Pc format – may 2015 by fghfgh

50 Windows Upgrade Tips

Kingston HyperX Cloud II headset

How to get the best from your machine

Now with USB soundcard and 7.1 virtual surround

New SSDs in the labs

How do Crucial's new budget drives stack up?

Issue 304 • MAY 2015

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graphics supertest vidia's incredible 12GB N GTX Titan X reviewed ✔ Get the best graphics card for your budget ✔E verything you need for warp-speed gaming ✔

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full hd gaming pc for £505 Plus The ultimate PC buyer's guide

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Thermalta P35K V3 ke Co Vibox Defc re X2 on and more!

REVIEWED

battlefield hardline A visceral shot in the arm for the series

MAY 2015

Editor’s intro Future Publishing Ltd, Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA Tel 01225 442 244 Fax 01225 732 275 Email pcfmail@futurenet.com Facebook www.facebook.com/pcformatmag

Alan Dexter, Editor

Editorial Editor Alan Dexter Deputy editor Dave James Technology writers Jeremy Laird, Luis Villazon Art editor Fraser McDermott Production editor Andrew Westbrook CONTRIBUTORS Editorial Ben Andrews, Graham Barlow, Jonni Bidwell, Simon Crisp, Ian Evenden, Daniel Griliopoulos, Matt Hanson, Phil Iwaniuk, Tom McNamara, Nick Peers, Dom Reseigh-Lincoln, Mayank Sharma, Henry Winchester Photography Future Photo Studio, Mark Madeo, ThinkStock Illustration Kevin February Advertising For ad enquiries please contact Richard Hemmings richard.hemmings@futurenet.com Marketing Marketing manager Richard Stephens Production & Distribution Production controller Vivienne Calvert Production managerMark Constance Printed in the UK by: William Gibbons & Sons Ltd on behalf of Future Distributed by:Seymour Distribution Ltd, 2 East Poultry Avenue, London EC1A 9PT, Tel: 0207 429 4000 Overseas distribution by:Seymour International Circulation Trade marketing manager Juliette Winyard (07551 150 984) Subscriptions UK reader order line & enquiries 0844 848 2852 Overseas reader order line & enquiries +44 (0)1604 251045 Online enquiries www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk Email pcformat@myfavouritemagazines.co.uk Licensing International director Regina Erak regina.erak@futurenet.com +44 (0)1225 442244 Fax +44 (0)1225 732275 Management Content & marketing director Nial Ferguson Head of content & marketing, technology Nick Merritt Group editor-in-chief Paul Newman Group art director Steve Gotobed Next issue on sale 7 May 2015

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The Titan X isn’t expensive enough Nvidia has caused quite a stir with the Titan X. Yes, it’s the fastest singleGPU graphics card money can buy. And yes, it’s power efficient and doesn’t sound like a jet engine when you power it up. But that’s not what’s got so many people so excited. No, polarising the market most is the price tag. The very fact a card like this can exist at a $999 price point is apparently just too much. Some are appalled at the seeming excess, while others still question the need for that much power. The thing is, while some may see this as a lot of money for a single component, it doesn’t approach some of the excesses that many other hobbies encourage. And this is a card that is very much for the hobbyist, or ‘enthusiast’. It’s fair to say this card is overkill if all you want to do is play the latest games at the highest settings at 1080p. But plenty of us have moved beyond 1080p, and 4K is teasingly close to being a gaming reality. How does the Titan X measure up to the needs of 4K? Well, without giving too much away, it struggles to hit the allimportant 60fps. You can dial it back to hit those super high-resolutions at smoother frame rates, or you could add-in another card. But then of course there will be those that want to run three screens for the more immersive

gaming experiences, and even here a dual- or even three-way SLI setup won’t always keep you above 60fps. So, for all the fuss, I almost can’t help but think that Nvidia is limiting itself with that price tag. What could it manage if it wasn’t trying to hit a sub-thousand dollar build. What if, when it starts to ponder how high it should go with Pascal (the follow up to the Maxwell), it aims for $5,000 instead. Or even more. Could we see a card that can handle multiple 4K screens, all at over 60fps? Regardless of your own views, take solace in the knowledge that you can hit 60fps at 1080p for considerably less. That’s what makes the PC so great – you can still play the same games, and they still look great even if you’re ‘only’ playing them in HD. Which is why this month’s supertest on graphics cards makes a great companion to Nvidia’s latest release. Turn to page 8 to find out what effect the Titan X has had on the pricing of other cards. Enjoy the issue.

Alan Dexter, Editor

↘ submit your questions to: alan.dexter@futurenet.com

Subscribe & Save up to 46%! In print and on iPad, iPhone or Android See page 52 to find out how… m ay 20 15

contents

Issue 304

may 2015

74 Migrate from Windows to Linux

Graphics card superstars

Inside this issue... Featuring...

In the lab

08 GPU supertest

26 Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan X

54 Upgrade Windows Fifty tweaks and apps to improve your OS.

28 Wired2Fire Diablo Reactor

74 Go free, go Linux

30 Gigabyte P35K V3

Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve benchmarked 10 leading GPUs to find the current graphics card guvnor.

Learn to migrate from Windows to Linux.

26 Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan X

34 Schenker XMG P505 36 Crucial MX200 500GB 38 Crucial BX100 1TB 40 Vibox Defcon 2 41 TP-Link Archer D9 42 Thermaltake Core X2

m ay 20 15

54 Top 50 ways to improve Windows

43 Gigabyte Force H3X 44 Kingston HyperX Cloud II

issue 305 on sale 7 May 2015

Subscribe today and save up to 46%! In print and on iPad, iPhone or Android

A whispery rig can still be built to growl and roar in its own way page 82 How to...

Gaming

74 Getting started with Linux

66 Cities: Skylines

82 Build it: A beefy but super-quiet rig 86 Repair Windows

Turn to page 52 to find out how to save today!

68 Assassin’s Creed: Rogue 70 Battlefield Hardline

Regulars... 46 Rig Builder

88 Customise the Win8.1 Lock screen

50 Tech Porn 52 Subscriptions 72 Digital Subscriptions 92 Ask Luis

86 Repair Windows

70 Battlefield Hardline

98 Voice of Reason

m ay 20 15

Supertest

GPU Superstars What graphics card should you plug into your machine and what new tech should we be holding out for? By Dave James

he shifting sands of the GPU market have changed into something a little less fluid in recent times. For a long while we’d find a new graphics card release every time we fell out of bed in the morning, tripping over press releases and new slabs of reference PCB. These days, however, we’re talking about a more glacial pace of product development, especially when we’re looking at actual GPU architecture and not just old cards with new badges on them. That’s not necessarily a bad thing though, given the board partners are

M Ay 20 15

themselves capable of adding in new features and new SKUs to bolster the native appeal of a particular GPU. The rise of the 0dB cooling array, the addition of extra video memory to the frame buffer, boosted power circuitry and the classic core clock tweakery all add together to differentiate one manufacturer from the other and one graphics card from the rest. But still we crave the new. And the length of time between genuinely new GPUs is ever lengthening, and for multiple reasons. Nvidia has actually been relatively good at sticking to its yearly cadence for fresh architectures or designs, though it has

been flitting between leading the line with new high-end, ultra-enthusiast offerings and low-end alternatives. AMD, however, has been far more laggardly about getting new graphics silicon in place. There are still GPUs in the latest range of cards from the big red Texan company that were released at the start of 2012, and as yet we’re still to see its new range in anything other than shipping manifests and rumour-mongering. But there is a lot to be excited about with both what we have available to jam into our PCs right now and what we can be looking forward to over the next six to 12 months.

Graphics cards

M AY 20 15

Supertest GPUs are unlikely to shrink below 28nm until 2016.

AMD’s Fiji will be the first GPU with HighBandwidth Memory (HBM).

raphics cards used to be almost immune to the creeping mobile disease that had been holding back the progression of the central processing unit. Where the CPU was starting to be designed with a mobile-first strategy in mind – being beefed up slightly to make for a decent desktop offering, sacrificing raw processing grunt for powerefficient functionality – the GPU was always this enormous chip with little-to-no thought given to the power needed to get the damn thing running or the heat that it was continually producing. Graphics cards got bigger as the silicon bloated. Single slot options all but vanished. And the power and cooling demands got ever more outlandish and, eventually, mostly unsustainable. Over the last generations though, the marketing money has increasingly gone into educating us all about the performance per watt improvements that successive GPU architectures have achieved.

HBM in 2.5D SiP DRAM Slice DRAM Slice SoC

DRAM Slice DRAM Slice DA ball

TSV

PHY

Interposer

Base Die

DFT Area

TSV Area

PHY

DA BALL (Direct Access) DFT (TEST Logic)

TSV OVERLAP

DDD/CMD, DQ (RX/TX), SIGNAL Connectivity Test

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DRAM POWER Supply

Thankfully, the processor guys have suffered all the trials of the search for performance efficiency so that our graphics cards don’t have to. That means we’re still getting improved GPU performance, generation-on-generation, but we are also seeing power draw and temperatures continue to drop. Nvidia has been the one leading the charge here in the PC sector. First with the Kepler architecture improving on the hot mess the topend Fermi cards had become, and then with its current marvellous Maxwell design. The latest architecture has been set up so that it can scale from the very small all the way up to the professional class super-computer chips.

Red dawn?

AMD though has been… well… a little behind on such matters. Just take its latest top-end GPU, the Hawaii chip released in the dying light of 2013. It’s probably a coincidence it was codenamed after a volcanic island, but the super-heated, massive GPU ran at a frankly crazy 93ºC under load with the reference cooling design from AMD. And it was designed to run at that speed according to the AMD bods we questioned at the time too, as our test rig started to glow white hot… Its last new GPU, the Tonga chip in the R9 285, is the first of the Graphics Core Next raft of silicon to actually make proper strides in the pursuit of improved GPU efficiency. Dropping the TDP of the equivalent R9 280 down from 250W to 190W, it’s still been able to maintain performance while drawing less power and generating less heat too. That’s still a lot higher than the TDP of Nvidia’s latest top-end consumer GPU, the GTX 980, which has a thermal design point of just

165W. So, how come Nvidia has been able to make such strides before AMD and why are we still waiting on its competing graphics architecture to give Maxwell a run for its money? You actually have to look back a little way to get to the bottom of this. AMD was in fact ahead of its time when, generations ago, it took the gamble of focusing on smaller GPU designs with lower power draw. It chose to cede the top-end of the graphics market to Nvidia’s increasingly large and hot chips. Instead it tried to use dual-GPU designs to compete at the high-end where such efficiency concerns could be ignored. Then it got all excited about the performance of its newer architectures, getting caught up in the battle for the biggest top-end numbers, abandoning its initial impulse, and producing ever bigger and more power-hungry GPUs once more. Nvidia, meanwhile, suddenly switched tack with the Kepler designs, and AMD was left not knowing which way to jump.

Lithe lithography

Now, to really hit the efficiency figures it needs to with the existing GCN architecture that AMD is intent on sticking with, the company really needs to get its silicon onto a smaller, less power-hungry production process. Last year we were expecting to move down to the 20nm node, which would allow for smaller chips generating less heat. But problems with production, performance, yields and the cost has made it unlikely we’ll see a 20nm GPU even this year. There’s still faint hope that the new Fiji GPU in the upcoming Pirate Islands range will be produced on the 20nm process, but even that might turn out to be wishful thinking. The fact we’re still waiting on its release this far into 2015 suggests AMD may be committed to waiting on it. We sure hope so. The big news for the Fiji GPU though is that it’s going to be the first GPU to be sporting High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM). Well, that and the fact it’s expected to be rocking some 4,096 streaming microprocessors – it’s going to be one sizeable chip if AMD can’t hit 20nm. Hell, it’s going to be massive even if it can. The collaboration between Hynix and AMD though has produced a stacked version of the frame buffer, in a similar way to the

Graphics cards

V-NAND in Samsung’s 850 SSDs, which will allow for a huge amount of bandwidth. Arranged around the GPU, rather than actually on top of the graphics silicon, HBM is able to offer a significant amount of bandwidth, a whopping 640GB/s in fact. That’s almost double what’s on offer with Nvidia’s new Titan X (page 26). At the moment the memory is arranged in four 1GB stacks, each delivering a 1,024-bit bus. That makes for an enormous, aggregated 4,096-bit bus and implies the actual memory speed is slower than standard GDDR5, again similar in the way Samsung has used older memory tech in its V-NAND. The secondgen version of HBM is set to go even further, offering up to 8GB and 256Gbps of bandwidth per stack. The rest of the Rx 3xx series of graphics cards are likely to be only slightly tweaked versions of the same 28nm GCN GPUs we’ve got in the current lineup. The Tonga GPU looks to be getting a rebrand as the R9 370 and 370X, with the lower-end part being similar to the R9 285 and

the higher-end one being the R9 285X we were expecting last year. The R9 380 and R9 380X are seeming likely to be mildly modified versions of the Hawaii chips from the top-end cards of the previous generation, despite sporting new GPU codenames of Grenada.

Blaise of glory

Looking further afield, Nvidia will be joining in on the stacked video memory fun in 2016 with its Pascal GPU architecture. It will feature a similar kind of memory as the R9 390X in that it’s arrayed around the GPU rather than directly on top of it, but is also going to introduce a new interconnect between CPU and GPU called NVLink. The new fatter pipes are expected to deliver up to 80GB/s of data compared with the 16GB/s we’ve got in today’s systems. So, if that’s the past and the future of our graphics cards, how do things stand today? We’ve brought together the current generation of GPUs in the following pages to see how the best gaming silicon of today stacks up against each other.

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang announcing Maxwell successor Pascal.

I’m out of my mind excited about it — JenHsun Huang talking about NVLink.

The Great Green Memory Conundrum When communications between tech marketing and engineers fail, a graphics card suffers

It would be remiss of us to talk graphics tech without mentioning the recent controversy surrounding Nvidia’s GTX 970 GPU and its “miscommunicated” technical details. Something happened between the engineers and the technical marketing team because the launch specs of the GTX 970 came out all kinds of wrong. Originally we were told the basic configuration of the GM 204 GPUs in both the GTX 970 and GTX 980 only differed in terms of the CUDA core count, with them having the same 104 texture units, 64 ROPs, 2MB L2 cache, 256-bit bus and 4GB GDDR5 memory. Some parts of that official spec are plain wrong. Some are mightily misleading. Importantly, the GM 204 inside the GTX 970 actually only contains 56 ROPs and 1.75MB L2 cache. That mistake is largely forgivable as it doesn’t really affect the way the card performs – it was already behind the GTX 980 on that count anyways. The bigger issue is that 4GB frame buffer – it came to light that the GTX 970 was reporting only 3.5GB before tapping out in scenarios where the GTX 980 would go all the way to 4GB. It turns out the memory systems on these two Maxwell cards are very different, something linked into those shut-off ROPs. Nvidia segmented the memory on the lower tier card into a 3.5GB chunk and an extra 512MB block, but the larger block has a full 192GB/s of theoretical bandwidth, while the smaller is running at just 28GB/s. That means if a game runs over the 3.5GB portion of frame buffer, performance will drop drastically because the access time is much slower. It’s not quite as slow as when you go over 4GB on either of these Maxwell cards as it’s still faster than the 16GB/s bandwidth over the PCIe connection to the system memory. Realistically the GTX 970 hasn’t been designed for the sort of hi-res situations where this is typically an issue, but as more texture data is used by games, that 3.5GB portion is going to find itself exceeded. Why it’s really an issue though is the fact Nvidia didn’t communicate any of this until it was caught by enthusiasts testing their own cards. This doesn’t suddenly make the GTX 970 a bad card, but it makes the market a bit wary moving forward.

M AY 20 15

Supertest

Palit GeForce GTX 980 SJ Nvidia’s more affordable mighty Maxwell Until this month, Nvidia’s GTX 980 was the top singleGPU graphics card around. And then the inevitable happened. It dropped the full force of its GM 200 Maxwell graphics core in the form of the GTX Titan X. We’ve gone into detail on the new ultra-enthusiast card on page 26, but suffice to say it’s the new GPU performance king. At nearly £900, however, it’s beyond the reach of most of our bank accounts, which is why it and the R9 295X2 aren’t included in this test. We’re concentrating on cards you’re actually likely to buy. Still, the GTX 980 is no budget option. This overclocked card from Palit, the Super Jetstream, is around £450, with the cheaper options being only around £30 less. The GTX 980 is still one hell of a gaming graphics card. It may not hit the same levels of 4K gaming as its Titanic big brother, but it really doesn’t do badly. The Palit card is hitting some 36fps in Battlefield 4 at 4K Ultra settings, and 34fps in Shadow of Mordor at the same settings. But having spent a lot of time with 4K monitors, anything below 40 inches just feels too small and you’re really paying a severe performance price. So we’re still more than happy with our 1600p and 1440p screens, and at those resolutions, the GTX 980 is an absolute monster. Throw it on to a super-wide 34-inch 21:9 panel too and it just flies in whatever game you throw its way.

price wars This Maxwell card though is caught in a battle with AMD’s Radeon R9 290X. Because there‘s been such a long time between its launch and the release of the upcoming Pirate Island, R9 3xx series, the prices of current-gen AMD stock have nose-dived like they were piloted by Harrison Ford. The AMD card opposite is now almost half the price of this impressive GTX 980 and isn’t that far off in terms of 1080p or 1600p performance. This Palit card comes with an outstanding 0dB cooling array where the fans only start spinning when the GM 204

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chip hits 65ºC, and even then it’s remarkably quiet. It also runs with a good chunk less power than the Radeon. But we also have to talk about the Nvidia ecosystem as a whole. When it released the GTX 980, Nvidia came out with a set of interesting techniques to get either more performance or more visual fidelity from our games. Dynamic Super Resolution (DSR) allows you to run at higher resolutions than your monitor can produce by rendering at that high level and shrinking it down to fit your screen. For games with performance to burn, such as GRID 2 in our suite of tests, that adds a little extra quality while still delivering the performance. On the flip side, where you’re struggling for speed, there’s Multi Frame Anti-Aliasing (MFAA), which can produce 4x levels of anti-aliasing with the performance hit of only 2x. Then there’s Voxel Global Illumination (VXGI), the cheating pseudo ray-tracing tech just included in the current custom branch of Unreal Engine 4. At the current price though it’s tough to look past the R9 290X bargain. In those Sapphire clothes it’s cool and quiet and blazes through 1080p and 1600p benchmarks. The GTX 980 is just a little too pricey for the relatively small perf boost it offers right now.

SPECIFICATIONS GPU

Nvidia GM 204

CUDA cores

2,048

Memory capacity

4GB GDDR5

verdict

Palit GeForce GTX 980 Super Jetstream Jetstream Great gaming performance; 0dB cooler; bulging ecosystem.

Wetstream Still seriously pricey.

£448, www.palit.biz

Graphics cards

Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X Clearing out the speedy old stock Without a new GPU in sight, AMD inevitably has to fight

the good fight on pricing these days. The big, powerful Hawaii XT GPU inside this R9 290X is a complex ol’ graphics processor and must cost a pretty penny to produce in numbers. And that’s why at launch it was the same price as the GTX 980 is right now. Some 18 months later we’re gearing up for a summer launch of AMD’s next generation of graphics cards – including a reworked Hawaii XT appearing with a new badge – and Nvidia has just unleashed its massive Maxwell card. With stock still in the channels, prices on older AMD cards have drastically dropped. That means this Sapphire version of the R9 290X is a stunning £250. The first, reference edition of the 290X we tested was a roaring hot mess, delivering great gaming performance, but running at a molten 95ºC when pushed in-game. Thankfully AMD has some great partners like Sapphire, who were able to turn the 290X into a card you’d actually feel safe enough to drop into your own machine. You know, without worrying it was going to spontaneously combust during an intensive round of Peggle. The Tri-X chiller on this Sapphire R9 290X is fantastic, cutting that 95ºC peak temp down to just 71ºC – cooler than the Palit GTX 980 with its efficient Maxwell GPU. And it’s also remarkably quiet when it’s working away too, those three fans never hitting the roaring blast the reference chip chiller shouted out.

rates across the board. That means you’re getting a smoother gaming experience with the GeForce option. But you’re going to have to pay for that privilege, and when you’re looking at almost twice the price of this Sapphire 290X, that makes it a much tougher ask. If you can afford the GTX 980, that’s the better card. This Sapphire’s current cost, however, makes it the smarter purchase for the more price-conscious PC builder. The R9 290X isn’t the only AMD card to have seen a hefty price drop. The R9 290 is so close to the 290X that it’s mighty tempting too. It’s still rocking a full 4GB frame buffer and, because it’s still the Hawaii GPU, it’s running across an aggregated 512-bit memory bus. But given the pricing is so close, this Sapphire 290X remains the champ performance-for-price GPU right now. Nvidia will keep shouting about the extras it offers, and with GeForce Experience offering a better… well… experience than the bought-in Raptr setup, it’s tough to argue. But when we’re talking value, the aging AMD cards still have a lot to give at this price. Just make your move now. When the supply in the channel runs out, those prices aren’t going to last.

SPECIFICATIONS GPU

AMD Hawaii XT

GCN cores

2,816

Memory capacity

4GB GDDR5

Got game? Performance-wise, it’s obviously behind the GTX 980, especially the overclocked Palit version opposite. But neither card is a real 4K gaming GPU on its own, so you’re looking lower down the resolution scale to 1600p, 1440p or 1080p. And at that scale the 290X delivers high enough frame rates that the performance difference between it and the GTX 980 becomes almost inconsequential. The Nvidia card does however offer higher minimum frame

verdict

Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X Hawaii Serious gaming speeds; cool and quiet; great price; hefty memory configuration.

Sheppy Not quite as quick as GTX 980; trades performance blows with GTX 970.

£250, www.sapphiretech.co.uk

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Supertest

Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 Gaming Much maligned, but still standing has taken a pounding since the nightmare that followed its release. It seems the engineering team hadn’t communicated the smart work it had done in splitting up the cache. That meant Nvidia’s marketing bods got confused, thought it had basically the same GPU and memory layout as the GTX 980, and ended up misleading everyone. And then it came out. And the internet got all kinds of grumpy. It’s a real shame. If Nvidia had communicated what it had done, we’d have been impressed it’d kept hold of essentially a 4GB frame buffer through some unprecedented techy goodness, even if it was split between a speedy 3.5GB bit and a slower 512MB part. The performance problems only really start when you fill up that 3.5GB portion. And those are situations the GTX 970 was never really meant to get into. Shadow of Mordor is the only current game which tops that with its HD texture pack – it hits 5GB at 1600p Ultra settings, which would mess up any GPU except the Titans. So don’t believe the hype. The 970 is still a great card. That’s especially true with this outstanding Gigabyte version. The triple fan array keeps it super chilled at just 58ºC under load and the gaming performance can often push an overclocked R9 290X into second place. The AMD card though has the better memory bus, so operates quicker at hi-res and at the moment is cheaper. But it’s a mighty close run thing between these two quality cards. The poor ol’ GTX 970

SPECIFICATIONS

In a Hawaiian no-man’s land With the recent AMD price cuts trying to shift existing stock before the new generation drops, plus take the sting out of the Titan X launch, its graphics card stack has been mightily squeezed. It’s more obvious with the three R9 28x cards below this R9 290, but it’s still getting tricky for the second-tier Hawaii card to make a name for itself. The issue is the R9 290X now costs just £250. That’s only around £30 more than this XFX OC Edition card, leaving the poor ol’ R9 290 in a bit of a no-man’s land. It’s a lot more expensive than the R9 285 and can’t quite catch up with its big Hawaiian brother. Granted the relative performance stats of the two Hawaii GPU-powered cards are incredibly close, but we’d still recommend spending that little extra on a definitely superior slice of silicon. It also helps that the Sapphire card is so quiet despite the roaring, 2,816-core beast smouldering away under that cooling array. But XFX’s dual-fan design is still good. The stylish-looking shroud keeps the Hawaii Pro GPU to the same 71ºC maximum as the Tri-X cooler manages. None of that really helps when there’s almost not really a place for this capable card right now. That might change though as availability of the cheaper R9 290X drops off as the supply line runs dry in preparation for the Hawaii GPU to get respun as the R9 380 and R9 380X. But until then we’d still recommend spending your cash on the excellent R9 290X if you’re in the mood for a good value GPU upgrade.

