.
M O D D I N G / READERS’ DRIVES
Readers’ Drives
Minimal Techno
There’s no radiator, pump or reservoir
inside this water-cooled PC. Refrigeration
engineer Matt Marshall had another
idea – chilling the coolant inside an
external refrigeration unit instead
/MEET THY MAKER
Name Matt Marshall
Age 37
Occupation Director at
Scientific Refrigeration UK
Location Devon
Main uses for PC
Games and movies
Likes Family time,
game time, movie time,
techno music, Chinese
food, building PCs,
refrigeration experiments,
high-end audio, Wilson
audio Specialties
Dislikes Bad audio quality!
Let’s start
with the initial
inspiration. What
made you want
to build a PC
with an external
refrigeration system?
Matt: A mixture of my
refrigeration career
and an obsession with
building computers.
The interior
looks amazingly
clean. Did you
make that PSU
shroud and interior
cover yourself?
Matt: Yep, it’s all made
from 3mm gloss white
Perspex, and involved
lots of measuring and
making templates. PC
cases are always full
of mesh and holes,
but I want a clean,
flush look, so I had
to hide it all. Gloss
Perspex was perfect
for this, as it does a beautiful job
of reflecting all the colours. The
shroud was bent to shape using
the curved edge of my kitchen
work surface and a heat gun.
We love the way the power
cables just seem to slot into
the case – you can barely see
any cable-routing holes. How
did you achieve this effect?
Matt: The Sama Ark is already
a great case for cable routing
anyway, but to make it perfect I
removed a lot of the metalwork
inside the case. All the cables
come through a hole under the
motherboard, where they then
meet the hidden Corsair PSU.
Tell us all about the external
refrigeration unit! How is it
connected, how does it work and
how does it cool the coolant?
How much noise does it make?
Matt: It’s actually an old laboratory
circulator. I stripped it down, and
removed the heating element
and old control system. I fitted
an Eliwell controller and probe
to control the temperature, and
then resprayed the whole thing
in BBQ black and fitted an RGB
LED strip led to finish it off!
The refrigeration unit basically
cools a bath, and an internal pump
circulates the fluid from the bath
through the PC. It’s connected
using thick car hose and 14mm
push-fit fittings. A Y-splitter on
the inlet ensures that the CPU
and GPU both receive coolant at
the same temperature, and then
another Y-splitter is used to run a
single pipe back to the chiller. It’s
very quiet when it’s running – it’s
just like a normal fridge really.
There’s no radiator, reservoir or
pump in the case; it’s all handled
by the external chiller. This setup
also helps to keep down the
ambient temperature in the case.
For my next build, I’m going to
use a slightly bigger case and fit
the refrigeration equipment in
the bottom of it in a thermally
isolated compartment, making
a one-box refrigerated PC.
111
M O D D I N G / READERS’ DRIVES
SYSTEM SPECS
CPU Intel Core i9-7900X
overclocked to 4.7GHz
GPU Asus GeForce RTX 2080 Ti
Case Sama Ark
Storage 256GB Samsung 960
Pro, 1TB Samsung 970 Evo Plus
Memory 64GB ADATA XPG
Spectrix 3200MHz
Motherboard Asus ROG
Rampage Extreme VI
PSU Corsair HX1200i,
BitFenix Alchemy cables.
Cooling Scientific Refrigeration
icebox, EK Velocity CPU
waterblock, EK Classic GeForce
RTX 2080 Ti GPU waterblock
The refrigeration unit basically cools a
bath, and an internal pump circulates the
fluid from the bath through the PC
In the old days,
overclockers used to directly
attach refrigeration units to
CPUs with devices such as the
Vapochill. What made you decide
to combine a water-cooling loop
with a refrigeration unit instead?
Matt: I actually still have one of
those Vapochill units! I’m currently
working on another project using
a custom cascade refrigeration
system, which can cool a special
fluid down to -80°C, and will be
ideal for hardcore overclocking. The
benefit of using a fluid loop over
a direct system is efficiency. I run
the water at 8°C – before the hard
tube starts to condensate ever so
slightly – if it was any lower then
the pipes would need insulation.
112
Tell us what materials you
used for the tubing, and how
you cut and bent it to shape.
Matt: I used 14mm of (10mm
id) Barrow tubing for its
excellent insulating properties.
The cutting and bending kit
comprised a Barrow pipe bender
set, some imperial pipe cutters,
a Clarke heat gun and a good
old-fashioned tape measure.
What spec did you choose,
and what overclocks can you
achieve with that cooling system?
Matt: I’ve always been a massive
Asus ROG fan. I have an Asus ROG
Rampage VI Extreme motherboard,
along with a Core i9-7900X
running at 4.7GHz (which I’m
soon going to upgrade to a Core
i9-7980X). There’s also an Asus
GeForce RTX 2080 Ti graphics card,
and 64GB ADATA XPG 3200MHz
RAM, which looks stunning!
How practical is it to move a
PC with an external refrigeration
unit? Is it best left in place?
Matt: Moving it is no problem, as
the pipes that connect the PC to the
chiller are flexible, and they also
have isolation taps for complete
disconnection when required.
BE A WINNER
To enter your machine for possible inclusion in Readers’
Drives, your build needs to be fully working and, ideally,
based in the UK. Simply send us a couple of photos on
Twitter (@CustomPCMag) or Facebook (CPCMagazine),
or email low-res ones to editor@custompcmag.org.uk.
Fame isn’t the only prize; you’ll also get your hands on
some fabulous prizes.