SPECIFICATIONS

GPU

Nvidia GM 204

GPU

AMD Hawaii Pro

CUDA cores

1,664

GCN cores

2,560

Memory capacity

4GB (3.5GB & 512MB)

Memory capacity

4GB GDDR5

verdict

Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 Gaming G1 Excellent cooler; great overclocking performance; speedy gaming.

1D Needs to be closer to 290X pricing.

£290, www.gigabyte.com

XFX R9 290 Black OC Edition

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verdict

XFX R9 290 Black OC Edition Super cool Good gaming performance; sleek shroud; quality cooling.

Poor fool Everything else about it.

£218, www.xfxforce.com

Graphics cards

HIS R9 280X IceQX2 Are you still here? about the R9 280X. There’s also something old about it. That’s the Tahiti XT GPU at its heart. This card is essentially the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition from three years ago. We’ll let that sink in. Three years. It goes to show the slow progress AMD graphics tech has made. But also how capable its GCN architecture has been. The fact it’s still decent is incredible. But this card should’ve been put out to pasture, replaced by the R9 285X, with its Tonga XT GPU. And where is that card? It’s maybe still stuck in engineering hell because the Tonga GPU struggled playing nice with Mantle, possibly because of its changed memory system and funky new memory compression algorithms. So it’s still here and still on sale. Unfortunately the pricing on it hasn’t changed to reflect the market, meaning this anomalous HIS card is priced higher than the much quicker R9 290 from XFX. And because the Tahiti GPU is old school GCN, it’s missing out on the goodness of the later silicon. Most tellingly it doesn’t have any support for AMD’s new frame syncing technology, FreeSync. If you’re already sitting on an R9 280X, don’t panic. Even though it’s a three-year-old card, its high-end memory configuration, with 3GB running over an aggregated 384bit bus, means it’s still very capable at both 1080p and 1600p. But you should look elsewhere if you’re thinking of upgrading – there’s no value to buying a 280X anymore.

There’s something odd

SPECIFICATIONS

Sapphire R9 285 DualX Making the right cuts graphics card. Its Tonga GPU is the most modern GCN architecture around, utilising a similar memory compression algorithm to Nvidia’s latest Maxwell chips. That means AMD has got similar effective memory bandwidth levels through more conservative buses and memory configurations. As such, the R9 285 comes with a 256-bit bus and a 2GB frame buffer compared with the R9 280’s 384-bit bus and 3GB frame buffer. For the most part that doesn’t make much difference. They’re within a few frames per second of each other in most gaming benchmarks. They’re also a similar price. But the 285 does give you access to things like AMD’s TrueAudio Technology and FreeSync. But, achieving parity in most of our benchmarks? Well, where they don’t is telling. The 280 posts slightly improved scores playing Battlefield 4 via DirectX 11, but is much better in our top-end Shadow of Mordor test. That’s a benchmark that thrives on memory performance. It highlights where the newer chip and its cheaper memory subsystems are failing. The issue is that this is where game engines are heading – the R9 285 is going to struggle in the future of VRAM-intensive gaming, even at 1080p. This Sapphire card could be in trouble. For now its £155 price tag makes it a great card, but you have to weigh up whether you need FreeSync or whether you want the ol’ 280’s memory setup. Tough choices.

The R9 285 is AMD’s most recent

SPECIFICATIONS

GPU

AMD Tahiti XT2

GCN cores

2,048

GPU

Tonga Pro

Memory capacity

3GB GDDR5

GCN cores

1,792

Memory capacity

2GB GDDR5

verdict

HIS R9 280X IceQX2 XT Well-specced GPU and memory; decent

gaming performance.

Atari ST Old-timey tech; power-hungry; lacks FreeSync support; expensive.

£226, www.hisdigital.com

verdict

Sapphire R9 285 DualX Tonga Decent current-gen gaming speed; FreeSync and TrueAudio support; great price.

Tonka Weaker memory setup; will quickly become dated.

£155, www.sapphiretech.com

M AY 20 15

Supertest

Asus STRIX GTX 960 Cool, quiet and ornithological The GTX 960 is almost identical to the R9 285 in so many ways. They are priced similarly, they perform almost identically in our gaming benchmarks and they both have the same memory issues. Nvidia’s GM 204 GPU saw it working with some new compression algorithms. This new technique allows it to use a small memory bus and still retain a relatively high effective memory bandwidth. The GTX 960 then has a 2GB frame buffer running across a lowly 128-bit bus, which delivers some 112GB/s of bandwidth, though with the new compression shizzle in place it estimates that to transform into 149GB/s effective. That makes sense from a manufacturing point of view – the 128-bit bus is obviously cheaper to make than that double-width 256-bit bus on the GTX 760 this card is replacing. But that doesn’t help us gaming types. More titles are demanding extra frame buffer capacity to deliver the highest performance. Suddenly, adding extra gigabytes to the VRAM allocation is offering higher fps. Again, it’s Shadow of Mordor highlighting what’s in store. Both the GTX 960 and R9 285 fall behind the geriatric R9 280 with its 384-bit bus and 3GB frame buffer. But it’s still a tough choice. We wouldn’t recommend anyone upgrading to a three-year-old GPU, so the R9 280 is right out. At this price it’s all down to who’s cooling, ecosystem and drivers you trust more. The STRIX is practically silent, cool and not so thirsty, and we do so love GFE…

SPECIFICATIONS

Help the aged help themselves The R9 280, with its ancient Tahiti Pro GPU, is like that old man you find in small town night clubs. The girls laugh and dance with him in mocking amusement and yet he refuses to pass quietly into the night. Except in this case, the old man would be taking one of those girls home and showing her that with age comes experience… The R9 280, like the 280X, is a three-year-old graphics card. It was the old HD 7950, a top card of its generation, meaning it’s still got a beefy memory bus and a healthy 3GB frame buffer. So, even though it’s looking kinda dated – it doesn’t have the latest GCN architecture’s new feature set – it’s still got the raw GPU horsepower and componentry to power its way to impressive gaming performance. Unlike the 280X though it has a much more reasonable price tag. It’s almost identically priced to the R9 285, making it a very affordable card which allows you to almost hit 60fps at 1080p Ultra settings in Battlefield 4. It smashes the 285 and the GTX 960 in Shadow of Mordor. So, it’s still a good card and this mighty affordable Powercolor version comes with a quality cooler keeping things nicely chilled and quiet. If there’s one in your current rig, and you’ve got some PSU headroom, grabbing another for a CrossFire setup would give you great performance for a relatively minimal outlay. But if you’re looking for a new single card upgrade, we still can’t recommend three-year-old hardware, especially if FreeSync is playing on your mind like it is ours.

SPECIFICATIONS

GPU

Nvidia GM 204

GPU

AMD Tahiti Pro

CUDA cores

1,024

GCN cores

1,792

Memory capacity

2GB GDDR5

Memory capacity

3GB GDDR5

verdict

Asus STRIX GTX 960 OC Edition STRIX Super-chilled; almost silent; small; good 1080p performance.

Struck out Weak memory system; not future-proofed.

£173, www.asus.com

Powercolor R9 280 TurboDuo

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verdict

Powercolor R9 280 TurboDuo Turbo Good 1080p gaming performance; quality memory setup; cool and quiet.

Turn off Out-dated feature set; power hungry.

£158, www.powercolor.com

Supertest

XFX R9 270X Suffering the squeeze At £131, the R9 270X is pushing towards the budget market, but with the mid-range and high-end of AMD’s current graphics stack seriously compressing, this poor little GPU is really feeling the squeeze. When the R9 285 is only a night’s bar tab away and yet is a far more powerful and advanced graphics card, there’s no decision to make. We’re once again talking about a GPU only rocking the first iteration of AMD’s GCN architecture. No TrueAudio, no memory compression funk and not even a sniff of the FreeSync tech. That adds up to an unappealing card but one that demands a surprising amount of power. The squeeze isn’t just coming from a cascade of higher-performance cards either. Nvidia’s Maxwell architecture started at the bottom of the market in the GTX 750 and GTX 750 Ti and that surprisingly capable GM 104 GPU really pushes the R9 270X in terms of gaming performance. And costs a good deal less. At this end of the market, being £30 more means a lot. It represents a hefty 25 per cent price difference between them. This is the real problem with the GCN architecture. It works at the high and mid-range, where you can get away with being power-hungry and generating a bunch of heat, but at the low end it still needs a lot of power. Maxwell on the other hand has been designed to scale from tablets up to supercomputers and so is far more efficient. XFX’s cooling array does its best, keeping things chilled, but can’t help the power draw or performance.

SPECIFICATIONS

Zotac GTX 750 Ti The great equaliser might go down as one of our favouriteever graphics cards. It represented a shift in Nvidia’s scheduling, being the first GPU running on its new Maxwell architecture, but being resolutely low-end. It was almost like Nvidia saw the writing on the wall regarding the 20nm process transition and was testing how efficient it could get its new architecture on the 28nm lithography before committing its top cards. Almost. But none of that is why we do so love the GTX 750 Ti. Its real beauty is that it’s so low-powered – 100W lower peak platform power compared with the closest AMD GPU – and yet still delivers excellent 1080p gaming. We were able to cobble together a passively cooled option which didn’t even throttle back its clockspeed. This Zotac version is good. It delivers the necessary gaming performance and does it all coolly and quietly, but it still demands a PSU power connector, while our favourite GTX 750 Ti cards take all their power from the PCIe socket itself, making them one-shot upgrades for even that £300 desktop you picked up from PC World. Just £100 later and you’ve got a 1080p gaming machine without needing any other upgrades. It’s the great equaliser. The GPU that can make every PC a gaming PC and for an absolute bargain price. Bless the little GTX 750 Ti. We’d say it’s actually more important to PC gaming than the new GTX Titan X.

The GTX 750 Ti

SPECIFICATIONS GPU

Nvidia GM 104

GPU

AMD Curacao XT

CUDA cores

640

GCN cores

1,280

Memory capacity

2GB GDDR5

Memory capacity

2GB GDDR5

verdict

XFX R9 270X Double Dissipation Double Quality cooling array. Trouble Disappointing performance;

last-gen tech. £131, www.xfxforce.com

M AY 20 15

Zotac GTX 750 Ti Edward Woodward Stunningly efficient; impressive gaming performance; great price.

Denzel Washington This Zotac version needs a 6-pin

power connector. £104, www.zotac.com

Supertest

how we tested

Our GPU test rig is a stock-clocked Core i7-4770K in an Asus Maximus VI Hero Z97 board with 8GB DDR3 running at 1,600MHz. All of our graphics cards are tested with the latest release drivers on the same

benchmark settings to ensure a fair test. We’ve included all the minimum frame rate results as well as the overall average to indicate how smooth an experience you’re getting from each graphics card.

specifications Website

Price

GPU

Cores

Memory capacity

Memory Bus

Peak platform power

Peak temperature ˚C

Score

Palit GeForce GTX 980 Super Jetstream

www.palit.biz

£448

GM 204

2,048

4GB GDDR5

256-bit

335W

Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X

www.sapphiretech. co.uk

£250

Hawaii XT

2,816

4GB GDDR5

512-bit

368W

Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 Gaming

www.gigabyte.com

£290

GM 204

1,664

3.5GB + 512MB GDDR5

256-bit

310W

XFX R9 290 Black OC Edition

www.xfxforce.com

£218

Hawaii Pro

2,560

4GB GDDR5

512-bit

365W

HIS R9 280X IceQX2

www.hisdigital. com

£226

Tahiti XT2

2,048

3GB GDDR5

384-bit

351W

Sapphire R9 285 DualX

www.sapphiretech. com

£155

Tonga Pro

1,792

2GB GDDR5

256-bit

290W

Asus STRIX GTX 960 OC Edition

www.asus.com

£173

GM 204

1,024

2GB GDDR5

128-bit

247W

Powercolor R9 280 TurboDuo

www.powercolor. com

£158

Tahiti Pro

1,792

3GB GDDR5

384-bit

308W

XFX R9 270X Double Dissipation

www.xfxforce.com

£131

Curacao XT

1,280

2GB GDDR5

256-bit

256W

Zotac GTX 750 Ti

www.zotac.com

£104

GM 104

640

2GB GDDR5

128-bit

160W

1920 x 1080 Benchmarks (1080p) Bioshock Infinite

Battlefield 4

Company of Heroes 2

GRID 2

Shadow of Mordor

Metro: Last Light

Palit GeForce GTX 980 Super Jetstream

19/125

77/108

38/57

109/137

62/94

28/56

Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X

17/107

55/81

27/48

87/115

42/83

25/50

Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 Gaming

17/115

61/92

23/51

104/135

30/77

26/50

XFX R9 290 Black OC Edition

17/101

46/76

32/46

76/105

38/77

8/46

HIS R9 280X IceQX2

17/86

41/64

25/37

70/91

30/60

8/36

Sapphire R9 285 DualX

17/78

34/54

19/33

68/84

16/45

24/33

Asus STRIX GTX 960 OC Edition

19/75

39/58

20/32

70/90

16/36

21/33

Powercolor R9 280 TurboDuo

15/74

36/56

22/31

60/77

26/52

8/31

XFX R9 270X Double Dissipation

16/62

27/46

18/27

46/62

7/19

7/24

Zotac GTX 750 Ti

6/47

26/48

12/24

58/75

14/26

13/27

The initial figures are the minimum frame rate over the benchmark, followed by the average frame rate achieved. All tests are run at their highest settings with 4x anti-aliasing where possible. Best scores are bolded.

M AY 20 15

Graphics cards 2560 x 1600 benchmarks (1600p) Heaven 4.0

Bioshock Infinite

Battlefield 4

Company of Heroes 2

GRID 2

Shadow of Mordor

Metro: Last Light

Palit GeForce GTX 980 Super Jetstream

22/42

16/81

46/67

22/34

86/107

40/61

20/33

Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X

17/34

16/66

34/53

15/29

66/82

29/60

17/28

Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 Gaming

19/34

21/70

40/55

21/29

71/91

20/49

21/28

XFX R9 290 Black OC Edition

17/32

16/63

29/48

18/27

58/74

27/56

8/26

HIS R9 280X IceQX2

14/25

16/50

22/40

15/22

48/66

21/43

7/21

Sapphire R9 285 DualX

12/21

14/45

20/32

7/12

46/59

13/32

13/18

Asus STRIX GTX 960 OC Edition

11/20

17/43

24/33

1 /17

45/59

11/26

13/18

Powercolor R9 280 TurboDuo

13/22

17/43

20/34

13/18

44/56

19/39

7/18

XFX R9 270X Double Dissipation

10/17

12/34

15/28

0.5/9

33/43

5/14

6/13

Zotac GTX 750 Ti

9/14

9/27

15/27

7/14

31/48

8/15

10/15

3840 x 2160 benchmarks (4k) Heaven 4.0

Bioshock Infinite

Battlefield 4

Company of Heroes 2

GRID 2

Shadow of Mordor

Metro: Last Light

Palit GeForce GTX 980 Super Jetstream

11/20

14/45

24/36

11/17

49/65

25/34

13/17

Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X

10/17

16/35

12/32

8/16

44/54

18/36

10/14

Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 Gaming

10/16

17/37

20/29

5/14

38/55

14/28

11/14

XFX R9 290 Black OC Edition

10/16

15/33

17/28

10/15

36/47

17/33

5/13

HIS R9 280X IceQX2

8/13

13/27

13/23

3/5

31/41

10/21

5/11

Sapphire R9 285 DualX

6/10

10/23

7/17

2/5

29/35

6/18

3/9

Asus STRIX GTX 960 OC Edition

5/9

8/21

10/13

3/4

26/34

7/14

5/9

Powercolor R9 280 TurboDuo

7/11

11/23

12/20

4/6

25/35

9/19

4/9

XFX R9 270X Double Dissipation

5/8

7/16

7/13

0.3/1

22/27

4/7

2/7

Zotac GTX 750 Ti

4/7

6/13

8/16

1/5

22/29

8/11

4/8

M AY 20 15

Supertest

And the winner is…

Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X It’s actually a rather frustrating time to be reviewing a whole slew of graphics cards. And that’s all AMD’s fault. Nvidia has pretty much shot its Maxwell load now, dropping new cards into the high, mid and low-ends of the market. And now it’s topped all that off with the ultra-enthusiast GTX Titan X we’ve reviewed just a few pages on from here. But AMD is still jealously, or worriedly, holding onto its Pirate Island range of cards. Which means there are no new Radeons in this test. It also explains why prices have been compressed and why there’s so little between the cards throughout its current stack. The good news is that the price compression has helped create a couple of diamonds, from a value point of view. There’s a fair amount of detritus, however, so we can quickly discard both the Tahiti-based cards – the R9 280 and R9 280X. They’re still remarkably capable gaming cards, and if you’ve already got a R9 280 sat in your rig right now, then picking up another for just £150 will deliver some quality gaming performance. But they’re getting rather long in the tooth and are lacking the feature set of AMD’s later GCN cards, most especially the promising FreeSync tech.

Lording the low-end We can also ditch the R9 270X too. There’s pricing pressure coming its way from both the R9 285 and the GTX 750 Ti, and while the Radeon has higher performance for only a little more money, the 750 Ti trades benchmark wins with it for a chunk less cash. Speaking of the GTX 750 Ti, as we like to do, it’s still our favourite budget card, possibly even our favourite graphics card ever. At £100 it’s a great upgrade for literally any low-end desktop PC, especially if you get

M AY 20 15

one that’s entirely bus-powered. It’s how you can build yourself a 1080p gaming rig for the same price as a weak-heart console box. In the middle-order there’s a bit of a battle royale going on between the R9 285 and the GTX 960. The 285 is sitting at a great price right now and they both deliver similar levels of gaming performance. But the elegant GTX 960 is cooler, quieter and less power-hungry. Combined with the supporting Nvidia ecosystem, throwing MFAA and GFE into the mix, that just about gives the GeForce card the edge in this one. At the top of the tech tree things are just as tight. The GTX 970 is a fantastic little card, especially in this Gigabyte version – don’t blame the 970 for Nvidia’s mess up, it wasn’t its fault. But at £300 it’s performance lead over its closest rival isn’t quite enough to justify the extra expense. And that card has a proper 4GB frame buffer… So, it’s up to the GTX 980 and R9 290X to fight things out at the very top of this supertest. All things being equal, the Nvidia card is obviously the better option. The impressive GM 204 GPU is powerful and efficient and the 0dB Palit cooler ensures it stays completely silent until it hits 65ºC. But things are not equal because the GTX 980 is currently a full £200 more expensive than the excellent Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X card and that quite definite performance lead simply can’t justify the huge disparity in price. Real world result, we’d want the Palit card, but we’d buy the Sapphire. n

Hardware

performance gear, uncompromising verdicts

What Are You Doing, Dave?

Dreaming of a world where money really is no object

“You need to have something at the top of the tech tree” of the GK 110 meant good things for anyone with even a passing interest in professional access to ridiculously expensive computer rendering or 3D modelling. kit. At the moment, my main PC is rocking an One of those people has also just spent £500 8-core i7-5960X with a pair of Titan X graphics buying his son a new PC, with a lowly cards inside, doing the grunt work on a 28-inch GTX 750 Ti inside. He’s not doing 4K G-Sync display. That’s not to boast. Well, any 3D modelling on that mini-Maxwell card, not entirely. It’s mainly to show I’ve experience but they were rather surprised the wee GPU playing with the most expensive PC kit you can could nail 1080p performance at some pretty buy. And personally, I still probably wouldn’t. healthy frame rates. That certainly tempered It’s likely just a mindset thing. It may surprise his excitement when I showed him the Titan X. you to learn that tech journalists don’t get paid You simply don’t have to spend a fortune to an awful lot of money… so I’ve never been in a pick up a quality gaming PC. The great situation where dropping £900 on a Titan X thing about this platform is you have could in any way be justified. Mentally, options. You can spend reasonably I’m just not prepared for such brain Nvidia and still get a great PC experience. gymnastics. Even having spent time GeForce GTX Whenever a new ultra-enthusiast playing games at gloriously smooth Titan X component arrives, I question 4K frame rates, I still wouldn’t be Pg. 26 pricing, my miserly tendencies and able to make a value call that would the inherent value. But there’s another allow me to avoid the inevitable buyer’s thing that happens: prices of competing remorse, nor the wrath of my missus. components drop. AMD’s Radeon R9 295X2, the But such enthusiast equipment as the Titan Titan X‘s only current rival for the performance X, or Intel’s Extreme Edition CPUs, don’t care crown, has had another chunky price drop. about value judgements. They don’t have to. At £540 it’s over £300 cheaper and has a bit of They exist because you need to have something a performance edge. That’s still a huge amount at the top of the tech tree and, dammit, there of money, but if you can forgive the inevitable will be people who will spend the money just to CrossFireX woes you’ll encounter, it’s not a have the best. So let ‘em gouge as much cash bad way to get 4K gaming performance. The out of the affluent few as possible. occasionally st… st… stuttering experience I do know people who actually spent their won’t be as good as with the singleown money on the original GTX Titan, but they GPU Titan X, but it’s definitely the weren’t buying the card just for gaming. The ‘value’ 4K option right now. unprecedented single-GPU processing power

Doing what I do means I’ve almost constant

Gold Award

Our Hardware Manifesto

This is the

Would we buy it and should you buy it? That’s all you want to know and it’s all we care about. Performance and value for money are the two key pillars supporting the mighty PC Format Gold Award on its lofty pinnacle.

ultimate badge of hardware excellence. Only truly outstanding gear gets this coveted award. Oh, and there are no prizes for runners-up here.

M AY 20 15

Sure, it makes Mordor look mega, but does that justify spending £900 on a Titan X?

Opinion

36 Crucial MX200 500GB

Editor’s One to Watch

Windows 10 set to make honest men of us all According to a recent announcement by

Microsoft’s head of Windows Terry Myerson, the next version of its operating system is going to get a summer launch. Myerson gave no specific date for when the OS is going to be hitting our machines with a full release version, but he did go on to say it would be hitting 190 countries in 111 different languages. That’s all pretty much as expected, but it’s the fact it’s going to be ‘free-for-all’ that surprised me and plenty of other people. In a telephone interview with Reuters, Myerson confirmed that Microsoft is “upgrading all qualified PCs, genuine and non-genuine, to Windows 10”. So yeah, if you’re running either Windows 7 or 8, whether it’s genuine or off the back of a digital lorry, you can install a completely legit version gratis. It’s like some OS amnesty for software pirates, where anyone with a device that qualifies to run Windows 10 is able to get it. “Even those with pirated copies of Windows,” Myerson elaborated to the Verge. The focus here seems to be on clawing back some legitimate software footholds in China. Myerson explained that Microsoft was looking to “re-engage” with the hundred of millions of Windows users in China.

On the surface of things, this might look like Microsoft is simply giving in to the software pirates. However, if it can convert a good percentage of those pirates to use legitimate, reporting copies of its operating system, then it can claim huge adoption figures while also generating a massive data cache of usage information from those who leave such settings in place after installation. With Windows 8, and subsequently 8.1, receiving pretty lukewarm receptions at best, and many users still appearing more than happy to stick with Windows 7, it’s a smart move to get as many people as possible onto the Windows 10 bandwagon. And, to be honest, whatever draconian DRM measures are put into place, pirates will inevitably find a way around them. By relaxing its attempts at restricting piracy, especially for the year’s free upgrade program, Windows 10 will receive the positive boost that it and Microsoft both need. The other slice of good news for us hungry PC folk is that with a greater market penetration of DirectX 12-compatible operating systems, we hopefully ought to see game developers taking advantage of the new API’s funky feature set much more quickly.

HIGHLIGHTS this month...

28 Wired2Fire Diablo Reactor

30 Gigabyte P35K V3

34 Schenker XMG P505

By offering Win10 upgrades for free, Microsoft hopes many former pirates will go legit.

44 Kingston HyperX Cloud II M AY 20 15

Hardware

Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan X has maxed out its Maxwell graphics architecture and this is the result, the Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan X. The most powerful consumer GPU we’ve ever seen. Brilliant. That means, once again, we can trot out the familiar ‘fastest graphics card ever’ headline, right? Well… no. There’s actually a bit of a distinction between the fastest single GPU and the fastest graphics card – the two don’t necessarily mean the same thing. But we’ll come to that in a bit. What we do have here is a brand spanking new ‘ultra-enthusiast’, superexpensive graphics card. Think Intel Core i7-5960X Extreme Edition CPU, Apple Watch Edition or Audi R8, and you’ll be on the right path. But where the Audi really needs a racetrack to show its full worth, the Apple Watch Edition needs a millionaire that needs to get out more, and the 5960X needs rare complex number-crunching algorithms to get the most out of it, the Titan X will deliver impressive gaming performance at almost any level. Like all the other Titan cards Nvidia has released over the last three years, this is a card for gamers simply looking to get the best gaming experience possible and hang the fiscal sense of it. But it’s also a card designed more to be an object of desire, an aspirational piece of hardware, than something most of us normal PC gaming folk are likely to buy in our droves. The beating heart of the Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan X is the brand new GM 200 GPU at its core. This is what we mean by the full power of the Maxwell architecture – it’s the biggest GPU core around, packing in 50 per cent more processing tech than the GM 204 silicon in the GTX 980. And the Titan X is housing the full GM 200 core too. With the first Titan card, Nvidia left some of the top Kepler core on the test bench, chopping out a few SMX units here and there, and other chunks

Nvidia

of its full core configuration, to ensure it could hit the yields necessary on its big chip. It took another year for Nvidia to release the GTX Titan Black, rocking the full implementation of the GK 110 GPU. This time around though both Nvidia’s 28nm production process and its Maxwell architecture are mature enough for it to be able to confidently produce such complex 601mm² slices of super-powered silicon with good yields. And boy, is it complex. That massive GPU contains a full 3,072 CUDA cores and around eight billion transistors. Putting that in context, the GTX 980 has almost three billion fewer transistors while AMD’s top GPU, the Hawaii XT, rocks around two billion less.

Core tech Those CUDA cores are split between 24 streaming microprocessors (SMMs), with 192 texture units and an unprecedented 96 render output units (ROPs). But chances are there’s another number which has peaked your interest surrounding the Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan X – that’s the enormous 12GB frame buffer. Running across the same aggregated 384-bit memory bus as the original Titan cards, but including Maxwell’s fancy new memory compression algorithms, its memory configuration is there to provide a welcome level of future proofing to Nvidia’s top consumer GPU. Those 12,288 megabytes of speedy GDDR5 memory might look like overkill now, but back when the first Titan hit the desktop its 6GB frame buffer looked stupidly large. And now we’ve got Shadow of Mordor filling out around 5.7GB with its hi-res texture pack on 4K ultra settings. The chunky frame buffer is also likely one of the reasons the green team has decided to remove double precision processing from this iteration of the GTX Titan. Previous Titans all had full double

Benchmarks Nvidia GTX Titan X

AMD R9 295X2

Nvidia GTX Titan Black

Heaven 4.0 (min/avg fps)

15/27

14/30

13/20

Battlefield 4 (min/avg fps)

31/48

13/60

18/31

Shadow of Mordor (min/avg fps)

38/48

36/57

26/33

Metro: Last Light (min/avg fps)

14/20

12/27

7/14

Peak power draw

373W

681W

361W

Best scored are bolded. All the gaming tests were carried out with ultra settings at 3840 x 2160. Our test bench is a stock-clocked Core i7-4770K in an Asus Maximus Hero Z97 motherboard with 8GB Corsair Dominator DDR3 @2,133MHz.

M AY 20 15

precision floating point calculation enabled at birth, but this is the first to have that prolevel feature blocked. Given the huge frame buffer on the GTX Titan X, we’d guess there was a certain concern it might cannibalise more Quadro sales than in previous iterations. And unsurprisingly, there’s going to be a new GM 200 Quadro launched around the same time as this latest Titan. Nvidia though has also said most of the Titans doing the professional grunt work in institutions were only using single precision floating point calculations anyway. But that lack of DP does make the GTX Titan X a resolutely gaming card rather than a professional level option.

Graphics card

The full might of Nvidia’s Maxwell architecture brought to bear with this titanic new GPU So no, the Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan X can’t call itself the fastest gaming graphics card available right now. That’s all down to the continued impressive performance of AMD’s top-end R9 295X2 card. The AMD Radeon R9 295X2 is still the fastest graphics card in terms of gaming, offering higher average frame rates in the latest titles at 4K resolutions. And if average frame rates were the whole story you could happily conclude that the cheaper AMD card is a much better purchase than this pricey ol’ Titan X. But they’re not. The Radeon is able to achieve its performance with its last-gen, soon-to-be-second-tier GPUs, because it’s using two of them to power one card. It’s a CrossFire setup on a single slice of PCB. That’s impressive, but it introduces a whole host of problems that the resolutely single GPU Titan X doesn’t have to worry about. For a start there’s the power draw. The Titan X only requires a 600W PSU in your PC,

while the R9 295X2 simply wouldn’t cope under such restrictive power offerings. On our test rig, the Radeon draws a hefty 681W under 1600p gaming load, so ideally you’re looking for a 1KW PSU for that monster.

Fastest ever? That energy requirement also means it demands a closed-loop water cooler attached to both AMD GPUs to keep it cool enough to run at its rated speeds. And that takes a whole lot of space. The GTX Titan X, meanwhile, could happily fit into a Mini-ITX chassis without trauma and still deliver a frighteningly powerful micro machine. Then there are the vagaries of multiGPU gaming. In short, it’s tough to trust twin GPUs to always deliver the performance you’ve paid for – we’d always recommend spending your graphics money on the fastest single GPU you can afford. Splitting the cash over two cards might net you some improvements in average frame rates, but often you’ll be sacrificing smooth gaming to that particular god. Multi-GPU setups can suffer from the dreaded micro-stutter. This is where the overall performance seems good, but the reality rings hollow as visible stutters

render the smooth running of your games impossible. You’ll also inevitably come across situations where you’ve picked up a shiny new game on day one, only to find at least one of your GPUs is sat twiddling its thumbs as you wait for the devs to update support for either SLI or CrossFire. Let’s be honest though. Most of you reading this are not going to buy a Titan X. It’s simply too much money to spend on a single component for your average enthusiast. But we’re pretty sure you want one. You definitely should want one. It’s the fastest single GPU card around, offering performance only before seen in monstrously power-hungry dual-GPU cards, but now in an elegant, efficient package. It’s the standard bearer for Nvidia’s Maxwell architecture and shows just how far ahead of AMD its engineering teams are right now. Once they hit the 20nm process, the performance per watt levels of these cards is going to be enormous. So yes, if money’s no object then fill your boots with this powerful, pricey graphics card. But if it is, don’t worry. There will be a more reasonable GM 200-powered card rocking up before the end of the year, we’re sure. –Dave James

verdict

Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan X

Titan Impressive 4K gaming performance; efficient high-end GPU; stays quiet; overclocks like a boss. Small fry Performance level isn’t unprecedented; not taken by the black shroud; prohibitively expensive.

£879, www.nvidia.co.uk

SPECIFICATIONS

This is no mere Titan Black, it’s a black Titan X…

GPU

GM 200

Lithography

28nm

Transistor count

8 billion

Die size

601mm²

SMM units

CUDA cores

3,072

Texture units

192

ROPs

Base clock

1,000MHz

Boost clock

1,075MHz

Memory capacity

12,288MB GDDR5

Memory bus

384-bit

Memory clock

3,505MHz

TDP

250W

M AY 20 15

Hardware

Wired2Fire Diablo Reactor A devilishly good value gaming system for us to be sent a full PC from a system builder which comes ready to game straight out of the box. Traditionally we’ve focused on looking at just the base PC towers themselves, assuming that a good many of our readers might already have a screen, keyboard and mouse that they’d be happy taking along with them to a new gaming rig. But you can get some excellent bundles if you go for the whole hog, as Wired2Fire ably demonstrates. This £1,000 machine packs a powerful, overclocked base unit as well as a 23.6-inch Asus monitor and a CM Storm keyboard/mouse combo. And because this whole lot comes as a one-shot deal you save a fair chunk of cash over what you’d spend on the individual components in a DIY build. We shopped around and putting this setup together yourself would cost an extra £109, not including delivery. That’s not how things have generally fallen in the past and shows just how good value buying a pre-built machine can be these days. You get more choice if you put your own machine together – and it can also be more geekily fun too – but this way you get a rig that’s built, overclocked and tested all before it gets to you. And pre-built systems will also come with a warranty covering the PC as a whole – Wired2Fire’s standard warranty covers parts and labour for two years and then a further year’s worth of labour cover.

It’s actually surprisingly rare

Intel inside Inside the Corsair chassis is an overclocked Devil’s Canyon Core i5-4690K, happily ticking over at 4.5GHz, sat in an Asus Z97 motherboard. Wired2Fire has gone pretty extreme on the memory configuration for the Diablo Reactor though, fitting it out with a pair of 8GB Corsair sticks, both running at 1,600MHz. That overloaded memory setup does, however, throw the storage of this machine into stark relief.

While we applaud the decision to fit it out with an SSD as the boot drive, with the total available storage limited to less than 240GB once the operating system is in place, it’s going to make things rather cramped in the short term. Realistically that’s a compromise made to hit the £1,000 price point for this review machine; we’d recommend fitting a larger HDD in there as a bit of extra storage if you can afford a little more. Or just replace the relatively slow Kingston SSD entirely and make a speedier, larger SSD your first upgrade.

hell Weak storage configuration.

£1,000, www.wired2fire.co.uk

–DAVE JAMES

SPECIFICATIONS Diablo Reactor

Chillblast Assimilator

Scan Performance Q10

CPU

Intel Core i5-4690K @4.5GHz

657

686

687

Motherboard

Asus Z97-P

Memory

16GB Corsair DDR3 @1,600MHz

Graphics

MSI GTX 970

Storage

240GB Kingston V300 SSD

Screen

Asus VS247HR

Peripherals

CM Storm Devastator

Windows 8.1

Warranty

Two years parts & labour + one year labour

Bioshock Infinite (min/avg fps)

19/114

23/112

25/116

GRID 2 (min/avg fps)

107/136

104/128

106/137

Battlefield 4 (min/avg fps)

90/111

87/103

85/108

Metro: Last Light (min/avg fps)

10/51

13/47

11/50

Price

£1,000

£1,135

£1,250

M AY 20 15

heaven Great value; full system; incredible 1080p gaming performance; easily upgradable.

Looking after the graphical goodness is an MSI GTX 970 and when you’re gaming on the 1080p Asus VS247HR screen that comes with the Diablo Reactor you’ll be getting some outstanding gaming performance. At 1080p this thing averages out at 111fps in Battlefield 4 at Ultra settings and rattles through the taxing, tessellated Metro: Last Light at 51fps. You’ll feel an absolute boss gaming at those speeds, which will likely shield you from those pangs of buyer’s remorse we often get. It’s not an amazing panel. We noticed a touch of ghosting on the TN screen in BF4, but it’s not a deal-breaker. And besides, at this price you’re almost getting the monitor for free. The keyboard and mouse combo are likewise not top of the range, but they’re a country mile from the sort of flimsy tat we’re used to getting in bundles. The keyboard is backlit and the optical mouse is accurate with a decent mouse pad. In all, the Diablo Reactor is a great bundle and will have you gaming at breakneck speeds at the highest settings. If you do fancy a panel upgrade down the line, the GTX 970 will happily drive a 1440p screen at pretty high levels of graphical fidelity too. We’d switch the SSD to get a little more space, but that’s pretty much it.

Best scores are bolded. All our gaming benchmarks were done at ultra settings with 4x anti-aliasing and at 1920 x 1080.

Wired2Fire Diablo Reactor

1080p stunner

Benchmarks

Cinebench R15 (index)

verdict

Gaming PC

The Corsair Spec03 is a quality little chassis.

M AY 20 15

Hardware

Gigabyte P35K V3

Is this the gaming laptop with it all? of laptops is a fine art. Give your pet too much and its innards can burst out of its shell wherever there’s a gap, like an obese tortoise. Alternatively, you can reduce the size of those innards to fit a smaller shell, and with that in mind, Gigabyte has chosen Nvidia’s newest lower-end GPU, the Maxwell-class GTX 965M, to match this surprisingly svelte casing. Just because it’s lower-end, however, doesn’t mean it’s a clunker, and we got some delightful scores out of in our benchmark tests.

The feeding and care

Trackpad terror The hardware is nothing unusual, with a Haswell Core i7 and 8GB of RAM backed up by a 128GB SSD and a 1TB spinner for storage. You get four USB ports, an SD card slot, Ethernet, one of those DVD drive things our parents used to use (you can swap this for another SSD or leave it empty to save weight, it pops out easily) and fancy 802.11ac Wi-Fi. There are virtual surround speakers, while external monitor enthusiasts are particularly well-catered for with VGA, HDMI and 4K-friendly Mini DisplayPort lined up on the right-hand side of a case that’s 0.8-inch thick with the screen closed. The full-size keyboard isn’t awful for a change. Although the keys don’t have much travel, they are at least decently sized,

but the accompanying trackpad feels like something the New York Rangers might like to play on. It’s about as flexible as the frozen corpse of Margaret Thatcher, rightclicking when we wanted left and failing to register our double taps on many occasions unless we used the virtual buttons marked out on its lower quadrant. Even these proved unsatisfactory, the right-hand one in particular feeling as if it might snap if we pressed hard enough. This is a gaming laptop, and Real Gamers use Real Mice, so perhaps for its intended audience this won’t be too much of a problem. The inclusion of an IPS panel is another nod towards gaming, and it’s certainly sharp, colourful and bright, with a wide viewing angle for those who like to see what the person next to them on a train is playing. Plain black all over with a white backlight under the keyboard, the rest of the P35K’s casing falls on the wrong side of that fine line between classy and dull. A smaller case means less room for cooling, and while the P35K copes well, piping the heat out to a pair of fans in the corners of the unit, concerns were raised about its cooling efficiency when, after about an hour’s play, and our fifth death at the hands of the first Captain, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor’s ultrasettings frame rate took a massive tumble. This could be taken as evidence of GPU

Gigabyte P35K V3

P35K V1

XMG P505

Cinebench R15

658

625

676

X264 v4.0 (fps)

38.93

35.60

41.14

Heaven 4.0 @1080p (min/avg fps)

7/27

6/16

17/54

Bioshock Infinite @1080p (min/avg fps)

13/52

7/30

8/80

GRID 2 @1080p (min/avg fps)

45/56

28/37

62/73

Price at launch

£1,050

£1,200

£1,676

Best scores are bolded. All the 3D tests were carried out at their max settings with 4x anti-aliasing.

M AY 20 15

take away The supplied software isn’t too intrusive, though some rather amusing translation work is on show (yes, “Make it Now!” is exactly what we’d like you to do, annoying backup program). We appreciate the shutdown button placed on the Windows 8 Taskbar, however. If you’re looking for a gaming laptop, the P35K should receive some serious consideration. Its combination of screen, core tech and connectivity tick almost every box, and its slender dimensions actually make it genuinely portable. It’s a rich mixture of power and usability, only let down by a terrible trackpad. –Ian Evenden

verdict

Gigabyte P35K V3 Gigglebyte Slim chassis; powerful innards; good screen.

Nigglebyte Dreadful trackpad; looks a bit boring; questionable cooling capacity.

£1,050 www.gigabyte.com

SPECIFICATIONS

Benchmarks

throttling, or perhaps of the game’s disdain for our skills. Either way, the GPU certainly supports dynamic clockspeed changes, and can be switched off in favour of the integrated Intel HD chip to save power in less demanding situations.

CPU

Intel Core i7-4720HQ @2.6GHz, turbo to 3.6GHz

RAM

8GB of DDR3L, 1,600MHz

Chipset

Mobile Intel HM87 Express

GPU

Nvidia GeForce GTX 965M (4GB of GDDR5)

Storage

128GB SSD, 1TB 7,200rpm HDD. Additional swappable drive bay

Gaming laptop

It may be less than an inch thick, but this laptop still feels huge on your lap.

M AY 20 15

Hardware

The versatile Clevo chassis allows for a seriously stacked system spec.

M AY 20 15

Gaming laptop

Schenker XMG P505

Hi-res hijinks with the latest XMG gaming laptop Beefy graphics tied to a sexy screen.

That’s the combo you’re chasing when looking for a quality laptop. And Schenker’s P505 is aiming to give you both barrels. The importance of the CPU has diminished in recent times, as performance has barely shifted from generation to generation, and so the rise of screen tech has taken over. That’s one of the places where the latest Clevo design really excels. The P651SG chassis used for the P505 allows system integrators such as Schenker to offer multiple different configurations, with not only different processors and graphics, but also three different choices of IPS screen. The XMG spec we’ve got on test here is the ‘3K’ version, rocking a 2880 x 1620 IPS panel, but there’s also 1080p and 4K displays on offer too. To make sure you’ve got enough graphical oomph to power this highresolution panel, you’ll find Nvidia’s GTX 980M inside, in 4GB trim. Making sure that’s kept running at its best, it’s backed up by an Intel Core i7-4720HQ CPU – a proper quad-core/octo-thread beastie; along with 8GB of DDR3 running at 1,866MHz.

Speedy storage In terms of storage the P505 isn’t pulling any punches either, offering Samsung’s XP941 M.2 SSD as the 256GB OS drive. It’s the fastest PCIe solid-state drive we’ve tested so far and means you’re not going to be left too far behind when the nextgeneration NVMe drives tip up later in the year. And if you’re worried about a lack

of space, there’s also a full 1TB 7,200rpm drive taking care of the data duties. All that top tech means that you’re getting great gaming performance out of this 15.6-inch laptop and with the GTX 980M you’re also comfortably able to get a decent frame rate at this screen’s native resolution too. Given the tight pixel pitch of the screen though you won’t lose much in the way of graphical fidelity if you run your games at a lower resolution, so long as you keep the same aspect ratio. Running the P505 at 1080p will net you fantastic gaming speeds and you can still enjoy the extra desktop real estate when you’re doing anything outside of a 3D game world. At the screen’s native resolution text and icons in Windows are probably a little too small for comfortable use on this size of panel. However run it at 125 per cent scaling and things aren’t thrown too out of whack. It still delivers a lot more desktop space than a 1080p display. But we can’t resist comparing this Schenker machine to Asus’s excellent G751JY, which we checked out last issue. That’s still the gaming laptop benchmark right now and all others are going to keep getting measured against it until someone manages to top its combination of fantastic gaming prowess and cool ‘n’ quiet running. And this is where having a chassis designed to facilitate a very specific spec will often outperform the more generalist designs Clevo produces to satisfy the multiple configurations its partners demand. The G751JY’s chassis is much

chunkier than this XMG machine, but that means it stays much cooler and much quieter. And, thanks to the way Nvidia’s GPUs are now configured to turbo against temperature constraints, that means a GTX 980M inside a cooler chassis will outperform a toastier one.

challenging the champ So it falls between the Asus and XMG machines. The G751JY is quicker out of the blocks in terms of games, even when outputting to a higher resolution 2560 x 1600 screen. You don’t get the 3K panel in the Asus though, but its 1080p panel has a higher refresh rate. The P505 also has a relatively weak battery, only a 60Wh option where the Asus is rocking an 88Wh option. That said, this XMG configuration is a good chunk cheaper than the G751JY, even with that hi-res panel. Performance may not be quite as good, and it might not be as quiet as the chunkier Asus machine, but the P505 is still a very impressive gaming notebook and shows just how much progress Clevo is making with its latest designs. –Dave James

verdict

Schenker XMG P505

Xtreme Crisp, hi-res panel; quality graphics; good nativeres gaming; nice chassis. Xtinct A little loud in-game; cooling holds back GPU; weak battery.

£1,676 (as configured), mysn.co.uk

SPECIFICATIONS

Benchmarks XMG P505

Asus G751JY

Cinebench R15

676

674

X264 v4.0 (fps)

Heaven 4.0 (min/avg fps)

17/54

27/56

Bioshock Infinite (min/avg fps)

8/80

15/95

Metro: Last Light (min/avg fps)

13/39

23/42

Shadow of Mordor (min/avg fps)

43/66

34/69

Best scores are bolded. The 3D benchmarks were all tested at the peak settings, with 4x AA, all at 1920 x 1080.

Screen size

15.6-inch

Native resolution

2880 x 1620

CPU

Intel Core i7-4720HQ @ 3.4GHz

GPU

Nvidia GTX 980M

Memory

8GB DDR3

Storage

256GB Samsung XP941 SSD, 1TB HGST HDD

Windows 8.1 64-bit

Warranty

Two-year collect and return

M AY 20 15

Hardware

Crucial MX200 500GB

All set to take over from the MX100 and M550 Rolled out at the same time as the budget-minded BX100, the MX200 is Crucial’s latest drive for the mainstream market, but can be seen as a replacement for both the MX100 and M550 drives. There’s no 120GB version of the MX200, so this 500GB unit sits between the entry level 250GB drive and the flagship 1TB monster. As well as the standard 2.5-inch 7mm format, the two smallest capacity drives are also available in the mSATA format and two M.2 versions – 2260 and 2280. Crucial quotes sequential read/ write figures for the whole MX200 family, including mSATA and M.2, of up to 555MB/s and 500MB/s respectively. The 250GB 2.5inch drive, and all the M.2 and mSATA drives, get a performance boost from Crucial’s Dynamic Write Acceleration (DWA) technology. In a nutshell, DWA takes a portion of the MLC NAND and treats it like SLC NAND to cache write IOs which are then written to the MLC NAND during the quieter periods of drive use.

Feature rich The new drive uses the same Marvell 88SS9189 controller as the MX100, and the same 16nm Micron NAND for that matter, but with more dies per package. For example, the 512MB MX100 used 16 NAND packages with two dies per package, whereas the 500GB MX200 uses eight packages with four dies per package to get to the same 512GB capacity. There’s also 256MB of DDR3 cache on the PCB. Unlike the BX100, the MX200 comes loaded to the gills with features and, just like its predecessors the M500, M550 and MX100, there’s a fair few that were once the sole domain of enterprise drives:

RAIN (Redundant Array Of Independent NAND), Thermal Protection, Exclusive Data Defense (which provides protection against corrupt files), Data Path Protection and data-at-rest power loss protection, which protects existing data from being corrupted due to the system losing power. Hardware encryption is supported in the shape of AES 256-bit and there’s also support for TCG Opel 2.0 and IEEE-1667 so the drive is compatible with Microsoft’s eDrive.

staying power As this is the second generation of drives with the Marvell controller and the 16nm Micron NAND combination, Crucial has really got to grips with the firmware and with improvements in the write technologies. This has given the MX200 some serious endurance figures. Endurance for the 500GB drive is rated at 160TB TBW (total bytes written), which works out at 87GB a day for five years. That’s a huge increase over the 72TB TBW of the 512GB MX100. While Crucial gives figures for five years though, the drive only comes with a three-year warranty and has a MTTF of 1.5 million hours. Performance-wise, the MX200 is pretty much in the same ballpark as its MX100 predecessor when it comes to sequential read/write performance. The MX200 scores 539MB/s and 510MB/s in the ATTO benchmark compared to the 535MB/s and 512MB/s read/write of the MX100. In the AS SSD sequential test the MX100 outperforms the MX200, particularly when it comes to reads with the review drive scoring 468MB/s as compared to the MX100’s 508MB/s.

verdict

Crucial MX200 500GB

Solid Impressive 4K write performance; decent price; incredible endurance. Liquid Not a great overall improvement over MX100, nor as cheap.

£173, www.crucial.com

SPECIFICATIONS

Benchmarks Crucial MX200

Crucial MX100

Capacity

500GB

NAND type

Micron 16nm 128Gb MLC

Controller

Marvell 88SS9189

AS SSD read (MB/s)

468

508

AS SSD write (MB/s)

459

469

4K read (MB/s)

25.06

24.81

4K write (MB/s)

90.27

56.40

Cache

256MB DDR3

60GB transfer (secs)

721

956

4,465

4,299

Quoted sequential read speed

Up to 555MB/s

PCMark 8 Consistency

Quoted sequential write speed

Up to 500MB/s

Best scores are bolded. The test rig is a stock-clocked Intel Core i7-3770K, in an Asus P8Z77 WS motherboard, with 8GB DDR3 @1,866MHz.