Corsair K70 RGB MK.2SE
–CherryMXSpeed
WORTH
£170
How long did it take
you to complete this build,
from start to finish?
Matt: It took roughly four
days to complete both the
PC and the chiller unit.
Did you come across
any difficulties?
Matt: Cutting the Perspex for
the interior required a very
tight fit inside the case, which
presented the issue of actually
getting it into the case. I had
to cut off extra bits in places a
few times, and be especially
careful not to allow any gaps.
Are you completely happy
with the end result, or do you
wish you’d done some of it
differently in retrospect?
Matt: I’m extremely happy with
the end result! The only thing
that didn’t initially go to plan
was that I bought two litres of
red fluid, when I really needed
three. I had one litre of white
fluid spare, and I couldn’t wait
to order more red, so now I have
pink cooling fluid! I would like to
give a shout-out to my wife for
supporting my PC-building hobby,
and to Liam for the photos.
The Corsair K70 RGB MK.2
SE is a premium mechanical
gaming keyboard that’s built
to last. It has a silver anodised
brushed aluminium frame,
as well as stunning white
precision-moulded, doubleshot keycaps. It’s built to turn
heads and withstand a
lifetime of gaming. There’s a
detachable, soft-touch wrist
rest too.
Meanwhile, its Cherry
MX Speed mechanical
keyswitches provide the
reliability and accuracy you
demand, with blisteringly fast
1.2mm actuation. There’s
also stunning per-key RGB
dynamic backlighting, 100
per cent anti-ghosting with
full-key rollover, 8MB of
on-board memory, plus
dedicated media controls.
Alphacool
water-cooling gear
Water-cooling hardware
manufacturer Alphacool is
offering a choice of £150
worth of gear to every
featured Readers’ Drives
winner. For your prize, you
can select from DIY watercooling kits, the Eiswolf and
Eisbaer all-in-one CPU and
GPU liquid coolers, as well
as a vast range of individual
components, including
waterblocks (pictured),
fittings, reservoirs, pumps
WORTH
£150
and radiators. Alphacool
also makes coolant, tubing
and fans, as well as
modding and water
cooling-related tools.
113
OPINION
JA M E S G O R B O L D / HARDWARE ACCELERATED
WHAT’S GOING ON AT INTEL?
With launch delays, and a high-end CPU with just a one-year warranty,
James Gorbold says the desktop CPU market is now in AMD’s hands
I
in sales for the 9900K – in other words, Intel hasn’t sold any
’ve been saying for a while now that Intel’s HEDT
more CPUs as a result. Data shows that, over the same time
(high-end desktop) strategy isn’t fit for purpose any
period, AMD Ryzen 9 processor sales haven’t moved either.
more. The products are out of date and out of touch,
To sum it up in one phrase, Intel appears now to be in the
especially the aging X299 chipset, and they fail to satisfy
both the enthusiast and workstation markets at which they’re
unenviable position of competing with itself for second place.
aimed. Couple that with ongoing supply issues, both with
All this happened at pretty much the same time that AMD
the outgoing 9000-series Skylake-X models and the new
released the Ryzen 9 3950X, a mainstream CPU with twice
as many cores as the 9900KS, and which comprehensively
10000-series Cascade Lake-X models,and you have to wonder
smashes it in almost every benchmark. Even in games, the
what’s going on at Intel now.
With demand for HEDT processors at an all-time low,
traditional stronghold of Intel CPUs, there’s hardly any
Intel’s big hope for a resurgence in Q4 was the special-edition
perceptible performance difference between flagship Intel
Core i9-9900KS. This 8-core/16-thread
and AMD processors, especially at the
processor ups the base clock from 3.6GHz
high resolutions at which a high-end
Only offering a one-year
to 4GHz,and with its TDP raised from 95W
PC featuring one of these chips would
warranty
on
such
a
high-end
to 127W, it’s the first CPU that can boost
be playing.
all its cores up to 5GHz. This all comes at a
Couple this with Intel’s repeated launch
premium CPU does seem
cost,however,in terms of increased power
delays of its current products, let alone
outstandingly arrogant
consumption and heat output and,worst
the delay to shipping true next-gen 10nm
of all,resilience. This is evident not just in
processors, the desktop CPU market for
the near future is in many ways in the hands of AMD.
the fact that Intel can only make a tiny quantity of 9900KS
CPUs, but even more crucially in this CPU’s one-year warranty.
There are only two possible circumstances that I can
Although you sometimes see other processors with a oneimagine making meaningful changes to this situation. Firstly,
year warranty in the UK, these are generally a result of an
if Intel splashed out big on marketing over the crucial Q4
oversupply of tray OEM CPUs, not the retail boxed CPUs. For
period that includes Black Friday and Christmas sales, and
Intel to only offer a one-year warranty on such a high-end
secondly, if AMD managed to score a spectacular own goal.
premium CPU as the 9900KS, especially at £550 inc VAT, does
The latter is unlikely, and while Intel has a massive war chest,
seem outstandingly arrogant.
AMD’s finances are now in a position to start funding more
As a result, since its launch a few weeks ago, it has been
marketing, so the market really is open.
interesting to watch how little impact the 9900KS has had
As an interested observer, the CPU market is putting on a
good show, especially at this time of year when it’s nice to
on the market. While nobody could argue it’s been a flop, the
be tucked up in the warm in front of a good yarn.
sales figures for the 9900KS almost exactly match the drop
James Gorbold has been building, tweaking and overclocking PCs ever since the 1980s. He now helps Scan Computers to develop new systems.
114
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