However, when it comes to dealing with the small bitty files of everyday use, the two drives perform pretty much the same when it comes to read performance. This is ably shown by the 4K read test in the AS SSD benchmark. The MX200 produces a result of 25.06MB/s compared to the 24.81MB/s of the MX100. But Crucial’s tinkering with the write technologies in the firmware to increase endurance has had the additional benefit of giving a real boost to the MX200’s write performance. The 4K write test in AS SSD has the drive scoring 90.27MB/s compared to the 56.40MB/s of the MX100. The new drive also shaves very nearly four minutes off the time it takes to copy a 60GB Steam folder. While the endurance of the drive may have almost doubled over the MX100, the 500GB MX200 doesn’t perform quite as well as the 512MB version of the MX100 in the PCM08 Consistency test. With an overall best score of 4,758, it falls a fair deal behind the 4,974 of the MX100. The MX200 certainly has hard acts to follow in the M550 and MX100, but if it’s anywhere near as popular, Crucial will have a real winner on its hands, particularly with the massive increase in its endurance over the previous generation(s) of drives. –Simon Crisp

M AY 20 15

Hardware

Crucial BX100 1TB

The flagship of Crucial’s new budget-oriented BX100 range

The last time Crucial launched an SSD, the extremely popular MX100 series, it pretty much decimated the market in terms of pricing. And now it’s back to pick over the bones with a drive very much aimed at the budget end of the market, the MX100’s lovechild, the BX100. A quick glance at the price tag of this flagship 1TB drive makes you stop and think. Could anyone 18 months ago have predicted a 1TB SSD drive for a smidge under £300? The market has certainly come a very long way in a very short time. At roughly £40 or so cheaper than Samsung’s latest 1TB 850 EVO, the BX100 1TB is the cheapest 1TB class drive currently available (at time of writing). Admittedly the 850 EVO does have better quoted read speeds and much better write speeds than the BX100, but then even Crucial admits (which must be a first for a manufacturer) that the BX series isn’t the fastest drive available on the market. Instead, the company claims to have aimed for a more balanced approach of performance and value.

meet the family The 1TB drive is joined by 120GB, 250GB and 500GB capacities, all with quoted 535MB/s sequential read speeds. Sequential write speeds are a different matter. The 500GB and 1TB models are both rated at 450GB/s, while the 250GB drive manages 370GB/s and the 120GB drive scrapes in with a lowly 185GB/s.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the BX100 series is the choice of controller. Gone is the usual Crucial first choice of a Marvell chip. In its place is a four-channel Silicon Motion SM2246EN. It’s the first time this controller has seen the light of day in a Crucial drive. Alongside the controller in the 1TB drive are 16 16nm Micron 128Gb NAND packages (eight per side) together with 512MB of DDR3 cache (in two 256MB chips). As befitting its budget status, the BX100 range doesn’t come with any hardwarebased encryption, or indeed any of the other fancy bits and bobs that previous drives had. And, although it can monitor its internal temperatures, it doesn’t have the thermal throttling technologies of previous drives either.

Compare and contrast So how does that Silicon Motion controller do against the more familiar Marvel chip in the M550 1TB drive and indeed Samsung’s own controller in the 1TB 850 EVO? Unfortunately we can’t compare it directly against the MX100 as Crucial never produced a mega capacity MX100, limiting it to 512GB max. It has be said it holds up pretty well. In the ATTO benchmark it keeps pace with the 850 EVO and the M550 when it comes to sequential reads, but its Achilles’ heel shows up in the ATTO sequential write test. Here it lags behind both the Samsung and the M550. It’s the same story in

Benchmarks Crucial BX100

Samsung 850 EVO

Crucial M550

AS SSD read (MB/s)

499

510

507

AS SSD write (MB/s)

419

496

480

4K read (MB/s)

4K write (MB/s)

60GB transfer (secs)

898

857

931

PCMark 8 Consistency

4,450

4,691

4,227

M AY 20 15

verdict

Crucial BX100 1TB century Decent performance; good price.

golden duck Lacking features; middling performance.

£282, www.crucial.com

SPECIFICATIONS

Best scores are bolded. The test rig is a stock-clocked Intel Core i7-3770K, in an Asus P8Z77 WS motherboard, with 8GB DDR3 @1,866MHz.

the sequential write test of the AS SSD benchmark with the BX100 lagging behind the other two. However, when it comes to the AS SSD 4K (the small bitty files of everyday use) write test, the roles are reversed with the BX100 coming out the clear winner. Doing some real life testing, timing how long it takes to copy a 60GB Steam folder (29,521 files), the two Crucial drives are fairly close together, but both are left behind by Samsung’s drive. Crucial may claim it’s not the fastest drive around, but for the market it’s aimed at, its overall performance isn’t to be scoffed at. The same can be said for its performance in PCM08’s Consistency test. Its overall best score of 4,913 is pretty good for a drive aimed at the lower end of the market. The BX100 has decent endurance for a drive aimed at the budget end of the market too, being rated at 72TB of drive writes for the length of its three-year warranty. In the end with the BX100 then, Crucial has delivered yet another very good drive at a price point that will make the competition wince. –Simon Crisp

Capacity

1TB

NAND type

Micron 16nm 128Gb MLC

Controller

Silicon Motion SM2246EN

Cache

512MB DDR3

Quoted sequential read speed

Up to 535MB/s

Quoted sequential write speed

Up to 450MB/s

Hardware

Vibox Defcon 2

Careful component selection can make all the difference and pricey gaming rigs we go weak at the knees for, we also like a bit of a bargain here at PC Format. In an ideal world your hobby would be a money-no-object business, but like it or not, value is important. When you’re talking about performance PCs we’re often thinking about even a relatively modest gaming machine costing about a grand. So it’s always nice when a system integrator uses a little bit of nous and some smart component compromises to max gaming grunt without burning a hole in your wallet. And through your pocket. And into your soft leg flesh. Vibox is a fairly small-scale PC builder, but with its Defcon 2 PC it looks to have built a £630 machine that’s got high-end 1080p gaming performance licked. It gives a damned good account of itself rocking the beefier 2560 x 1600 resolution too. What gives it that performance is the graphics card at the heart of the Defcon 2. Vibox has opted for the mid-range GPU de jour in the Nvidia GTX 960, represented here by MSI’s Gaming edition. It’s the same card we saw last month in the Chillblast Fusion Mantis, a gaming rig costing £200 more than the Defcon 2. And, because gaming is all about the power of your GPU (past a certain hardware point), we’re seeing almost identical performance. For all the $1,000 Titan X’s

What voodoo? How has Vibox managed such a feat? Mainly by compromising in the right places. That’s clearest in the choice of CPU and motherboard. It’s eschewed overclocking for gaming performance and opted for the Core i5-4590. It’s a non K-series chip and so bang goes any hope of

tweaking the clocks, but you get a 3.5GHz clockspeed when all four cores are being taxed. It’s a bona fide Haswell quad-core. Because it’s not one for the OC crowd, Vibox could pick a lesser mobo, the MSI Z97 Mate. This saves a healthy chunk of cash and means that, in gaming terms at least, you’re not losing out on performance. Looking at the straight CPU tests, you can see where the standard Core i5 loses out to an overclocked K-series. But a GTX 960 isn’t powerful enough to end up being CPU bottlenecked in-game, so the i5-4590 is a perfectly capable chip partner for it. The result is a machine that’s healthy right now, but shows weakness in terms of future-proofing. The 2GB frame buffer on the GTX 960 will be a limiting factor as game engines demand more VRAM, while higher-end GPUs really benefit from the beefed-up single core performance of

Deterrent Great price; quality 1080p gaming performance; seriously red. Apocalypse Lack of future-proofing; quite loud front fan; single channel DDR3.

£630, www.vibox.co.uk

Intel Core i5-4590 @3.3GHz

640

Motherboard

MSI 97 PC Mate

Memory

8GB DDR3 @ 1,600MHz

Graphics

MSI GTX 960 4G Gaming

Storage

1TB HDD

Warranty

One-year parts & labour (90-day collect & return)

Chillblast Fusion Mantis

526

X264 v4.0 (fps)

35.58

43.48

Heaven 4.0 @1600p (min/avg fps)

6/20

Bioshock Infinite @ 1080p (min/avg fps)

11/73

22/73

GRID 2 @ 1080p (min/avg fps)

69/89

68/89

Battlefield 4 @ 1080p (min/avg fps)

55/69

58/69

M AY 20 15

Vibox Defcon 2 - Red

CPU

Vibox Defcon 2 - Red

Best scores are bolded. The 3D benchmarks were run at max settings with 4x anti-aliasing in place.

verdict

SPECIFICATIONS

Benchmarks

Cinebench R15

an overclocked CPU. We’re disappointed by the single stick of DDR3 RAM, as it effectively halves the memory bandwidth of this dual-channel capable motherboard. The single year warranty is more evidence of this rig’s budget leanings as well. Such criticisms are balanced by the price, and when you’re games are up and running, in gloriously smooth frame rates, such upgrade concerns will be the farthest thing from your mind. –Dave James

Router

TP-Link Archer D9 AC1900 ADSL2+ Bowman aims high to empty quiver of, er, data arrows established itself as the ‘premium economy’ of network kit providers. It eschews shiny aesthetics in favour of stuff that’s cheap, yet functional and reliable. The Archer D9, TP-Link’s flagship router, offers 802.11ac wireless, providing a theoretical maximum bandwidth of 1,900Mb/s (600Mb/s over the 2.4GHz band and 1,300Mb/s over 5GHz). It comes with four gigabit ports, two USB ports (one of which is USB 3.0) and is powered by a 1GHz dual core CPU. Impressive stuff, almost beyond the purview of TP-Link, you’d be forgiven for thinking. The Archer’s predecessor, the D7, was uncharacteristically stylish and sleek. This one, by contrast, wears its cheap plastic uniform with honour: the featureless front, the faux-metal bezel and especially the three chunky aerials reaching skyward with the visual appeal of a faceless industrial facility. Dual band routers take advantage of the clean 5GHz band in addition to the noisy 2.4GHz one used by 802.11b/g. Using multiple aerials allows for multiple 5GHz streams to be sent to many devices, with each stream having a theoretical max bandwidth of 433Mb/s. Since the Archer is capable of sending one 5GHz stream per aerial, the numbers add up. Higher frequency generally means lower range, but 802.11ac has another trick up its sleeve – beamforming.

TP-Link has recently

If the price is right Signals aren’t sent isotropically, but are directed at devices. Power saved by not sending 5GHz radiation in the wrong direction is used to offset the inherent range drop. Each connection is mapped over a single band, so a single connection will never exceed 1.3Gb/s. You may wish to separate the bands into distinct access points, so that newer 5GHz kit operates only on the clean band. Initial setup can be done by the provided mini-CD, or by navigating to the default address. When you dive into the web administration interface of the Archer,

you’ll see its philosophy in full effect: a haphazard array of all manner of technical options framed in the most parsimonious of HTML, offering little support to the lost. Networking gurus will feel at home here, with easy access to advanced features such as VPNs, VLANs and a stateful firewall. Parents will be reassured they can control access based on device, time or whitelists, although other routers will do this in a more usercentric manner. People with visitors can set up a guest network on either band and impose draconian bandwidth limits. The USB 3.0 port means you can set up a speedy fileserver too (FTP, Samba or DLNA), so everyone ought to be happy... Well, maybe not. If you expected gigabit downloads, prepare to be disappointed. We barely managed 300Mb/s, even with the router next to the machine. Moving 5m further away saw this plummet to 200Mb/s. Throw a few obstacles in the way and the resultant throughput is much worse. That said, the router’s beamforming does a better job of penetrating the lead-lined walls of Future Towers than many other routers, and overall speeds are in line with its peers. And, if you’re downloading over ADSL2+, the bottleneck will very likely be the 25Mb/s limit there. If rapid local transfers matter, get a range extender, or some Powerline adaptors, or patch cable.

The Archer D9’s official RRP is £169, which is a fair bit cheaper than most comparably featured routers, and a good deal cheaper than top-of-the-line models. Recently, however, many retailers are offering it for as little as £60, at which price it’s a steal. –Jonni Bidwell

verdict

TP-Link Archer D9

Robin Hood Great price; performance in line with more expensive rival models. Men in tights Lacking in aesthetics; dated web interface will confuse newbies.

£60, uk.tp-link.com

SPECIFICATIONS Frequency Band

2.4GHz, 5GHz

Total Bandwidth

1.9Gb/s

Processor

Dual core 1GHz

Connectivity

4x Gb LAN/1x USB3 /1x USB2 supports ADSL2+ and VDSL connections

Features

IPv6 support, QoS, Dynamic DNS, VPN, SPI

Dimensions

221 x 86 x 169mm

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Hardware

Thermaltake Core X2 Big is apparently the new small when it comes to case design

Thermaltake’s new Core X2 case is a rather absurd beast. It’s been designed to house small form factor motherboards of the micro-ATX and MiniITX variety and yet is itself most definitely not what you’d call small. It’s wider than the Cosmos Ultra chassis that’s home to one of our review rigs, and almost as tall. Given that we’ve long been extolling the performance virtues of today’s mini motherboards, is its size really an issue? You’re not sacrificing any component speed by opting for either mATX or MiniITX, and with the squared-off mATX design you’re not even having to really sacrifice anything on the feature side either. You’re still getting the full compliment of storage options, back panel configurations plus you still get access to dual-GPU solutions too, if that’s your bag. So, flipping it around, why would most of us need full ATX motherboards or chassis anymore?

On the face of it,

No sacrifice We built the Core X2 up with a powerful X99 mATX motherboard from ASRock and it was a joy to work with. The removable motherboard mounting plate allows you to get board and cooler in place with the absolute minimum of fuss and means you can fit both the PSU and storage drives in first with unprecedented access to both. And both drive cages, situated vertically and horizontally beneath the motherboard, are removable too, as are the 5.25-inch drive bays. This means you can configure the Core X2 with a huge amount of space inside for good airflow. And, while we’re talking cooling, the mounting points for fans and liquid chip chillers are manifold. Should you feel the need you could fit three 360mm radiators in this thing. Name us a standard ATX chassis where that’s possible. We’d wager there aren’t many. Targeting airflow may be a slight issue though given the entire case is vented, aside from that large Perspex sidepanel. Every other surface is peppered with cutouts and backed by magnetically attached dust filters. So yeah, this probably isn’t going to be the case you decide to build your ultra-silent rig into…

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That lends the Core X2 an industrial aesthetic, most definitely leaning on the function-over-form side of chassis design. The cuboid stylings are unlikely to get anyone’s juices a-flowing, but the Core X2 isn’t about being showy or about being cute and ickle. This is a chassis that’s all about building powerful, cool-running PCs into it. Its size, combined with the support of small form factor motherboards, is what allows this to be possible.

access all areas And you’ve also got to factor in Thermaltake’s attention to detail when putting this case together. Its steel frame is matte black throughout and there are no sharp edges to catch either your fingers or erode vital cables over time. With all sides being easily removable it also means you can get at every part of your PC, during or after the build process, without having to contort into strange positions. But it ain’t small, so if you’ve got your heart set on a Mini-ITX board and want to build a wee gaming rig then the Core X2 is not for you. If you’re serious about putting together a well-featured, overclocked

system, sporting a powerful mATX motherboard, then this latest Thermaltake chassis is going to be a great case to build that into. It may seem a trifle oxymoronic at first, but this massive SFF case makes for a quality setup. –dave james

verdict

Thermaltake Core X2

PROFESSOR Xavier Versatile; easy to build; accessible; great cooling options. magneto Pricey; not one for the small builds; uninspiring looks.

£109, www.thermaltake.com

SPECIFICATIONS Form factor

mATX, Mini-ITX

Dimensions

465 x 320 x 541mm

Fan(s)

2x 120mm front and rear

Drive bays

3x 5.25in, 4x 3.5in/2.5in, 3x 2.5in

Expansion slots

Max. graphics card length

330mm (480mm without 5.25in bay)

Headset

Gigabyte Force H3X

A stylish headset that manages a surprising amount of power for not much money

The 50mm drivers powering the Force H3X make it a bit of a beast in the audio stakes, but your listening experience is anything but traumatic as a result. Don’t underestimate the power of the Force H3X, is what we’re trying to say. Okay, we’re done with the force puns. But seriously, for £60, this is a really well-rounded package from Gigabyte. Visually, these cans desperately want to be Batman’s earmuffs. And they’re all the better for it. No garish lights nor aggressive branding here, just a discreet Gigabyte logo on each of the foldable earcups. All contact points are padded generously and finished with a leather effect around the cups, while the exterior boasts a dapper mirrored detail. That motif is repeated on the basic but functional inline remote, which features a volume slider and mic on/off toggle switch. There’s a bit of creakiness and rattle when adjusting to fit, which reminds us of its budget pricing, as does its basic rubberised cabling (braided cables are de rigueur on almost all headsets now). But those minor points aside, Gigabyte’s been smart with the Force H3X’s visual design to make it look and feel more expensive than it is. You even get a cleaning cloth and a carry case.

sharp shooter It’s a success by a much narrower margin in audio quality. Two beefy 50mm drivers power this stereo headset, so it certainly isn’t wanting for low-end. The H3X absolutely threw out bass during our testing playlist (largely brostep, some smooth jazz, as regular readers will remember) with impressive, er, force. High-end frequencies are well voiced too – we wouldn’t quite say they ‘sparkle’ the way pricier gaming headsets and audiophile-centric headphones manage, but the details aren’t lost. However, in order to achieve that balance, there’s a noticeable lack of warmth indicative of a ‘scooped’ EQ – in other words, boosted high and low-end frequencies and a dip in the mid-range. This hardwired EQ can lead to compressed

audio – from music streaming services, say, or YouTube videos, sounding even more lossy than they actually are, and ultimately affects the versatility of this headset. As is so often the case, it’s designed to sound great for shooters, but you’ll notice the lack of warmth while gathering ram hides in Dragon Age: Inquisition, say. Since we’re talking negatives, we really have to call out the mic on this model. It’s a retractable affair designed to keep the overall design looking fussfree, and that it does. However, it’s a nightmare to actually pull out and push back in again. We felt sure we’d broken the thing every time we touched it, and had to use a worrying amount of brute force (sorry) to stow it away. We found the mic quality reasonable, but prone to scratchiness when moving the adjustable arm, and given the roughness it requires to operate, we’d bet on that scratchiness increasing over time. Budget peripherals always ask you to make a compromise somewhere, and in the Force H3X’s case it’s the mic. How much of a biggie that is, comes down to

you. Given its considerable pros in build quality elsewhere, plus design and sound quality, it’s certainly worth keeping this one in mind if you don’t use VOIP much. And if the Dark Knight is your style icon, this is pretty much a done deal anyway. –Phil Iwaniuk

verdict

Gigabyte Force H3X

Unleashed Strong bass response and high end will liven up shooters. Unbalanced Lacking mid-range; the retractable mic is beyond fiddly.

£60, gigabyte.com

SPECIFICATIONS Frequency response range

20Hz – 20KHz

Weight

310g

Cable length

Driver size

50mm

Connection type

2x 3.5mm

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Hardware

Kingston HyperX Cloud II

King of cans, back with 7.1 surround how much we love Kingston’s luxuriant HyperX Cloud headset? Right. All the bloody time. It’s a rare combination of audio and ergonomic engineering working in perfect harmony, the closed-cup memory foam pads naturally amplifying the low-end frequencies emitted by the 53mm driver. Sure, the Kingston model is little more than a revision of QPAD’s QH-90 headset with more bass and more branding, but the results are so good we can let all that go. But this is where it all gets a bit complicated. The HyperX Cloud II is a revision on that revision, updating the visuals (read: adding some red bits), refining the inline remote and importantly adding virtual 7.1 surround sound. Crucially, all the things we liked about the original model are still present and correct (red bits notwithstanding). They just come with extra bells and whistles now.

Did we ever mention

Going virtual We won’t linger too long on the visuals as any peripheral’s appeal on those terms is subjective. Let’s just trumpet two things, though. One: it’s free of any tribal patterns, baffling ancient Greek mythos, or autographs from pro gamers you’ve never heard of – thank you, Kingston. Two: its construction quality is immediately apparent, and well-built never goes out of fashion. As with the original model, you get a choice of leather or velvet swappable earpads, and an adaptor for use on planes. Nice touch. The mic isn’t retractable, and its bulky pop shield might annoy you if you like your peripheral vision absolutely clear, but the tradeoff is remarkable mic fidelity. Some are even purporting greater clarity than in the original model, though we don’t hear much of a difference. The heart of the matter lies in the HyperX Cloud II’s surround capabilities, though. Rather than jam each earcup full of individual drivers like some manufacturers, Kingston opts for an inline soundcard offering virtual 7.1 surround. And honestly, it’s via virtual surround that we’ve heard the most immersive and convincing results in the past 12 months. The surround effect on this model can even be toggled on or off at the push of a button on that inline remote, which is handy if you’re trying to perceive the exact effect it’s having. How’s it sound? Well, you’ll want to stick to a stereo output for music,

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since there is a perceptible dip in fidelity with surround enabled, that slightly wooly ‘digitised’ sound which comes with all virtual surround headsets. But if you want to lose yourself in a movie’s surround mix or feel the war shaking your bones in a shooter, it does the job.

Into Hyperdrive And that’s largely down to the original construction and driver quality. Call it splitting hairs, but this isn’t the most impressive virtual surround tech we’ve heard – Turtle Beach and Creative are ahead of the curve when it comes to playing tricks on your ears, and this model doesn’t quite compete on that level. However, combined with the existing lowend power and clarity further up the EQ, it makes for, once again, just about the best overall package out there. The on/off button is the icing on the cake, giving you the meaty stereo mix you loved about the first model with one press, and something slightly lossier but more cinematic and silly with another press. Surround sound is the only meaningful difference between Kingston’s two HyperX Cloud models, so it’s important to make it clear that owners of the original model needn’t lose sleep about not having this headset. However, if you’ve been holding out this long, your eventual purchase just became inevitable with the new model’s arrival. Sorry. –Phil Iwaniuk

verdict

Kingston HyperX Cloud II Cloud nine Original benefits intact; solid surround.

Storm cloud Bulky mic (if we’re being

really picky). £90 (TBC), www.kingston.com

SPECIFICATIONS Frequency response

15Hz – 25KHz

Weight

320g

Cable length

1m + 2m extension

Connection type

Single mini stereo jack plug (3.5 mm)

Mic

Condenser (back electret)

You’re in for a tough game of spot the difference between this model and its predecessor.

Headset

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Rig builder

BY DAVE JAMES

Build Your Perfect PC Whether you’re upgrading your PC or starting anew, this is the best kit One of the joys of owning a PC is that you

can upgrade it as you go. Need higher frame rates in games? Drop in a newer graphics card. Want more power elsewhere? Grab a new processor or go for that old favourite: the memory boost. There’s a wealth of upgrades that can transform your machine, plus you can change slowly over time to suit your budget, so you rarely have to suffer a sluggish rig for long. Every now and then, the best possible upgrade is to dump your current rig and start afresh by building a whole new machine from scratch. What sort of machine should you build, though? Which items are important? Which work well together? How much should you be budgeting for? That’s a lot of questions, and getting the right answers means having to go and research all the current trends in order to make the best decision. Before you

do that, though, take a look at our guide. You’ll discover that we’ve taken the hard work out of the equation and presented you with three machines that fit three different budgets. Our budget PC will get you gaming at 1080p for a bargain price, our mainstream machine will cope with pretty much anything at 1440p, and our high-end rig will do pretty much whatever it wants… On these pages are our recommendations for putting together those budget, mainstream and silly high-end machines. These rigs all include a screen and peripherals in the ticket price, so if you’re keeping your existing goodies then you’ll have more cash to spend elsewhere. And what’s our recommendation if you find yourself with that pleasant problem? Either get a larger SSD or a more powerful GPU. Happy building you lovely people!

How to... Buy a GPU The graphics card is one of the

biggest upgrade purchases you can make for your performance PC. It’s also one of the easiest – open up the case, slot it in and power it up. Simple as juicing citrus. So, making the right choice is vital, especially as there are so many different options around at the moment. Essentially, it’s almost entirely down to your budget. Buying the most powerful single-GPU card you can afford is always a good rule of thumb, but it’s always worth ensuring that your power supply is capable of feeding it enough juice and has the right connectors. So long as your PSU has a pair of 8-pin PCIe power connectors, you should be golded, but always check that your PSU’s capacity matches the recommended spec for your prospective GPU. Finally, a word on multi-GPU purchases. Beware. You can get better average frame rates, but an equivalently priced single card is always going to be a better experience.

budget

mainstream

high-end

motherboard MSI B85M-E45 .................................................. £48 CPU Intel Pentium G3258 .................................... £53 MEMORY Crucial 2x 2GB DDR3 1,600MHz.............. £31 GRAPHICS CARD MSI GTX 750 Ti OC......................................... £114 Solid-State DRIVE OCZ ARC 100 240GB .................................. £80 CPU Cooler Intel Stock Cooler ............................................ N/A Power supply SilverStone Strider E 500W .................... £39 Chassis Corsair Carbide 200R .................................. £48 opticaL DRIVE LiteOn IHAS124-14 24x DVD±RW............. £10 screen AOC E2250SWDNK ....................................... £82

motherboard Asus Z97-A ...................................................... £112 CPU Intel Core i5-4690K .................................... £189 MEMORY Corsair Vengeance LP 8GB ..................... £60 GRAPHICS CARD XFX Radeon R9 290 .................................. £218 Solid-State DRIVE Crucial MX100 512GB ................................ £146 CPU Cooler Enermax ETS-T40 ......................................... £30 Power supply OCZ ModXStream Pro ................................ £64 Chassis Cooler Master CM690 II ............................. £77 KEYBOARD Corsair Vengeance K65 ............................. £65 SCREEN Viewsonic VX2363Smhl ......................... £100

motherboard Asus X99 Deluxe ......................................... £295 CPU Intel Core i7-5960X .................................... £800 MEMORY Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB ............... £188 GRAPHICS CARD Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan X ................. £887 Solid-State DRIVE Samsung 850 EVO 1TB ........................... £324 CPU Cooler Cooler Master Nepton 240M ................... £84 Power supply CM Silent Pro Gold 1,000W ..................... £120 Chassis CM Cosmos 2 Ultra .................................... £296 KEYBOARD Corsair Vengeance K70 .............................. £95 screen Philips BDM4065UC .................................. £621

Total ................................................................................ £505

Total ............................................................................. £1,061

Total ............................................................................. £3,710

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Perfect PC MEMORY

Crucial 4GB 1600 DDR3

When every pound counts, spend them wisely motherboard MSI B85M-45

With the change in Gigabyte’s previously impressive B85M-D2V we’ve switched to the slightly better MSI board for our budget build.

Memory pricing continues to be incredibly volatile, but it’s still a great time to squeeze more sticks into your rig. You really should see 4GB as the minimum.

CPU Cooler Intel Stock Cooler

The Pentium Anniversary chip is a very cool-running CPU, even when overclocked. We managed a stable 4.2GHz on this stock Intel cooler.

GRAPHICS CARD MSI GTX 750 Ti OC

Nvidia’s latest GPU is quite a feat of engineering because of that brand new Maxwell architecture. The MSI card is a bargain.

CPU

Intel Pentium G3258

Poor AMD, it’s a clean sweep for Intel on all our recommended rigs. The new Pentium is simply the best budget chip around right now, offering Haswell for peanuts.

Power supply SilverStone Strider E

We may be talking about a budget rig here, but it’s still a hefty chunk of cash to risk on a no-name power supply. This 500W SilverStone PSU will give you peace of mind and all the PCIe leads you need.

Solid-State DRIVE OCZ ARC 100 240GB

OCZ’s ARC 100 drive may not be the quickest, but it’s great value, incredibly consistent and quicker than Crucial’s MX100 at this capacity.

optical drive

LiteOn IHAS124 DVD+RW

We really wonder whether you actually need an optical drive anymore, but for now we’ll err on the side of caution and include one in the list. Don’t feel bad if you forget to buy it though.

Chassis

Corsair Carbide 200R

Much more impressive than its price tag may lead you to believe, the clean lines and added extras of this chassis make it the budget case to beat. An understated bargain.

screen

AOC E2250SWDNK

This 21.5-inch panel has a native resolution of 1,920 x 1,080 and looks pretty good despite that ridiculously low price tag. It’s no IPS-beater, but it’ll do for half the cash.

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Rig builder MEMORY

Corsair Vengeance LP 8GB

A stunning rig doesn’t have to cost a fortune motherboard Asus Z97-A

We’ve seen a lot of Z97 motherboards since this Asus offering landed, but nothing newer has managed to push it off this list. Great features at a great price. Simple really.

CPU Cooler

This pair of 4GB sticks will give you all the performance you could ever want, and they’re in stormtrooper white. They’ll only take up two slots in the board for upgrading, too.

Enermax ETS-T40

Enermax has simply amazed us with this, its first CPU cooler. The performance is excellent, the price is astonishing, it’s easy to fit and it isn’t so big that it limits your case or mobo choices.

GRAPHICS CARD XFX Radeon R9 290

In order to shift units out of the channel, AMD’s top cards of the last generation are dropping in price. The R9 290 is great value at the moment if you can’t find the £250 290X in the supertest.

CPU

Intel Core i5-4690K

For almost the same price as the ol’ 4670K you can pick up one of the newer Devil’s Canyon CPUs. It’s only got a 100MHz clock boost, but the new TIM helps with overclocking.

Solid-State DRIVE Crucial MX100 512GB

Crucial has made a big splash in the SSD market with this chunky drive. The 512GB version is quicker, larger and cheaper that the pricier M550.

Power supply

OCZ ModXStream Pro

If you want to build a performance machine, you’re going to need a powerful PSU. This 500W baby will power the rig, with extra to spare. It’s quiet as well.

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KEYBOARD

Corsair Vengeance K65

We love a good mechanical switch keyboard here on PC Format, and Corsair is making some of the best. The K65 is a great compact option, with a compact price to boot.

Chassis

Cooler Master CM690

The CM690 eschews silly gimmicks in favour of producing a no-nonsense chassis that has plenty of cooling options for your mainstream rig. There’s space aplenty inside, and all at a reasonable price.

screen

Viewsonic VX2363Smhl

The old 23-inch Viewsonic IPS seems to be EoL now, but this white one has got the budget IPS panel and decent performance for its bargain £100 price tag.

Perfect PC MEMORY

Corsair Vengeance 16GB

For when you really want to treat yourself motherboard Asus X99 Deluxe

As usual this Deluxe board from Asus is absolutely stuffed with funky features. It’s one of the finest, and best-looking, X99 boards around and not a bad overclocker either.

The Haswell-E platform is the first to bring DDR4 to the consumer. That does come at a hefty price, but it’s damned quick.

CPU Cooler

Cooler Master Nepton 240M

Why settle for a reasonable overclock when you can hit 5GHz? This kit is speedy, boasts incredible performance and is quiet in operation. Everything you’d want, in other words.

GRAPHICS CARD Nvidia GTX Titan X

The dual-GPU R9 295X2 is still the quickest overall card, but the GM 200 in the Titan X makes it the best. It’s almost as quick and will never suffer the ignominy of multi-GPU issues in-game.

CPU

Intel Core i7-5960X

If you’re after the fastest, most advanced CPU around, then this 8-core, 16-thread Haswell-E is it. There is also the 6-core i7-5820K for a more reasonable £300, but the 5960X is the pinnacle of modern CPUs.

Power supply

CM Silent Pro Gold 1,000W

Cooler Master continues to impress with its power supply units, and this wonderful box of tricks managed to scoop the gold award in our exacting test way back in PCF246.

Solid-State DRIVE Samsung 850 EVO 1TB

This new spin of the Samsung’s 3D NAND means high-capacity is no trouble for its mainstream SSD range. And the 1TB drive has the performance to match its new endurance.

KEYBOARD

Corsair Vengeance K70

Corsair’s update to the older Vengeance keyboard rights all its older sibling’s wrongs. It’s also a truly stylish gaming board with the red backlight glowing against its black-brushed metal chassis.

Chassis

CM Cosmos 2 Ultra

Cooler Master has always been an impressive maker of cases, but it has truly stunned us with this chassis. Yes, it’s expensive, but if you can afford to drop this much on your case, you’ll be more than happy.

screen

Philips BDM4065UC

This 40-inch 4K behemoth is the first screen to make us think that super-high resolution actually looks super. It’s a decent VA panel and a great price, too, and will really take advantage of the R9 295X2.

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PAINT IT BLACK

To mark the Titan X out from the rest of Nvidia’s top-end cards, it has eschewed the now-familiar metallic finish in favour of a matte black design. To us that does make it look a lot like Nvidia reference cards of old, and leans towards looking a little cheap. But maybe that’s just us…

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Nvidia GeForce Titan X

TechPorn

Nvidia GeForce Titan X For so long, a fat GPU meant two things: high performance and a furnace-load of noise and heat. Well, with this GTX Titan X, the pinnacle of Nvidia’s Maxwell graphics architecture, we’ve got the most corpulent graphics processor we’ve ever laid eyes on… and yet it’s still remarkably efficient. That’s the might of Maxwell. This full GM 200 core is able to provide serious levels of gaming performance, levels that you previously needed a pair of top GPUs to hit. But it does it all with only a single GPU. And with almost half the power demands. It’s not the absolute fastest graphics card around though. The cheaper AMD R9 295X2 still maintains its top spot on the average frame rate leaderboard – especially at 4K resolutions. But that card needs a pair of Hawaii GPUs to hit those speeds and around twice the peak platform power draw too. But the Titan X is the fastest single GPU card and we’d always recommend going for the fastest solo chip you can buy over a multi-GPU pairing, even if you get slightly lower average frame rates. That said, we couldn’t help but strap a pair of Nvidia’s latest cards together in our test rig just to see what happened and it makes for a distressingly lovely experience at 4K, especially with G-Synch screen smoothing out the rendering wrinkles. There are, however, still issues with SLI-ing these cards, highlighting the problems that remain with multi-GPU gaming. At non-native screen resolutions we got migraine-inducing green bands across our panel. Not pretty. Fat graphics chips.

CLASSIC BLOWER 2 The overall design of the Titan

X’s cooler is practically identical to that which has graced all the top-end Nvidia reference cards since the original Titan was released two years ago. But thanks to the efficient Maxwell architecture, that’s not a problem. The cooler is still able to cool this massive GPU down to a level where it can comfortably hit its high target clockspeeds.

The power of two... 3 As much as we’ve been decrying multi-GPU

machines in favour of the single chip prowess of the Titan X, they sure do make some pretty benchmarks together. Performance dipped slightly using the 8-core i7-5960X despite using x16 PCIe lanes for both Titan X cards. Our standard i7-4770K test rig comes with a higher clockspeed, which is what today’s game engines focus on for performance. The fact the two cards are restricted to a pair of x8 PCIe lanes still doesn’t impact gaming speed. But pairing them with a 4K G-Sync screen is a lusciously expensive recipe for luxuriously smooth PC gaming.

–DAVE JAMES

Benchmarks 2x GeForce GTX Titan X SLI

2x R9 295X2 CrossFireX

Heaven 4.0 (min/avg fps)

22/49

8/52

Bioshock Infinite (min/avg fps)

15/94

13/79

Battlefield 4 (min/avg fps)

48/78

41/68

GRID 2 (min/avg fps)

88/115

110/143

Metro: Last Light (min/avg fps)

16/34

6/26

Best scores are bolded. All gaming benchmarks were run at 3840 x 2160 on their highest detail settings with 4x anti-aliasing. Our test rig is a stock-clocked Intel Core i7-4770K in an Asus Maximus VI Hero Z97 motherboard with 8GB Corsair DDR3 @2,133MHz.

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m ay 20 15

50 Essential Windows Upgrades

Essential Windows Upgrades 54

M AY 20 15

See what Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 can do when it’s given your full attention! Ben Andrews and Nick Peers reveal 50 tweaks and apps to upgrade your operating system

indows 8.1 and 7 are packed with features, many of them honed over years of development, so you could be forgiven for thinking that Microsoft must have covered every base and satisfied every need by now. The reality is rather different, as anyone who’s had to spend extra on an additional antivirus package will appreciate. People tend to forget that essential virus protection, along with programs like Word and Excel, aren’t included with Windows, but are actually pricey upgrades. Don’t worry though, because the free alternatives out there are just as good. While Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player are both great programs, they’re fending off several third-party web browsers and media players that are brimming with innovation. Likewise, Windows’ updated Paint app may be streets

ahead of previous versions, but it’s still no match for a dedicated photo-editing package such as Paint.NET. Extra programs like these are a tempting way to improve Windows 7 and 8.1, but there are plenty of improvements you can make to the core Windows tools. So, as well as sharing the best free software, we’ll show you tricks to fine-tune the tools Windows already has. From calibrating your display settings to produce more accurate colours on your monitor, to reducing unnecessary visual effects to speed up performance, there’ll be something for you. So stop putting up with a disorderly desktop and struggling to find errant files. Here’s our guide to the best upgrades, gadgets and tweaks to help you get the best experience, whatever your version of Windows.

M AY 20 15

50 Essential Windows Upgrades

Internet and Security Try a new web browser When you’re browsing the web, the chances are you’ll be using one of the ‘big three’ browsers. That is: Internet Explorer, which comes pre-installed with Windows; Chrome (www.google.co.uk/chrome); or Firefox (www.mozilla.org/firefox). But, if none of these browsers hits the spot, why not give Opera (www.opera.com) a try? It uses the same browser engine as Chrome, which means each tab runs independently, so if a website crashes one tab it won’t bring down your entire browser. But Opera also boasts some nifty unique features of its own: Opera Turbo compresses web pages before they’re delivered to your PC to speed up browsing and reduce bandwidth usage, for example. Also, bookmarks are easy to manage – you can even share them with others.

Ensure virus immunity Windows 7 and 8.1 both offer Windows Defender for protection against malware, but confusingly they’re not the same product. Windows 7’s iteration offers basic protection against spyware only, while the Windows 8.1 build is a rebadged version of Microsoft Security Essentials. While Security Essentials (windows.microsoft. com/en-GB/windows/security-essentialsdownload) offers some protection, it’s still not as good as other free solutions. The problem with free antivirus and firewall tools is that many bundle other software with them – even previously

reputable tools such as AVG and Avast! If you’re looking for strong free antivirus software that won’t attempt to sneak anything else onto your system, try BitDefender Free (www.bitdefender.co.uk/ solutions/free.html).

Set up a firewall Windows comes with its own firewall to help protect you from cyber intruders, and the likelihood is your router also comes with a built-in hardware firewall for additional protection. The problem with the Windows Firewall is that it’s not – by default – set up to block outgoing connections, so while it protects against attacks originated on the internet, it won’t block malware from ‘phoning home’ to wreak more havoc. Again, there are plenty of free, thirdparty firewalls that close this gap, but the same warning applies as with free antivirus software – many now attempt to install extra programs and make changes to your browser settings. One that doesn’t is Windows 8 Firewall Control (www.sphinxsoft.com/Vista), which adds extra functionality to the existing Windows Firewall (and works with XP, Vista and Windows 7, too). Advanced users may like to try Privatefirewall (www.privacyware.com) instead, but be warned – it has a steep learning curve.

Protect from malicious software A powerful firewall and up-to-date antivirus package are the two cornerstones

of a well-protected PC, but your antivirus tool isn’t infallible. Therefore, it’s best to gain a second opinion – as well as the ability to remove browser hijackers and other PUPs (potentially unwanted programs) – by downloading and installing the free version of Malwarebytes AntiMalware (www.malwarebytes.org). It’s designed to sit alongside your antivirus tool, but the free version offers no real-time protection, so remind yourself to use it to scan for possible threats at least once a month. It’ll let you review its findings, and all suspicious items are quarantined, so you can restore them if it wrongly flags any entries.

Encrypt important files What if your laptop and documents it contains were to fall prey to a lightfingered lout? A Windows password may give some intruders the slip, but it’s easily foiled. Microsoft’s answer is BitLocker – a brilliant tool that encrypts all the data on your hard drive. Unfortunately, it’s only included with the most expensive versions of Windows 7 and 8.1, but there are alternatives. DiskCryptor (diskcryptor.net) is a free app that will protect internal or external hard disks, and even USB flash drives. It’s not the easiest software to use though, so take some time to read through the Wiki on the main page, and take a full system backup before you begin – just in case disaster strikes.

Step-by-Step Block and remove potentially unwanted programs

for existing 01 Check infections

Run a scan with Malwarebytes Anti-Malware – if any potentially unwanted programs are found, they’ll be flagged as PUP. Malwarebytes should remove these – once done, reboot and run another scan.

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02 Prevent future installations 03 Review protection Now download and install Unchecky (www.unchecky.com). This program will sit in the Taskbar Notification Area, and will alert you – as well as change program options during setup – to prevent PUPs from sneaking onto your PC.

To see what Unchecky has blocked over an extended period of time, double-click its icon in the Notification Area. Review the summary, or click ‘Activity log’ for a detailed breakdown of which programs were blocked and when.

1. Adblock Plus blocks obtrusive ads – including banners, pop-ups and video ads.

see which apps have access to them – you can then manage it with just a few clicks.

2. LastPass generates and stores passwords for web logins and sensitive information.

7. Pocket accesses all the articles, videos and other online content you saved for later using the Pocket service.

3. WOT gets traffic-light safety and privacy ratings for websites and Google search results.

10 Essential Browser Extensions Thanks to customisable web browsers, you can make web-surfing even more enjoyable. Extensions make small enhancements, so whether you want to block webpage adverts, download YouTube videos with a click, or increase your browsing security, there’ll be an extension for the job. Go to addons.mozilla.org (Firefox), addons.opera.com (Opera) or chrome.google.com/ webstore (Chrome) to get these extensions and plugins.

Install specialist email software Are you still logging onto a web-based email inbox to read your email? A third-party mail client can not only speed up your communication, but will give you plenty of other time-saving features too. The obvious choice is Mozilla’s Thunderbird (www.mozilla.org/en-GB/ thunderbird), which supports a range of email accounts (including Microsoft, Gmail and Yahoo!). It’s no longer developed, but is updated to squash bugs. Alternatively, eM Client (www.emclient. com) provides you with an Outlook-style user interface as well as built-in support for calendars and contacts. And if you’re juggling multiple email accounts, it’s also worth taking a look at Inky (inky.com), which offers a super-minimalist interface that puts the email you want right at your fingertips.

Take remote control of your PC Wouldn’t it be great if you could access your PC remotely from anywhere with an internet connection? That’s exactly what TeamViewer (www.teamviewer.com) lets you do. It allows you to browse your computer from another Windows PC, Mac or mobile device, wherever you are. You don’t even need to leave your PC powered up all day either, as most can be woken up remotely from sleep mode. With a fast internet connection, this nifty app will have you zipping around your files as if you were at your desk.

Share files quickly and easily What do you do if you want to send a big batch of photos – or even a video – to a friend? Free image-sharing websites often impose strict upload restrictions, and most videos will simply be too large to send as email attachments.

4. TabCloud saves and restores tabs across Chrome and Firefox. 5. Disconnect views and blocks tracking from websites, social media and more. 6. MyPermissions Cleaner scans key online accounts such as Twitter, Facebook and more to

Uploading to the cloud is the answer. In this sense, the ‘cloud’ just refers to internet-based storage, and Microsoft’s OneDrive (onedrive.com) is one of the most convenient providers. The client’s built into Windows 8.1, while those using Windows 7 or earlier can download it from onedrive. live.com/about/en-gb/download/. You get 15GB of free storage, which is more than enough to share a large number of videos or full-resolution photos – and you can always upgrade for more storage. Just log in with your Microsoft username and password at onedrive.com, and you’re ready to go.

Make free phone calls Skype (www.skype/com) is an excellent way to chat with other Skype users for free via your internet connection. And it’s now owned by Microsoft. However, it’s not included with Windows, so you’ll need to download it from www.skype.com. Then it’s just a matter of setting up a Skype

8. Shareaholic quickly shares a link via a wide variety of services, including Facebook, WordPress, LinkedIn and more. 9. Evernote Web Clipper saves, marks up and shares content you find online through Evernote. 10. HTTPS Everywhere encrypts your communication with websites wherever possible for a safer browsing experience.

account so you can connect to friends and family who use Skype too. You will of course need a PC microphone to be heard, plus an optional webcam if you’d like to be seen too.

Back up files and programs Backing up your files is the best way to protect them from viruses, as well as hard drive failure. Windows 8.1 comes with File History for file-based backups – switch it on by pressing [Win] + [Q], typing ‘File History’ and clicking ‘File History’. If you’d like to take an exact image-based backup of your PC, you’ll find the ‘System Image Backup’ option available here too, but a more flexible tool for taking complete backups is Macrium Reflect Free (www. macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx). It’s very easy to use, and not only allows you to back up and restore your entire drive, you can even browse drive images to recover individual files and folders too.

“Plenty of free antivirus programs give great protection.” M AY 20 15

50 Essential Windows Upgrades

Entertainment and Media Consider your codecs Does Windows throw a wobbly when asked to play a DVD or downloaded video? Chances are Windows Media Player isn’t to blame – the issue is more likely down to missing codecs. These little files tell Windows how to decode the compression methods used to reduce the size of video files. Thankfully, Windows can be upgraded with a huge range of codecs to ensure slick playback of even the most modern or obscure video file formats. Just download and install the Combined Community Codec Pack from www.cccp-project.net.

Windows Media Player alternatives Once you’ve installed copious codecs, you’d think Windows Media Player would be up for anything, but even with these upgrades, it’s

still not immune to issues. Windows 8.1 users will note it can no longer play DVD movies, for example. So supplementing it with other video players such as Media Player Classic (www.mpc-hc.org) or VLC (www.videolan.org/vlc) is a wise move. Both players will handle pretty much any video file format, including DVDs, and – in the case of VLC – some Blu-ray discs too. But it’s their extra features that give them the edge. Extensive subtitle, video aspect ratio and frame rate options are all useful tools, as is VLC’s ability to alter audio synchronisation so you don’t have to put up with inaccurate lip-syncing.

still runs into problems when you’re browsing through your video collection. It will only generate previews for certain file types, and will turn its nose up at more recent video file formats, such as the MKV standard. You can broaden Windows’ thumbnailgenerating horizons using Icaros (www.videohelp.com/tools/Icaros). Simply install the software, open it and select the video formats that you’d like to generate thumbnails. Once that’s done, click the large ‘Activate Icaros’ button and hey presto, extra video thumbnails in Windows Explorer!

Grow your thumbnails

Edit your photos for free

Even though you can now play most video files, you might find that Windows Explorer

“Free office suites offer all the features you rely on daily.”

Windows’ built-in image-editing tool, Paint, gains small improvements with every release, but even in Windows 8.1 it’s still not really fit for purpose, particularly when it comes to editing photos. Thankfully, there are a whole host of free tools jostling for attention. One of our favourites is Paint.NET (www.getpaint.net), which offers a host of powerful imageediting tools. It also has support for plug-ins, allowing you to add plenty of extra tools, such as a Shadows and Highlights recovery tool (see http:// forums.getpaint.net/index. php?showtopic=5578) or the BoltBait Plugins Pack (www.boltbait.com/pdn/).

Mobile Media Smartphones and tablets make it easy to watch videos on the go, but many devices will only play a handful of the dozens of video formats out there. Fortunately, HandBrake (http://handbrake.fr) will re-encode most types of video file into a mobile-friendly format, though slower computers could need an hour or two to process a feature film. If you’re planning to watch videos on the move, you should choose the MP4 video format to ensure compatibility with Apple and Android hardware. While you’re at it, you might also want to shrink the video frame size of HD footage so it takes up less storage space on your device.

M AY 20 15

Music To Your Ears

Playing music on your computer is usually no trouble thanks to Windows Media Player, and it’ll even help you organise a fairly sizeable album collection. However, if your digital jukebox is unwieldy, it can start to struggle. A popular alternative is Apple’s iTunes (www.apple.com/itunes), which will satisfy even the most dedicated audiophile with its comprehensive and attractive music organisation, all of which is seamlessly integrated with the iTunes store. Other free music players to look at include MediaMonkey (www.mediamonkey.com), and don’t forget Kodi (see below), which can handle your music library too.

View photos in style It’s easy to take Windows Explorer for granted. After all, it’s basically the folder windows you use to browse your files and folders. Trouble is, even with customisable thumbnail sizes, it’s not really the best way to view things such as photographs. Google’s Picasa (http://picasa.google. co.uk) is much more impressive. Its file browser makes it far easier to customise your viewing preferences and organise photos and videos, and there’s seamless integration with some nifty photo-editing tools. Picasa also includes a dedicated photo viewer, which offers an improvement in speed and usability compared with the version included with Windows.

Take screenshots easily When it comes to capturing screenshots of your PC desktop, Windows 8.1 introduces new improvements – hold [Win] + [PrtScr] to save a grab to your Pictures\Screenshots folder. The Snipping Tool offers a few more options, but it’s a faff to use. Evernote users should take a look at Skitch (www.evernote.com/skitch), which dovetails perfectly with the note-taking app and functions as a serviceable screen capture tool in its own right. If you want more flexibility with your screen captures – such as being able to grab specific windows or parts of the screen, save images to a specific folder or edit your image after capturing it – then PicPick (www. nteworks.com/picpick/) is the tool to go for.

Record, organise and share notes Got a great idea? Forgotten it a day later? Install Evernote (www.evernote. com) and you’ll never have to worry about your sketchy memory again. This brilliant note-taking tool stores your notes securely

in the cloud, so you can access them on the go from your mobile or any internetconnected computer’s web browser. Notes can consist of text, images and other file attachments, and can be tagged and organised into notebooks for easy retrieval. Install the web clipper plug-in in your browser to capture useful web pages, and even share your notes with friends, family and colleagues too.

Get productive with improved office apps Getting a free alternative to Microsoft’s Office package is never going to be a bad thing. Windows comes with the WordPad app as standard, which sadly isn’t much good if you’re used to more comprehensive word-processing software. If you’re a fan of the ribbon-based interface found in Windows 8.1, then Kingsoft Office Free (www.ksosoft.com/ product/office-free.html) gives you powerful, free alternatives to Word, Excel and PowerPoint. If you need additional tools – including a database and drawing tool – and prefer the old menu-based interface of Office 2003 and earlier, then it’s worth checking out LibreOffice (www.libreoffice.org) instead.

Disc-o inferno Writable CDs and DVDs simply aren’t a match for a USB flash drive when it comes to carrying files and folders around with you nowadays, but there are times when you’ll need to burn an audio CD, or even a replacement Windows installation DVD. But Windows’ own disc-burning tools are somewhat rudimentary. Next time you need to make a disc, give ImgBurn a go (www.imgburn.com). It’s a free, uncluttered tool that makes light work

of burning all kinds of disc content. Check out the ImgBurn forums for detailed guides explaining how to get the best out of it.

Watch your favourite programmes on your PC Once upon a time, Windows Media Center provided the perfect TV-friendly tool for browsing your media (music, photos or movies) and watching and recording live TV through your PC. Sadly, it’s been dropped from Windows 8.1, but there’s no need to shed a tear just yet. Instead, install Kodi (www.kodi.tv), which is a more than adequate replacement. You can alter its appearance to match your personal tastes and extend its functionality with add-ons, such as BBC iPlayer. Pair it with Next PVR (www.nextpvr.com) and a USB TV tuner (around £25 online) if you want to watch and record live TV through it – remember, you’ll need a TV license if you’re watching live broadcasts.

Zip it When you’re downloading files from the internet, sooner or later you’ll come across a compressed file archive, commonly known as a ZIP file. However, there are many ways of compressing files together and compressing them for internet transfer, and not all forms can be extracted by Windows alone. To access them you’ll need to upgrade to something smarter, such as 7-Zip (www.7-zip.org). This will extract files contained not just in ZIP archives, but also the popular RAR format, plus many other compression formats. Once you’ve got 7-Zip you’ll be able to zip up your own files, often with the output archive being compressed into a smaller space than Windows could manage.

M AY 20 15

50 Essential Windows Upgrades

Performance Make sure you have the latest hardware drivers Drivers are pieces of software that tell Windows how to communicate with each item of hardware in your computer, but Windows Update doesn’t always give you the latest driver versions, so you might need to do it yourself. You might also struggle to source drivers for older hardware too – often, drivers for older versions of Windows will work fine in Windows 8.1, just make sure you source the right type (32-bit or 64-bit depending on your current version of Windows). If you’re struggling to track down updates or even compatible drivers, employ the services of DriverEasy (www. drivereasy.com). The free version has all the functionality you should need – make sure you choose ‘Custom’ during setup to avoid any potentially unwanted programs being installed.

Free up space and resources by removing bloatware Removing unnecessary software (known as ‘bloatware’ because of the effect it has on your computer) is a great way to free up precious power reserves for an instant performance boost. The ‘Programs and Features’ control panel is the usual port of call for uninstalling programs, but it sometimes leaves a few files behind. Not to worry, though, because Revo Uninstaller Free (www.revouninstaller.com) is a useful app that removes traces of software Windows might miss.

When you’re looking through your PC for any programs to uninstall, unused web browser toolbars, expired antivirus trials and other freebie apps that came pre-installed on your computer should be at the top of your list. Don’t worry if you mistakenly uninstall something useful, because Revo automatically creates a System Restore point when it removes an app so you can undo any mistakes.

improve performance and reduce wear on your hard drive. The Windows defrag tool is more than capable of keeping your files in order, but if you’d like more options – such as being able to defrag individual files or folders – then check out Defraggler (www.piriform.com/defraggler). Note fragmentation has no effect on SSD performance, and defragging can actually reduce the drive’s life, so never defrag your SSD drive.

Unleash ReadyBoost to give your PC more virtual RAM

Tweak the Registry for faster Taskbar previews

Lower powered PCs – those with 2GB or less of RAM, and are not powered by a solid-state drive (SSD) – may benefit from this tweak. You’ll need a spare USB drive to make it work. The ReadyBoost feature stores frequently used files on the USB flash drive rather than on your PC’s hard drive, helping to speed up loading times. Not just any old flash drive will do, though – you’ll need a fairly nippy one with a capacity of at least 256MB for ReadyBoost to work. To see if you’ve already got something suitably quick for the job, first make sure the drive is blank, then click ‘Start > Computer’ and right-click on the drive’s icon. Select ‘Properties’, followed by the ‘ReadyBoost’ tab.

Defrag your drive for more speed As files are copied, moved and deleted on your hard drive, they end up scattered about the drive. Defragmentation is the process whereby these files are then tidied up to

Let’s reduce the delay between you hovering over a taskbar icon and a preview window appearing. Click ‘Start’, type ‘regedit’ in the search box and press [Enter]. Using the folder menu pane on the left, double click ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER’, then select ‘Control Panel’ and click ‘Mouse’. Now find ‘MouseHoverTime’ in the list displayed in the right-hand pane and double click it to reveal a new window. The number 400 in the ‘Value data’ box defines the delay until a preview window pops up, so decreasing this to 100 will speed things up nicely. Click ‘OK’, then restart your computer and things should be much snappier.

Partition your hard drive to protect your precious data It’s no substitute for storing your data on a separate drive to Windows, but partitioning your drive does add an extra layer of protection for your documents and other files. While Windows is capable of constructing a

Step-by-Step Speed up file searches

01 Install Listary Free

Go to www.listary.com to download and install Listary, a search facility for Windows. Once installed, open a File Explorer window or program Open/Save dialog box and type the name of a file or folder – a list of matches will appear.

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02 Work with results

Click a folder to jump to that directory, or click a file to open it. You can also right-click an entry to reveal the Windows context menu as well as additional options, such as copying or moving the item to the current folder.

03 Access more options

You’ll see three icons in the search box – the heart folder is a list of Favourite folders, while the stopwatch lets you access recent items. The lightning button reveals more options, such as disabling Listary for the current application.

CCleaner Windows’ handy built-in Disk Cleanup tool will remove some unnecessary computer clutter, but for a more thorough spring clean to extract even more performance, try upgrading to CCleaner (www.piriform.com/ccleaner). This free program not only eradicates superfluous, powersapping Windows files; it’ll also tidy up redundant leftovers from any web browser software, Microsoft Office apps and your antivirus package. You can choose exactly which types of file you’d like to keep and which ones to sweep, so it’s easy to clear your web browser’s store of temporary files while retaining any saved website passwords.

partition, upgrading to a free app such as MiniTool Partition Wizard (www. partitionwizard.com) will make the job easier and give you more options to play with. Just be sure to back up any important files before you start the partitioning process, as messing with the layout of your hard drive does carry a small risk of potential data loss.

Download the all-in-one Windows repair gadget Fill in the troubleshooting gaps with Windows’ built-in repair tools with the essential Tweaking.com Windows Repair tool, which can fix both minor and major problems. It could speed up the time it takes getting your PC back into working order by saving you the time and hassle of a full-blown reinstall. Download and install it from www. tweaking.com. A step-by-step tabbed interface guides you through initial scans and essential backups before proceeding to the Start Repairs tab. Review the list of available repairs by clicking on each one for a description, then choose those relevant to your problem before hitting ‘Start’ to set the wheels in motion.

Beat the heat by keeping fans and vents clear You can upgrade Windows and your other software as much as you like, but it’s important to also give your computer’s hardware some love and attention. You don’t necessarily need to throw money at it in the form of component upgrades either – all you really need is some common sense, and maybe a vacuum cleaner! Excessive heat can slow a computer down and even damage its sensitive components, so try not to run your laptop nestled in a

cushion or duvet where its air intake vents will be blocked. Likewise, it doesn’t take long for the fans in a desktop PC to become clogged with dust and gunk, so it’s worth vacuuming the dirt from its vents from time to time.

Downgrade appearance to upgrade performance On the following pages you’ll discover some clever ways to make Windows look more beautiful. That’s all well and good, but older computers won’t thank you for slowing them down with additional visual frills. In fact, if your PC is getting on in years, you’re better off losing some style to gain some speed. Press [Win] + [Q], type ‘windows performance’ and press [Enter]. Selecting the ‘Adjust for best performance’ option will disable all visual effects to give you the biggest performance boost. Click ‘Apply’. If you come across something that looks a

little too crude, like jagged font edges, you can always return to this menu and readjust the offending the option.

Want your PC to perform even better than new? Disabling speed-sapping features will help boost a sluggish PC, but it may also be possible to give your computer a new lease of life by dabbling in a little overclocking. This is a subject we’ve covered in depth on several occasions, but we know that some readers are still put off by it. Maybe it’s time you gave it a whirl? The good news is that it’s now easier than ever to overclock your PC. In fact most modern motherboards offer some form of one-click overclocking for a hassle-free way of finding out if the benefits are worth investigating further. Check out your motherboard’s website and manual for more information on how to do get started.

“Revo Uninstaller removes software Windows might miss.” M AY 20 15

50 Essential Windows Upgrades

Customisation Calibrate your monitor for better colour reproduction Calibrating your monitor means adjusting its colour output so it’s as accurate as possible. You can splash out big bucks on a special device to do the job, but Windows actually includes its own calibration tool. It’s well hidden, though. To find it, press [Win] + [Q], type ‘calibrate’ and then click ‘Calibrate display color’. Follow the simple wizard to adjust your monitor’s brightness and contrast, plus the all-important colour balance. Don’t expect dazzling image quality improvements, but if you’re a keen photographer and want to view your snaps at their best, calibration is essential.

Ditch the Taskbar for the dock The Windows Taskbar is perfectly functional, but if you’re yearning for something a little more dynamic and attractive on the eye, why not replace it with a dock? Winstep Nexus (www.winstep.net/nexus.asp) is one of the best free ones out there – it floats on top of the desktop, allowing you to place it

anywhere on-screen and it works in a similar way to the Taskbar with easy access to your programs, files and Taskbar Notification area. You can also populate it with plenty of widgets offering extra features such as clock, local weather forecast and network activity.

Add Windows 8.1 features to earlier versions of Windows Still running Windows 7 or earlier? Wondering how Windows 8.1 might work, but don’t want to upgrade just yet? WinMetro (www.iobit.com/iobit-winmetro.php) transforms your existing Start menu into something similar to the Windows 8.1 Start screen with just a few clicks, for free. Add News, Weather, Finance and Photos apps, which display live updates straight to your Start screen, or add search and social media web links. The only thing missing is Windows 8.1’s dedicated app store, but that’s easily fixed using All My Apps (http://allmyapps.com). Reverting back to the standard Start menu is easy too, so there’s no harm in giving this upgrade a try.

“Isn’t it time we had video backgrounds?”

Create a desktop slideshow Windows allows you to replace your single desktop background with a slideshow of photos, but you need to provide the images yourself. Wally (www.becrux.com) is a free tool that allows you to pull images based on keyword searches direct from a variety of web services. Once installed, right-click its Taskbar Notification area icon to get started. Select one of the online sources, such as Flickr, Yahoo or Google, then click the ‘+’ button to type in your keywords. Wally changes the background every two minutes – use the ‘Interval’ settings to alter this. Click the ‘Centred’ button to tile or scale your images rather than place them centrally. Finally just click ‘OK’ to transform your desktop.

Faster filing Ah, filing. It’s a chore in the real world, and not much fun in Windows either. At least MyFolders (www.coretechnologies.com/ products/MyFolders) can simplify the process for you. Install the app, then right-click on a file you’d like to organise and find the menu entry entitled ‘MyFolders’. Click it to reveal ‘Copy to’ and ‘Move to’ options, from where you can specify the folder you’d like to shift the file to. It’s also a good idea to accept MyFolders’ suggestion to add this folder of choice to its favourites list, making it even easier in future to move files favourite locations.

Make Over Your Desktop Windows 8.1 dropped support for gadgets – those handy tools that float over the desktop such as calendar, news feed or weather. If you want these, Rainmeter (www.rainmeter. net) restores gadgets to your desktop, plus offers many more – including integrated app shortcuts. Everything is customisable, but it won’t alter any crucial Windows files. If you want to get stuck in, click ‘Rainmeter 101’ at the end of the installation process for more information.

M AY 20 15

Desktop Order Just as your real-life desk can easily descend into chaos, so too can the Windows desktop. We can quickly fill it with program shortcuts and downloaded files, but Windows doesn’t offer much in the way of desktop organisation. That’s where Nimi Places (http://mynimi.net/Projects/ Nimi-Places/) comes in. This free tool allows you to place special containers on your desktop that point to folders elsewhere on your system. These can be moved, resized and tweaked according to your needs.

Restore the Start menu Frustrated Windows 8.1 users will be pleased to see that the Start menu is making a very welcome comeback in Windows 10, but you don’t need to wait another minute to bring it right back now. Just download and install the Classic Start portion of Classic Shell (www. classicshell.net), and it’ll give you a choice of Start menu (‘classic’ Windows XP or Windows 7), blended perfectly in with the new Windows 8.1 desktop style. And like all good apps, it’s customisable to the nth degree – although in most cases the default settings will be perfect.

Copy files faster Windows 8.1’s file copy dialogue is a huge improvement on what went before – the ability to pause and resume file transfers being one obvious advantage. But there’s always room for improvement, so if you want to take things to the next level, you need to get your hands on Copy Handler (www.copyhandler.com). Copy Handler’s Advanced features include being able to queue up multiple file transfers, support for restarting file transfers after cancelling them (or even rebooting Windows), and also the promise of faster file transfers, particularly when moving data between two partitions on the same physical hard drive. You can use it alongside Windows’ existing copy tools for occasional use, or use it in place of the native tools.

Build your own Jump List

Ultimate Windows Tweaker

One monitor, multiple desktops

Brush up on the basics

The Jump List is a great time-saving feature, giving you access to recently opened documents via application shortcuts on the Taskbar and in the Start menu. It’s just a shame you can’t build your own custom Jump List with all the apps and files you frequently accessed… Except you can, with Jumplist-Launcher (http://en.www.ali.dj/ jumplist-launcher/). Use 7zip to extract JumplistLauncher.exe to a suitable location, then launch the program. Right-click the new Taskbar icon and choose ‘Pin this program to taskbar’, then click it to start adding your choice of file or folder shortcuts (up to a maximum of 60), which can be organised into groups to make them easier to access.

Even with a really well-organised desktop, you could still be struggling for space. Have you ever dreamed of having more than one desktop? Well, Dexpot (www.dexpot.de) turns such a dream into reality by creating up to 20 virtual desktops! Apart from customising each one with dedicated wallpaper and the icons of your choice, you can set certain programs to open in a particular desktop. It almost gives the illusion of multiple computers all hooked up to the same monitor, and is a really great tool for separating work and play, so say farewell to procrastination. Well, maybe. All it takes to switch between each desktop is a quick tap of a customisable hotkey.

What if you’re not a fan of those minipreview thumbnails that appear whenever you hover over a taskbar icon, or you’d like more control over how IE uses tabs? Easy, just search www.thewindowsclub. com for Ultimate Windows Tweaker (version 3 for Windows 8.1, version 2.2 for Windows 7/Vista). Download the program and you’ll be able to install and tweak settings like these and many more using one simple program. Many of these settings can of course be altered using the standard Windows Control Panel, but finding the right section can often be frustratingly slow. Although most tweaks can be easily disabled, steer clear of altering anything you’re not familiar with.

It’s easy to overlook Windows’s own customisation features. One of the most useful is Snap. Drag a window to the side of your screen and it’ll expand to fill half the screen. Or drag it to the top to fully maximise the window. On the other hand, if you’re swamped with open windows, give the one you’d like to focus on a quick shake by clicking and holding on to its uppermost title bar, and watch as the other windows minimise. Another shake will restore their former glory. ■

M AY 20 15

Gaming

because gaming is a way of life

What Are You Playing At?

HIGHLIGHTS...

Don’t cross the streams!

“I’m not convinced these TV/game ‘supershows’ are such a good idea.” Sure, its games aren’t exactly bursting with Welcome, dear reader, to the age of interactivity, but you’re very much in control of transmedia. That’s a term you’ll probably hear the big pivotal moments in a wider plot. So how a lot of in the next few years. It’s thanks in no will a TV show complement this? small part to a new joining of forces between Will you or I really want to invest so much movie studio Lionsgate Films (who brought us focus and (as dramatic as it may sound) such wonders as the The Hunger Games flicks) and Telltale Games (you know, the once shoddy responsibility in a set of characters, only to have but now on-form studio that’s brought us The them operate on the whim of a screenwriter for 30 minutes? Breaking a player’s control over Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us). proceedings, especially if said story contains The investment from Lionsgate will see the same cast and events, seems a it collaborate with Telltale on a series potentially damaging way to handle of upcoming ‘supershows’ that will how to your own plot. combine an interactive game with a get started Then there’s the blending of complementary live-action episode. with linux the two on a visual level. Even if Sound familiar? Microsoft and Max pg. 74 Telltale shoots for a photorealistic Payne dev Remedy Entertainment look, there’s still going to be an have already teamed up to work on a aesthetic disconnect – the uncanny similar project, the Xbox One exclusive valley is a dangerous place to circumvent Quantum Break, but even in the hands of a when you need two very different passive and talented team such as Remedy, some critics active mediums to co-exist. Telltale seems – including myself – aren’t convinced such a to be taking on a few too many projects as of marriage of mediums will work. late, and with so many more potential games Here’s my problem: Telltale has created a on the horizon, can it really hope to bottle the nice little corner for itself with the likes of The same kind of magic that’s made some of its Walking Dead – dark, brooding and affecting past work so enthralling? I’m not so sure… stories, full of potent atmospheres and moral choices that flower into tragic consequences. –DOM ReSEIGH-LINCOLN

66 Cities: Skylines

68 Assassin’s Creed: Rogue

70 Battlefield Hardline

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Frontier Developments Carve out your own unique experiences in a game that boasts everything that made the original such a classic. PCF301 p70

Dragon age: Inquisition

BioWare A fantastic campaign and massive open environments make for one of BioWare’s finest. PCF300 p72

Civilization: Beyond Earth

2K Its foundation is familiar, but this is a game that’s full of surprises and is difficult to master. PCF299 p62

Alien: Isolation

Creative Assembly The game the Alien series has always deserved. A deep, fun stealth game set in an evocatively realised sci-fi world. PCF298 p64

M AY 20 15

Gaming

Pretty neighbourhood patterns can lead to traffic nightmares.

Cities: Skylines Build it and they will come It’s worth remembering that the first game by Colossal Order was Cities in Motion, a pretty but buggy public transport simulation in static cities, which scored poorly. Given how Colossal Order has iterated on that shaky start to achieve the success that is Cities: Skylines, it makes us wonder what Maxis could have done if it’d been given one more chance at SimCity (the studio was shut in early 2015). That transport simulation heritage is key here. Cities are, after all, where almost all human life happens, where the richest interactions and complexity occurs. A game developer could make a city simulation about just about anything – road maintenance, epidemiology or fashion tribalism. But Colossal Order’s grounding in Cities in Motion, and its obvious desire to outdo the failed SimCity by making this generation’s definitive city-builder, has meant that it’s made a quite traditional city-building sim, with a deep transport and population-movement simulation that underlies your actions. The first time you play, the game just draws you into a headlong rush to build. You’ll lay out some roads, zone the land around them into residential, commercial

M AY 20 15

and industrial areas, build some power plants, then run out of money. There’s always another problem to solve, and you’ll probably restart after five minutes, then again 10 minutes later. However, after that shaky start, the game’s forgiving difficulty level will surely draw your town straight up to a megalopolis before you can say MegaCity One. That might take you six hours of solid play.

gentle progress As you progress, each population milestone unlocks another set of capabilities for you along with new buildings for your city. The population’s desire for goods only unlock when they become available too, making the game straightforward. As you pass a milestone, new problems emerge that you have just unlocked the solution to – the dead start piling up in your cemeteries, for example, just in time for a crematorium. By the time you’ve solved them all, and built every building you need, and bought the new territory, it’s time for another milestone, set of tools and sometimes an increase in the playing area (which is huge compared to SimCity’s). After that starting section, the game is totally forgiving; you

can just leave it running and stroll back half an hour later to happily find a healthy bank-balance. But Skylines is a true sandbox, which means your targets are set by you. You choose what sort of city you want to build, how green it is, and what industries will dominate it. Our first time round we started with a totally green city, running entirely on wind power, but soon had to build a backup coal power plant as our city outgrew the local windy areas and the wind proved unreliable. The outskirts of the city were a mess of grid roads, arbitrary one-way systems and convoluted highways, while the centre was a carefully laid out mesh of roundabouts which proved truly awful for traffic, but looked beautiful from above. For the next build, we chose a different map and set ourselves a totally different goal. Learning as we went. For the next we’ll aim to avoid traffic jams, though we don’t quite know how we should do that. However we play, bottlenecks seem to develop where vehicles sit in long queues, with all the essential services – police, ambulance, fire brigade – sitting in slowmoving traffic. Our city centres are always an angry colour in the traffic information

Cities: Skyline Welcome to Texas.

Multiple overlays enable you to see problems, such as the dam backing sewage up into the water supply.

We really ought to do something about all those derelict buildings.

‘Chirps’ give you resident feedback.

The welcome cruise liner that never seems to have any passengers.

overlay – just one of more than 10 overlays that help you decide what’s most urgent. The game does give you the tools to deal with more structural problems too. The information overlays allow you to find and isolate problems. For traffic, you can widen roads or plant trees along them at the expense of the buildings in a district. You can build parks to absorb pollution and distract the population. Innovatively, the district tool lets you paint districts onto the world, then treat them differently – banning heavy traffic in the area or pushing up the tax among the rich, say, or banning pets, or legalising drugs, or ordering the local industry to focus on oil extraction. You can also rename them, as you can buildings or even people. You can also follow the people as they move from home to work, wandering through the delicate-looking streets.

Beautiful buildings

One reason to play Cities: Skylines, rather than say SimCity or Cities XXL, is its raw beauty. The developers have fallen in love with the tilt-shift effect, and it makes every city look stunning. Tilt-shift is a photographic technique that makes

normal photos look like miniatures, and is done by setting a narrow depth of field (so everything but the point of focus is blurred) and ramping the image’s saturation up. That results in every screenshot of the game looking like a small sculpture. There are bugs. Like building monorails in Cities in Motion, you can lose your youth attempting to build functioning highways and train lines. The route system is badly explained and hard to alter without accidentally deleting everything around it. No matter how well you perform, entire neighbourhoods can be abandoned overnight, requiring you to bulldoze every last building, one by one. Sometimes all the traffic sits stubbornly in a single lane, even on six-lane motorways. And we’re fairly sure the water in rivers defies gravity at times. At least the game is extremely smooth running and doesn’t need a crazy high-spec machine to strut its stuff. There are flaws though. The game is, after all, essentially about taking up your time. There is absolutely no need for you to do everything that you have to. Building sewer networks, for example, is a massive chore, even if it’s made as easy as possible. Likewise, deleting those

abandoned or burned down buildings can feel like it’s taking forever. And despite that, all you’re really achieving is ticking boxes and generating better paths for your service traffic, so that you can unlock more buildings and keep going. But that’s the city-builder genre all over. If you think it’s an unnecessary challenge, the sandbox mode gives you infinite money and unlocks all the buildings. If you want to really be tested, the hard mode is for you. However you choose to play it, Cities: Skylines is beautiful, smart and astoundingly polished, if not as innovative as it first seems. –Daniel Griliopoulos

verdict

Cities: Skylines

GRAND DESIGNS Beautiful tilt-shift styling; challenging systems; smart zoning tools; very much a game of its genre. COWBOY BUILDER A few bugs; route system is quite frustrating. recommended specs Intel Core i5-3470 3.2GHz/AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz; 6GM RAM; GeForce GTX 660/Radeon HD 7870.

£23, www.citiesskylines.com, PEGI: 12

M AY 20 15

Gaming

There’s no next-gen wow-factor, so Rogue goes back to stabby basics.

Assassin’s Creed: Rogue Time to bid farewell to last-gen tech What year is it? Who’s the president?” These are not the cries of Assassin’s Creed: Rogue’s befuddled modern-day protagonist, but those of the very journalist writing this review. Rogue, you see, is the seventh instalment of the franchise, a sequel to 2013’s Black Flag, a prequel to 2012’s Assassin’s Creed III, and an introduction to Assassin’s Creed: Unity. In fact, the franchise has become so ridiculously convoluted that another game, Assassin’s Creed: President Dog, disappeared into a black hole created by all the time-warping confusion. This head-scratching setup is partly due to the way Ubisoft chose to release the most recent games in the franchise. Rogue hit the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 last year, but very few people noticed because they were more interested in characters’ faces turning inside out in Assassin’s Creed: Unity, which debuted on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. But, as we like to get the best of both worlds, Ubisoft has now decided to release Rogue on the PC. This time round you take the role of Shay Patrick Cormac, who, as you may have guessed, is an Irishman, though his godawful Oirish accent makes him sound more like a drunken extra from Cheers. “Who am I?

M AY 20 15

Cormac’s adventures take place in mideighteenth century north-east America, a period when lots of famous faces (Ben Franklin, Denzel Washington) all happened to be in exactly the same place at once and Cormac stumbled across them. It’s like Forrest Gump, but less idiot manchild and more stabs.

alternate reality Meanwhile, back in near-future reality, Anonymous First-Person Guy is running around the hi-tech offices of Abstergo Entertainment. Like the office lackey he is, he completely screws something up, which requires further probing of Cormac’s genetic memories to fix it. Despite the inherent silliness of the Assassin’s Creed formula, there’s still life in this dual-layered approach to reality, and it’s one of the few game worlds which actually makes sense in the way that its protagonist can die a thousand times and see vital clues throughout levels. If Ubisoft plays its cards right, the Assassin’s Creed franchise could become a really neat fit for virtual reality headsets. The real-world stuff is basically just admin at an intriguing office, but the game really kicks in when you’re filling Cormac’s

boots. He starts out as an assassin, but after a disaster involving a few thousand deaths (whoops!) he turns his back on them and becomes a Templar. It’s a hefty twist – this time round, you’re a bad guy – but the game happily bathes in the moral ambiguity between the two factions. This doesn’t make a huge difference to the way it plays out, either – missions still rely on killing important people without being noticed, but at least Cormac gets an improbably accurate air rifle and a rather anachronistic rocket launcher. Rogue also nabs one of the best bits of the previous few games: the naval warfare and exploration of Black Flag. Despite the sense of déjà vu, traversing the open water is still one of the best things the series has done. Huge waves cause the Morrigan, Cormac’s ship, to heave and sway, and there’s a thrill in pulling alongside enemy ships and unleashing your cannons. Unlike the balmy Caribbean in Black Flag, the action takes place in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic this time, so whenever Cormac enters the water he begins to catch a chill, preventing any longdistance swimming. It’s a welcome touch of realism in a game where a 48m sloop-ofwar handles like a Maserati.

Assassin’s Creed: Rogue Ship upgrades include an ice breaker. Handy for parties.

Cormac ponders a life with better textures.

Cormac’s ship, Morrigan, handles like a sports car.

Pin kills on someone else with berserk darts.

It’s back on terra firma that cracks start to show. The graphics have been souped up for the PC, with higher-res textures and some decent volumetric smoke effects, but these can’t hide how dated the game looks. Some characters fall afoul of the notorious and deadly big hand syndrome, and their facial animations are puppet-like at best. Their hair is awful. Whole chunks of scenery are liberally copied and pasted across the landscape. And, as an openworld game, you can almost hear the ‘pop’ as models and textures spring into place.

Visually impaired The funny thing is that the new generation of consoles didn’t seem like a tectonic graphical shift when we first saw them, but 18 months down the line there’s a noticeable difference between a last-gen game and its more modern counterparts. This, in part, seems to be down to the extra artistry that goes into modern games, where the pitch, yaw and roll of every piece

All of a sudden, last-gen really looks last-gen.

of rubble has been set by some betrodden art director at 3am, rather than created once and cloned liberally. In Rogue you soon tire of seeing the same Y-shaped tree trunk, the repetitive beach textures, and the same icebergs. The question of whether this makes the game any worse remains, though. The thrill of being able to keep up with your prey as you leap over rooftops and haul yourself over walls hasn’t diminished one bit, and managing New York’s districts and gangs is as well thought through as Grand Theft Auto. While it largely plays it safe and doesn’t rock the good ship Assassin’s Creed too much, this also means that it doesn’t have the bugs and issues that plagued the more eager-to-please Unity – and low system specs mean you don’t need to rebuild your PC to run it. We suspect that Rogue’s success has a lot to do with the way it was developed – the more excitable members of the Ubisoft team probably became weak at the knees

and all frothy at the mouth at the thought of developing a next-gen game, while the more reliable developers took the opportunity to build on the already-prettydamn-good last-gen games. The result is a title which may lack the ambition of Unity, but one which is all the better for sticking to its well-established and rather deadly guns, and serves as a fitting send-off for last-generation tech. –Henry Winchester

verdict

Assassin’s Creed: Rogue

ROGUE Awesome sailing; parkour is still great; engrossing open-world questing; story’s neat twist. BROGUE Showing its age; dull characters and voice acting; feels derivative at times. recommended specs 2.4GHz+ quad-core CPU; 2GB RAM; Radeon HD5670/GeForce GTS450/Intel HD4600.

£40, assassinscreed.ubi.com, PEGI: 18

M AY 20 15

Gaming Just another case of “resisting arrest”.

Battlefield Hardline An exploding spectacle of reckless law enforcement has launched without disaster. There are glitches and dumb physics (which could be said about any Battlefield), but hell, it works, and it’s entertaining. After Battlefield 4, that deserves a clap. A slow, slightly sarcastic clap, but still a clap. Hardline is fun, but in the words of Roger Murtaugh, we’re getting too old for this shit. It’s exhausting. We pine for Battlefield 1942’s simple structures, sprawling terrain and Lee-Enfield rifles. The basics are still here – big maps, classes, vehicles and 64 players – but the speed and firepower of Hardline make it a constant struggle to survive long enough to do anything fun. It’s got the rhythm of an old car bunnyhopping forwards. We spawn into a helicopter and blow up, or spawn on our squadmate and somehow trade lives with a guy in front of us, or spawn and get run over, or spawn and drive head first into an RPG. When crappy, short lives like these pile up, the screen gets a good flipping off. The only thing we wouldn’t mind going faster are the unlocks. There aren’t all that many guns, but not having the good ones is a barrier to fun. We spent the first several hours struggling with the Mechanic’s Battlefield Hardline’s multiplayer

M AY 20 15

default MP5K, losing short range duels we should have won. So we switched to the assault rifle-carrying Operator and had a better experience. And then we realized we had a battlepack sitting unopened. Suddenly we’re getting tons of kills. Which is annoying. Our apparent skill level shouldn’t jump a bunch of notches because we have a special weapon. We like progression systems because they give us something to work towards – guns and attachments to experiment with – but we’re interested in lateral progression. It shouldn’t feel like we’re walking headfirst into a gale of bullets until we progress.

dumb fun

And while Battlefield’s signature glitchy physics anomalies can be amusing (we saw a motorcycle launch into a helicopter, hehe), we’ve questions about our bullets. Hardline hasn’t launched badly, but we have experienced frustrations – hits that don’t register, or being killed through a closed door. It’s hard to prove when it’s subtle, but it’s not just us noticing it. If that doesn’t aggravate you, this stupid game is a lot of fun. Our favourite mode is Hotwire, which epitomises Hardline’s

speed. It’s still about capturing and controlling points, but those points are now cars which must be driven around the map. This makes sense – driving cars in circles is how you uphold the law, and also break it. There are three basic activities in Hotwire – finding RPGs and blowing up cars, providing air support, and driving or riding in cars – along with little shootouts. When you’re bouncing around in a car with music going, leaning out the window spraying bullets, it’s hard not to be merry. The biggest problem is that while the new cars are mostly nice to control on a keyboard, they sometimes want to go faster than the server. The maps also feel way too small – it seems to value speed over size. Heist mode, in which the criminals must steal two packages and deliver them to drop-off points, works well on maps that are big enough. The Bank Heist map especially can be tactically rewarding. Coordinated squad work is essential, and we only wish people talked more. We also really enjoy Blood Money on maps with vehicles. It’s as nonsensical as Hotwire: both teams must retrieve cash from a central repository and deliver it to their vaults, but can also steal from each

Battlefield Hardline Welcome to levitation mode.

Not looking at all conspicuous…

You can now hang out of car windows as a passenger.

other’s vaults. There’s just constantly stuff to do. Grab an armoured truck and drive it into the enemy vault if you want, or just chase around their money carriers, or steal some cash yourself, or find a Stinger and blow up a helicopter. You’re going to be blown up too, any second now, so just go nuts. It’s a madhouse. It’s tiring. And it’s an enjoyable, loud, farcical chaos that will probably get old, but for now is a big, dumb exploding playground. Conquest and TDM are back, too. Conquest is conquest, and still good, even though it has nothing to do with the cops and robbers theme, and TDM is where people go to speed through the progression – that hasn’t changed. There are also two new 5v5 modes, and while they’re fine (CounterStrike on big, open maps, essentially), they’re not being played much. We don’t expect Hardline to compete with CS: GO. It’s just not what it’s about. On to the lesser attraction. The Hardline campaign is to The Shield what Call of Duty is to Tom Clancy novels. They’re both stories of betrayal and corruption – tough men with tough jawlines making tough choices – but any grounding in real police or military work is upended by car chases and shootouts and last second escapes, explosions and impossible odds. The story’s actually fine. You, a good and honest cop, are a pawn in a corrupt force’s drug game, and it’s time to take out the trash. The acting is good – there are some talented folks involved – though sometimes the plasticine faces are creepy. Whenever Nicholas Gonzalez or Kelly Hu sweat, it looks like their skin is going to melt into a puddle. Police work is simple. Arrest criminals, shoot criminals when you can’t arrest them, find evidence. It has so little basis in reality, that our initial unease about the subject

matter – modern police corruption and brutality – almost wholly evaporated. We had to laugh when we were reprimanded because our partner punched a guy after the two of us filled a hotel with bodies. The bad guys are gun-toting lunatics, you’re a gun-toting lunatic, and everyone shoots everyone. It’s a lot like Max Payne. It plays a little like Payne, too. There’s no shootdodging, but each room is something to try and try again until the puzzle is solved. Generally, we solved that puzzle like Max would: by shooting everyone. We’re crouch-walking between cover, conserving ammo and taking shots carefully, and it doesn’t take much to kill us. This is true, at least, on the hardest mode, which is how we recommend you play Hardline. It’s a decent shooter campaign, with the freedom to take on most areas from a variety of positions.

Police academy Unlike Max Payne, Nick Mendoza can actually do police stuff. He can make arrests (sometimes) instead of shooting, it’s just a bit tedious. Flashing your badge at isolated enemies causes them to surrender, at which point you can cuff them. Then they fall asleep. Seriously, there are ‘Z’s above their heads. The catch is you can’t arrest more than three guys at once, and if you’re spotted cuffing someone, they’ll open fire. It’s the most ridiculous thing about Hardline’s campaign, and it’s not a great a deal of fun – it’s Metal Gear Lite. Later in the game, for instance, we’re in a small room with about eight guys. Tossing a shell draws guards to us one at a time so they can be arrested in our secluded arrestin’ spot. We cleared the room slowly, building a pile of sleeping goons. The fact you can arrest criminals makes it weirder that you can also shoot them, bringing back some of that unease.

Either we’re Max Payne or we’re Jimmy McNulty, either this is a shooter or it’s Police Quest – you can’t have it both ways. We’re rewarded for police-like behaviour with points, but none of it really feels worth it. Early on, we’re driving around a swamp with our partner, having long boring chats as we poke around for evidence. We have to peer through our ‘scanner’ to collect evidence, shuffling around looking for highlighted objects to click on. Sometimes you have to collect evidence to progress, but we didn’t go above and beyond. Because it’s boring. Oh, and there are a couple of mandatory stealth and car chase sequences that just obstruct the good, more open sections. They’re just not very engaging. But when it’s not infuriating, Hardline is fun – weird, chaotic, brutal fun. The multiplayer is the important bit, and it’s a parade of points, mini-achievements, goofy car crashes, motorcycles flying into helicopters and incendiary grenades. It’s too much too fast, with a low time-tokill that makes every life fleeting. It’s not elegant, but the lawless bedlam has its moments. When we’re doing well, getting kills and screaming around a map in a stolen sports car, it’s worth it. –Tyler Wilde

verdict

Battlefield Hardline

the wire Lots of loud, anarchic fun; a challenging campaign if you play on the hardest mode; decent story and acting. bird on a wire Still some glitches; infuriating deaths; some maps are way too small; police work can be dull. recommended specs Core i5-3570; 8GB RAM; GeForce GTX 760/Radeon R9 290.

£60, www.battlefield.com, PEGI: 18

M AY 20 15

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How to...

tested, reviewed, verdictized step-by-step guides to improving your PC

Windows Tip of the Month

graham Barlow

Contributing editor

Banish big brother Play Anything With CCCP

VLC has become the go-to alternative media player, but there’s a second option – the Combined Community Codec Pack, or CCCP (www.cccp-project.net). Originally developed to play Japanese animé films with subtitles, it’s got the necessities to play just about any file, is small and we’ve found it more stable than both Windows Media Player and VLC.

MAKE – USE – CREATE

82 Build a beefy but super-quiet PC

86 Repair Windows with FixWin

88 Customise Win8.1 Lock screen

Ever get the feeling you’re being watched? Well, maybe you are! It should come as no surprise that tools do exist for people to hijack your PC’s webcam and record you through it. The most likely scenario is that it’s somebody you know, who has gained physical access to your PC and installed a bit of malicious software on there. But there’s growing evidence that it’s also being done remotely by hackers. The FBI even recently confirmed it had been doing this for years as a surveillance technique. And thanks to Edward Snowdon we learned that the NSA has been accessing cameras on our smartphones. If you never bother to Skype anybody from your PC anyway, and this news is making you feel a bit paranoid, then what better solution than just turning your webcam off? If it’s external, just unplug it, but if it’s built into your PC laptop then you’ll need to disable it in the BIOS. Reboot your computer and enter the BIOS – usually holding down [F2] or [DEL] does the trick – then look through the options for something like “CMOS camera”, or simply “webcam”, and disable it. If it’s not listed there then you’ll need to boot into Windows and then look in Windows Device Manager under “Imaging devices” and disable it from there. Failing that, just stick a plaster over the lens. It might be a slightly low-fi solution, giving your PC a bit of a steampunk aesthetic, but at least you can be sure you’re not being spied on.

↘ submit your How To project ideas to: pcfmail@futurenet.com M AY 20 15

How to...

Escape Windows

Don’t limit yourself to just Windows, Nick Peers reveals the wonders of setting your PC free

f you’ve bought a brand new PC with Windows pre-installed on it and have concluded that Microsoft has finally lost the plot, now is the perfect time to switch to a better OS. Sure, Macs are shiny and expensive, but why go there when you can keep your existing PC and move to Linux? Fear not, gone are the days when Linux meant immersing yourself in command-line chicanery – we’ll show you how to install a user-friendly flavour of Linux alongside your existing OS without losing any data, so you can dip your toes into the free and open waters of Linux.

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To make the transition as smooth as possible, we’ve chosen Ubuntu 14.04.02 LTS as our Linux distro of choice. Ubuntu is one of the most user-friendly Linux distros out there, and 14.04.02 LTS is the latest version with Long Term Support, meaning it gets five years of updates and support. Here’s what you’re going to do. First, we’d be remiss if we didn’t show you how to back up your current PC. You’ve two basic choices here: the backup tools built into Windows itself, or a tool like SystemRescueCD. Next, we’ll explain how modern PCs ship with a new system called

the UEFI, which may cause some minor problems. Don’t worry, we’ll show you how to overcome any issues. Finally, we’ll step you through the installation process itself, which really is a piece of cake. And we won’t leave you hanging. Once you’ve booted into Ubuntu for the first time, we’ll take you on a tour of the new desktop, reveal how to access your existing documents and other files, and show you how to get to grips with your new OS. There’s never been a better time to make the life-changing switch to Linux, so take our hand and take the plunge.

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Back It All Up! Before migrating to Linux, make a fail-safe backup

he simplest way to back up your system is to use the builtin Windows Backup tool in Windows 7 or later – select ‘System Image Backup’ and follow the prompts. It’s not exciting and it’s a little scary, but it is essential. For a pure Linux backup solution use SystemRescueCD, which you can find at www.sysresccd.org. Here’s how… Once you’ve downloaded the ISO file and burned it to a disc or USB stick as a CD image, reboot with the disc in your drive, access the boot menu if necessary, usually [F11], and choose your DVD drive then SystemRescueCD. Problems could be caused by your PC’s UEFI (see p76 on how to fix them). Otherwise, pick the default boot options entry. Type ‘uk’ when prompted for the keyboard layout, and type ‘startx’ at the final command prompt. Once it loads, click the ‘Menu’ button in the bottom left-hand corner and select ‘System > Show Filesystems’ to identify each partition. The Disk entries identify each physical drive (sda, sdb etc.) and the Device identifies the partitions. In most cases, ‘sda’ will be your Windows drive, so you'll need to back up ‘sda1’ (a small boot partition) and ‘sda2’ (the actual Windows partition). You’ll also need to note the partition you intend to back up to and make sure it has enough free space. Now switch to the Terminal window. To mount the backup partition, type the following command, changing ‘NTFS’ to ‘FAT’ if your backup drive is FAT32, and replacing ‘sdc2’ with the drive’s actual partition name: Mount -t ntfs /dev/sdc2 /mnt/backup Reopen the menu and select ‘System > Partimage’. This lets you back up partitions, so start with ‘/dev/sda1’, then press [Tab]. Next, type ‘/mnt/backup/sda1-backup.gz’ into the ‘Image file to create/use’ box. Leave ‘Save partition into a new image file’ selected and hit [F5]. Check ‘Gzip’ is selected under Compression level, then click [F5] again. Enter a description if you wish, then

press [Tab] to select the ‘OK’ button and hit [Enter]. Make a note about experimental NTFS support, then click ‘OK’ twice, also noting the drive statistics. If this completes, repeat to back up your Windows partition, naming it ‘sda2-backup.gz’ instead. To back up your computer's Master Boot Record, open a Terminal window and type the following commands cd mnt/backup mkdir partition-backup cd partition-backup dd if=/dev/sda of=backup-sda.mbr count=1 bs=512 to back up MBR. Now back up your partition table with: sfdisk -d /dev/sda > backup-sda.sf If you get a warning about sfdisk not supporting GPT partitions, type ‘sgdisk --backup=backup-sda.sg /dev/sda’ instead. If disaster strikes, either boot from your Windows rescue disc, or boot back into SystemRescueCD. If you got as far as Ubuntu resizing your Windows partitions, you’ll first need to launch the ‘Gparted’ partitioning tool from its Taskbar shortcut. It should display your main hard drive (/dev/sda), so identify the extended partition. Right-click each volume inside it and choose ‘Delete’, then right-click the extended partition and delete that too. Next, right-click your Windows partition and choose ‘Resize/Move’. Allocate it all available space and click ‘Resize/Move’ followed by ‘Apply’. To complete the partition restore process, follow the three-step guide below. The final step is restoring your MBR. Open another Terminal window and type: cd /mnt/backup/partition-backup dd if=backup-sda.mbr of=/dev/sda If you backed up your partition using sfdisk, type ‘sfdisk /dev/ sda < backup-sda.sf’ into the command prompt. If you used sgdisk, type ‘sgdisk --load-backup=backup-sda.sg /dev/sda’ instead to complete the restore.

Restore Your Original Setup

Select backup

Boot into SystemRescueCD and follow the steps in the main text (above), up to identifying your partitions. Next, mount the backup partition in the ‘/mnt/backup’ directory. Once done, open ‘PartImage’. Leave ‘sda1’ selected, type the backup path and name from before into the ‘Image’ file box.

Restore boot partition

Press [Tab] twice to highlight the asterisk next to ‘Save’ partition, then press the [Down Arrow] followed by [Spacebar] to select ‘Restore’ partition from an image file. Press [F5]. Note the description and press [Enter] again. Press [F5] to restore the partition, working through the warnings until the files are copied back.

Restore main partition

PartImage will close once the partition has been restored so launch it again, but now select your main ‘Windows’ partition (typically sda2). Then it’s a case of repeating the previous steps, only this time using the first backup file. Note the restoration relies on your Windows partition being the same size.

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How to...

Handling UEFI & Ubuntu Get your system configured correctly, even Windows 8 systems

odern PCs, particularly those with Windows 8 preinstalled, have replaced the traditional BIOS with a new system called UEFI. Both perform the same job, detecting and initialising your hardware before handing it over to your OS, but UEFI represents a quantum leap forwards from the somewhat primitive capabilities of the traditional BIOS. The UEFI offers a much wider range of features than that found in the BIOS, all wrapped up in a much more user-friendly, graphically pleasing interface. There are, however, potential issues to circumvent. First, because UEFI is a newer standard, it’s not compatible with legacy hardware. This problem is circumvented by a special Compatibility Support Module (CSM), which enables you to emulate the BIOS to run older hardware and OSes. More controversially, UEFIs also ship with a Secure Boot mode, which, while making PCs less susceptible to malware, acn lock the PC to only using Windows 8. Again, this feature can – in most cases – be disabled, but the good news is that Ubuntu 14.04 LTS fully supports newer hardware and Secure Boot, so you won’t need to disable either to install it alongside Windows. One UEFI feature you’ll definitely need to disable, however, is FastBoot (also called QuickBoot or FastStartup).

Tweak the UEFI

Accessing the UEFI is the same as entering the BIOS setup utility. Switch on your PC, then tap the key prompted to enter setup when it appears on-screen, typically [F2] or [Del]. First, verify that FastBoot has been disabled by looking for a section called ‘Windows 8 Configuration’, or – if it’s not present – ‘Boot’. Once located, make sure it’s switched off or disabled. You may need to tweak the CSM and Secure Boot settings if you intend backing up your system using SystemRescueCD. Again, look in the Windows 8 Configuration if it exists for Secure Boot, which may be listed as ‘Windows 8 Logo Requirement’. Either way, disable it should you have problems booting SystemRescueCD. If the section isn’t present, look under ‘Security’ instead. The CSM module may be part of the Windows 8 Logo Requirement screen, or it’ll be hidden away on its own (we found it buried away at the bottom of the Boot menu on our ASRock motherboard, for instance). Click this to reveal a

Make sure your FastBoot settings are disabled before attempting to install Ubuntu.

selection of different options covering different hardware – look for references to PXE (pre-boot environment), GOP (graphics) and Storage (or SATA), as well as USB and PS2, if applicable. This enables you to selectively switch CSM on and off for specific devices as required. Some motherboards – including our ASRock – enable you to run both modes as required. (In the case of ASRock, we set each one to ‘Do not launch’ to make this setting the norm). If there’s no apparent options for editing the Secure Boot or CSM settings, contact your PC manufacturer to verify whether or not these can be disabled or not. In most cases, PCs built using off-the-shelf motherboards should have the required options intact, but some manufacturers have been known to provide hobbled boards. As we mentioned earlier, upgrading a PC’s graphics card often requires enabling CSM support, so even if the controls aren’t already supported, the manufacturer may have relented under pressure from end users and provided a UEFI update on its website to enable the required options – Advent’s DT2410 PC is an example where this happened. With your Windows system backed up and the UEFI configured correctly, it’s time to press on and install Ubuntu

Choose The Right Boot Option Many modern PCs now give you the option of booting in UEFI or legacy BIOS mode, with the latter allowing you to install older operating systems. Ubuntu works fine with both UEFI and Legacy modes, but other environments – such as SystemRescueCD – require booting from a legacy option. Some PCs even support mixed-mode booting, presenting both legacy and UEFI choices direct from the boot menu, so you don’t need to wade into the UEFI shell to

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switch between them. If you’ve wondered why some boot options have been displayed twice, this is why: look closely and you’ll see one option is prefixed by UEFI. This gives you the option of choosing which mode to boot that drive in. It’s a good way of testing whether a certain OS or bootable disc works with UEFI or not. If you’re only offered a single set of boot options, your UEFI shell will only allow you to boot in either UEFI mode

or legacy. The latter requires CSM to be enabled, but once done you should be able to change boot settings – including device priority – from within the Boot section of the UEFI shell. If your PC supports mixed-mode booting, you may need to set a different default boot device, in which case take care to select the right mode when choosing which device (typically optical or boot hard drive) to make the default.

Escape Windows

alongside your existing setup. One of the reasons we’ve chosen Ubuntu is that its user-friendliness is apparent from the moment you install it. In The setup process is painless and relatively straightforward to follow. Simply head on over to www.ubuntu.com/download where it is free to download, then follow the instructions to get going. Wait for a few minutes and after a short pause where the screen goes grey and then red, the Welcome screen will appear. You’ll be given the option of either trying Ubuntu or installing it – select the ‘Install‘ option. Next, tick both boxes: ‘Download updates while installing’ and ‘Install this third-party software’. Click ‘Continue’, then wait while the updates are downloaded in the background.

Install Ubuntu 14.04.02 LTS

The ‘Installation Type’ screen should then appear. In most cases it should seamlessly detect your Windows installation – leave ‘Install Ubuntu’ alongside... and click ‘Continue’. If Windows isn’t offered as an option, this means Ubuntu hasn’t detected it. If you’re running a newer PC with a UEFI installed in place of the traditional BIOS, you’ll need to make sure you boot from the optical disc using the same option that Windows was installed with. Reboot your PC, then choose the alternative optical disc option from the boot menu to see if Ubuntu now detects your Windows installation. If the option doesn’t appear whether you choose UEFI or the legacy option, then it could be down to your partition table containing both MBR and GPT records (see below for the step-by-step guide for a way to resolve this issue). The next screen sees Ubuntu automatically find some free space for itself – either by carving up your current Windows partition, or by locating more space on another attached drive and repartitioning that instead. If you don’t want it installing on a USB drive, then power down your PC, disconnect the offending drive and then start again. Ubuntu needs a minimum of 6.4GB free space, but will take up to 40-odd GB if it can. You can alter this figure by clicking and dragging the grey space between both suggested partitions. It’s smart enough to not allow you to swallow up your entire Windows partition, but if you plan to continue using

Check your UEFI shell’s Boot settings to see whether Legacy, UEFI or mixed mode are selected.

it going forward, try to leave at least 10GB free space if you can, and preferably more. In most cases, the default choice should be fine, anyway, so click ‘Install Now’. Note the comment about partition resizing, and click ‘Continue’. You’ll next be prompted to choose your geographical region – the installer should automatically detect this – then click ‘Continue’ to select your keyboard layout. In most cases, the default UK keyboard layout is the one to pick, so click ‘Continue’ again. You’ll now be prompted to enter your name. As you enter it, Ubuntu will populate both the computer’s name and username fields based on your choice – you’re free to edit both should you choose. The final choice available to you is to pick a password. Select one that you’ll easily remember, as you’ll need this not just to log into Ubuntu but also to perform administrator-level tasks. Click ‘Continue’ again, and you can sit back and wait for Ubuntu to install itself on your PC – it really is that simple. It’s worth hanging around as the installer will reveal some useful pointers for your first steps into using Ubuntu. But turn the page and we’ll take you on your own personal tour of your shiny, new desktop and operating system.

Fix Windows Detection Issues

Launch Ubuntu Live

If your Windows install isn’t detected, click ‘Back’ until you return to the Welcome screen. Click ‘Try Ubuntu’ to load the live CD. When it’s loaded, press [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [T] to open a Terminal window. Type the following command and hit [Enter]: sudo gdisk dev/sda

Verify and fix

If gdisk says it has found both an MBR and a GPT, then the presence of GPT is the problem. Removing it will enable Ubuntu to see your Windows partition. First, select the GPT entry by typing ‘2’ and hitting [Enter]. Then, when prompted, type ‘x’ and hit [Enter] to access Expert command mode.

Apply and reboot

Type ‘z’ and hit [Enter]. When prompted to wipe the GPT on ‘/dev/sda’ type ‘y’ and hit [Enter]. When asked if you’d like to blank the MBR, make sure you press ‘n’ and hit [Enter] and close the Terminal, then reboot and try to install Ubuntu again. This time you’ll see the option to install it alongside Windows.

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How to...

Get Started with Ubuntu Take your first steps into the Unity desktop

ou’ve installed Ubuntu and rebooted your PC. The first change you’ll see is the presence of a new boot menu on startup, called GNU Grub (see “All About Grub”, p81). This enables you to choose which OS to boot into, plus gives you access to a memory testing utility. The default choice is Ubuntu, but before booting into it for the first time, we recommend selecting the ‘Windows’ entry. This lets Windows boot for the first time since the Ubuntu installer resized your partitions – you’ll note it immediately runs the disk-checking tool to verify and update its own partition records. Let it do this, then once complete it’ll restart your PC. Select ‘Windows’ again from the Grub boot menu to check all is well. Assuming it is, restart your PC again. This time, leave ‘Ubuntu’ selected and hit [Enter] to boot into your new OS for the first time. After the loading screen flashes by, you’ll be prompted to enter the password you set up during installation. Type this in, hit [Enter] and you’ll arrive at Ubuntu’s desktop, which is called Unity. The Unity desktop shares some similarities with Windows, such as the presence of shortcut icons on the left, but you’ll also notice some key differences, which will feel more familiar to those who have used a Mac. First, the Menu Bar at the top of

The main distinction for former Windows users trying out the Unity desktop environment for the first time will be the position of the launch bar.

the screen works in a similar way to Windows’ Taskbar Notification area, with a number of icons providing access to key tools. From the off you’ll see – from left to right – network, keyboard, volume, date/time and settings. Most of these are self-explanatory – click one to reveal its Options menu. The Settings button is the most interesting of these – not only does it provide access to the power options, it enables the ability to quickly switch users, log out or lock the computer, and it also provides a handy shortcut to Ubuntu’s System Settings, more of which in a moment. When you open an app, its title will also appear in the Menu Bar – roll your mouse over the Menu Bar and its menu items will appear and clicking one will open its menu.

The App Launcher

The shortcut icons displayed on the left-hand side of the screen are part of Unity’s App Launcher. Rather than cluttering up your desktop with icons, these are all housed in a single column – simply roll your mouse to the bottom or top of the launcher to reveal more shortcuts. The App Launcher houses shortcuts to applications, workspaces, removable drives and the Rubbish Bin, but the two shortcuts at the top are of particular interest: the top one lets you quickly search your computer and the internet from one handy window, while the Files shortcut gives you access to a file manager, making it easy to browse, access and manage your files – again more on that later. To find out more about a shortcut, simply roll your mouse over it and its title will pop up. Click one to open it. As time moves on, you’ll want to know how to add and remove shortcuts from the App Launcher – to remove a shortcut, simply right-click it and choose ‘Unlock from Launcher’. The simplest way to add a shortcut is to use the search tool to locate the app in question, then simply click and drag its shortcut into place on the Launcher. You can also reorder items in the Launcher by simply clicking and dragging them to their new spot. The desktop itself works in a similar way to Windows, and can be used to house files, folders and shortcuts should you wish to clutter it up – again, it uses the familiar right-click menu to provide you with options for creating folders, managing existing icons and changing the desktop background should you wish.

Get More Apps Ubuntu 14.04 LTS ships with a few apps pre-installed – notably LibreOffice and the Firefox web browser. For a complete list of installed apps, open the Ubuntu Software Center and select the ‘Installed’ button. Expand a category to see what apps there are, such as Rhythmbox. Use the Search box to locate them, then either open them directly from here or drag a shortcut on to the App Launcher. There are many more apps you can add to your Ubuntu

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installation, and the vast majority are free. There are a number of ways to do this. As you’ve seen with Ubuntu Tweak, (see “Accessing Your Documents”, p79) you can download apps directly from the web. If they’re packaged as Deb files, you can double-click them and have the Ubuntu Software Center manage the installation. You can also search for more apps from within the Software Center too – just use the Search box. The Ubuntu Software

Center isn’t a definitive source for apps, however – Linux apps are housed in special collections called ‘repositories’, and as you’ll see over the page, you can install apps via the Terminal too. One thing you’ll want to do is access apps for specific file types, such as images. If you can’t find an app, try double-clicking a file you want to open – if you get a ‘Could not display’ error, click ‘Yes’ to search the Ubuntu repos for apps.

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Accessing Your Documents

Identify mount point

Click the ‘Search’ button in the App Launcher, type ‘disks’ and click the ‘Disks’ shortcut under Applications. Assuming you’ve moved your data to a new drive, select this drive in the lefthand pane. Now highlight the partition that your data is stored on under Volumes and make a note of where it’s mounted.

Install Ubuntu Tweak

Open the Firefox web browser and head to http://ubuntu-tweak.com. Ignore the Launchpad prompt, then click the latest ‘Deb Package’ link (which is 0.8.7 at time of writing). Next click ‘OK’ to launch it with Ubuntu Software Center, then review the package description before clicking the ‘Install’ button.

Ubuntu can detect both FAT32 and NTFS partitions, so accessing your old data shouldn’t be too much of an issue. You should see these drives appear in the App Launcher – clicking one will open its contents for viewing. If you’re looking for your personal data, then unless you’ve specifically moved the folders in Windows, you should find all your documents in the Users folder under your username.

Access your data

You can also access the graphical Nautilus file manager by simply clicking the ‘Files’ shortcut on the Launcher. It provides a familiar two-paned window, with a series of shortcuts on the left and the contents of the currently selected folder or drive on the right. By default, items are displayed in a grid, but you can switch to list view using the buttons in the top right. You’ll also see a ‘Search’ button, which enables you to search the currently selected folder (and sub-folders). If you want to copy data from your Windows partition to your user folders in Ubuntu, browse to one of your user folders – Documents, for example – then click and drag all of its contents on the ‘Documents’ shortcut in the left-hand pane. It pays to make sure you have enough free drive space. If you plan to continue using Windows alongside Ubuntu, a better solution is to set up a spare drive or partition as a dedicated data drive, allowing both Ubuntu and Windows to access the same copy. This needs to be a FAT32 or NTFS partition so Windows can access it as well as Ubuntu. Assuming such a partition is in place, set it up by first booting back into Windows. Now create dedicated folders for Documents, Pictures, Music and Videos on your data partition. Next open your Windows User folder, right-click your ‘Documents’ folder and choose ‘Properties > Location’ tab. Click ‘Move’ and select the ‘Documents’ folder on your data partition. Click ‘OK’ and then enable it to move all your existing data across to the data partition. Repeat for your other folders. Once done, boot back into Ubuntu. Your files should now be easily accessible from the data partition, enabling you to make changes to them using both Windows and Ubuntu programs. To make the change complete, follow the step-by-step guide to

Move user folders

Click the ‘Search’ button, type ‘Ubuntu’ and select ‘Ubuntu Tweak’ under Applications. Select ‘Admins > User Folder’. Each folder will be listed – select one and click ‘Change’. Browse your data partition for the corresponding folder, select it and click ‘Open’. Repeat for all the other user folders.

point your Ubuntu user folders to the same location. We recommend following the advice given and leaving the Ubuntu desktop folder alone. Once done, test the tweaks work by opening Nautilus and clicking the ‘Documents’ shortcut in the left-hand pane, which should now point to your data partition. To access your network, open a folder window and you’ll see network options on the left of the screen. Click ‘Browse Network’ to find other computers – there’s a handy ‘Windows Network’ shortcut for accessing Windows PCs. Alternatively, if you know the computer name, click ‘Connect to server’ and type ‘smb://comp-name’ and click ‘Connect’. Have your username and password ready if necessary. Ubuntu should automatically handle all of your PC’s hardware, using generic drivers if necessary, but you can

“Ubuntu can detect both FAT32 and NTFS, so accessing your old data shouldn’t be an issue.” review what’s been installed, plus look for additional drivers (specifically for gaming, Wi-Fi or printing) using the Software & Updates app. Open a Search box, type ‘Software’ and then click the ‘Additional Drivers’ shortcut. It will search for any driver updates that may exist and alert you to any alternative or proprietary drivers you may have installed. If you store data in the cloud, the good news is that Ubuntu supports a wide range of cloud providers – which is a good thing, seeing as it recently dropped its own Ubuntu One cloud storage service. Some providers are officially supported on Linux, such as Dropbox (www.dropbox.com/install). If you’re looking for heaps of free storage then Google Drive offers 15GB, making it a good option, but as yet there’s no official Ubuntu support. A number of third-party offerings exist, and if you’re prepared to pay $15, InSync (http://insynchq.com) is the tool of choice. You could, of course, use OwnCloud to setup your own storage.

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How to...

The Vitals of Linux Discover the key tools and techniques you’ll need to know

ow you’ve familiarised yourself a little with the Unity desktop, it’s time to plunge deeper into the Linux ocean and arm yourself with more of the important knowledge you’ll need to use it going forward. Before diving in, however, it’s a good idea to take a system backup – as you start to learn Ubuntu you may make mistakes that could lock you out of your system. (See “Take Another Backup”, below). First, let’s take a look at the Linux file system and how it’s organised into folders. First, Linux uses a different file system to Windows (NTFS or FAT32) called ‘ext4’. This makes your Linux folders invisible to Windows, which can’t natively read ext-based drives. That’s fine – we’ve moved your data on to a shared partition that both OSes can see, and it’s better that you can’t accidentally access your Ubuntu partitions. Now, open Nautilus where you’ll be taken to your Home folder. This works in a similar way to your Windows user folder, and normally contains all of your personal files, although we’ve moved key folders across to your data partition so you can

Take a backup of your dual-boot system using Redo for extra security.

share files with your Windows installation. Shortcuts to these key folders can be found in the left-hand pane. Now click the ‘Computer’ link under ‘Devices’ and you’ll get a look at a load of other folders too. Most of these can be safely ignored on a day-to-day basis – the ‘bin’ folder is where your programs are stored, for example – but two worth noting are ‘media’ and ‘mnt’. These are where shortcuts to any external drives and network folders you’ve connected to can be found. The key difference between the two folders is that drives mounted in the ‘/media’ folder are mounted on a per-user basis, and don’t require elevated access before they are mounted. This means they’re not available to the system before you log into your account, which can cause some issues with start-up programs. See http://bit.ly/MountWinParts for more information – jump to the Configuring ‘/etc/fstab’ section for a guide to mounting partitions before login occurs to circumvent this problem.

Key system tools

While Ubuntu will require you to access the command line to perform some complicated tasks, there’s a lot you can do without it. We’ve already introduced the Disks utility in the “Accessing Your Documents” guide on p79. Disks lets you view and manage your drives and their partitions – by selecting one, clicking the ‘Settings’ button and choosing ‘Edit Mount Options’, you can make changes to the way partitions are mounted without having to edit the ‘fstab’ file directly. But use with care – if drives don’t behave as you expect, flick the ‘Automatic Mount Options’ switch back to ‘On’ to restore the status quo. Many system preferences can be accessed via the System Settings tool – click the ‘Settings’ button on the Menu Bar to access it. You’ll see three section buttons: Personal, Hardware and System. From there you can access a particular preferences tool. Select ‘Appearances’, for example, to tweak some desktop settings, such as automatically hiding the App Launcher when not required and moving an application’s menus to its own window rather than the main menu bar. You can also install a dedicated tweaking tool. We’ve already seen how the Ubuntu Tweak Tool can be used to move your home folders to another drive (p79). It also includes a handy Apps tab that makes it easy to locate and install new software. Also take the time to explore the Tweaks section and – in

Take Another Backup Now that Ubuntu is safely installed on your PC, it’s time to consider taking a fresh backup of your hard drive. You can, of course, use SystemRescueCD for this purpose. If all this sounds like too much hassle, then you could try Redo Backup and Recovery instead. Download the ISO file from Sourceforge (http://bit.ly/Redobackup) and burn it to disc – in Ubuntu, insert a blank CD and click ‘Cancel’ when the ‘Choose application to launch’ window

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appears. Now locate the ISO file (typically in your Downloads folder), right-click it and choose ‘Write to Disc’, then click ‘Burn’. When the disc has been created, reboot and choose to boot from the disc – you may need to tweak your UEFI settings; enabling CSM for storage should be sufficient. Select ‘Start Redo Backup’ (choose the ‘Safe Mode’ option if this doesn’t work) and click ‘Backup’ when the main screen appears. Select your drive,

then choose which partitions to back up. Then it’s a case of selecting your backup drive and creating a folder into which your backup will be stored. Give your backup a name and then ‘Redo Backup’ the rest. Should the worst happen, recovery is as simple as clicking ‘Restore’ instead of ‘Backup’ and following the prompts. You’ll also find a settings button in the bottom left-hand corner where a number of useful disk-related tools reside.

Escape Windows

All About Grub When you install Ubuntu alongside Windows, it adds a special boot loader to your system that provides a boot menu for choosing between Ubuntu and Windows on startup. That boot loader is called Grub 2. It’s designed to wait a short period of time before automatically loading Ubuntu. You can configure how Grub behaves – choose a shorter or longer time before it starts loading the default choice, and even change that choice, by editing its configuration file and updating Grub via the Terminal. Before doing so, make sure you’ve backed up the system.

Once done, open the Terminal, then type ‘sudo apt-get install gksu’ followed by ‘gksu edit/etc/default/grub &’. This opens the Grub configuration file in a Gedit window. From here, you need to edit the existing file with whatever changes you wish to implement. First, the ‘GRUB_DEFAULT=0’ line is what makes Ubuntu the default choice at boot time. To make Windows the default choice, and assuming there are five entries in the boot menu (Ubuntu, Ubuntu advanced options, two memory test options and finally Windows), change

particular – the Unity component where you can do things like resize the Launcher icons. Two other tweaking tools worth exploring are the Unity Tweak Tool, which gives you even more fine control over the desktop, and Tweak Tool. Both can be found via the Ubuntu Software Center – choose the trusty-backports version of the Unity Tweak Tool. Both offer similar point-and-click access to hidden system settings.

Repositories

Although you can download programs directly from websites, it’s far easier to use the centralised Software Center. Ubuntu provides its own software repository, which is a server containing hundreds of Linux programs specially compiled to work with Ubuntu. This means that any software you find in the Software Center should work without problems, which makes it a little like having your very own Linux app store. The Center also looks out for program updates, alerting you when they’re available and installing them for you. You’re not restricted to one app store – sorry, repository – either: install a program such as Dropbox from its own website, for example, and it’ll add its own repo to the Center, enabling it to alert you about updates. To manage these repos, open Software Center and select ‘Edit > Software Sources’. A list can be found under the ‘Other Software’ tab, where you can manually add your own. So far we’ve not dealt with Terminal, which is Linux’s equivalent of the Windows command prompt. While it’s

this to ‘GRUB_DEFAULT=4’. Alternatively, to switch default OS to whichever one was selected previously, change ‘GRUB_ DEFAULT=0 to GRUB_DEFAULT=saved’, then add a new line immediately below this: ‘GRUB_SAVEDEFAULT=true.’ You can also change the length of time – in seconds – that Grub waits before it boots the default choice. Simply change ‘GRUB_TIMEOUT=10’ accordingly. When you‘ve done this, click the ‘Save’ button and close the Gedit window. Ignore the warning and type ‘sudo update-grub’ to update the boot loader.

technically possible to avoid this, if you want to make the most of your new OS then learning to navigate it is essential. Opening the Terminal is simple – press [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [T]. A window appears and at a superficial glance it looks a lot like the command line in Windows. In Ubuntu, you start off in the ‘~’ directory, which basically means your personal Home folder. Type ‘dir’ and you’ll see a list of folders to confirm this. To change directory, use the ‘cd’ command – to move up a level, type ‘cd ..’, or type ‘cd home/nick/Pictures’ to jump directly to another folder (note that directory paths are case sensitive). You can return to your home directory at any time using the ‘cd ~’ command. Other file-management commands include ‘cp’ (copy), ‘mv’ (move), ‘mkdir’ (create folder) and ‘rm’ (delete file). One key command you’ll need to learn is ‘sudo’. Linux is very tight on security, and in normal day-to-day operations

“If you want to make the most of your new OS then learning to navigate Terminal is essential.”

Configure Grub to choose which OS loads by default.

your access is quite restricted. You can’t, for example, modify files on your Linux partition outside of your ‘home’ directory. What sudo does is give you elevated access, enabling you to manipulate files and perform commands – think of it like right-clicking a program in Windows and choosing ‘Run as administrator’. You can prefix any command with ‘sudo’ to gain this access, but you’ll need to provide your password. You can install software directly from the command line too, using the ‘apt-get’ command. To install GIMP directly from the Terminal, for example, you type ‘sudo apt-get install gimp’. The ‘apt-get’ command can also be used to update all of your existing software (‘apt-get upgrade’), check for broken dependencies (‘apt-get check’) and fix problems with missing dependencies (‘apt-get –f install’). Over time you can also use it to free up disk space by removing Deb packages you’ve uninstalled (‘apt-get autoclean’). It’s even possible to download files using the ‘wget’: just type ‘wget’ followed by the full URL of the file you wish to download, which will automatically be saved to your personal downloads folder. Now you’ve successfully installed Ubuntu alongside Windows and grasped the basics of using Linux, there’s no turning back. In fact, we suspect you’ll wonder why you didn’t try it before. n

M AY 20 15

How to...

BY TOM MCNAMARA

Creating A Quiet But Beastly PC Low noise doesn’t mean low joys Length of time: 2–4 HOURS

The Mission

Over the last few months, in the creaking depths of the secret PC Format lair, we’ve been constructing compact PCs or just putting shiny new things together and seeing what they do. And that’s usually pretty entertaining. But it occurred to us that it’s been a good while since we tackled a quiet PC build. After all, as much as we like brute raw power, we don’t want to hear that power screaming all day long. But that doesn’t mean we need to sacrifice performance. If we create a whispery rig, we can still build it to growl and roar in its own way. Fortunately, it’s not as difficult as you might think. With the right case, CPU cooler and graphics card, everything can fall into place. Luckily, the hardware components market is chock-full of interesting possibilities, one of which was so new that it hadn’t even been reviewed as this issue went to press. We entered this undiscovered territory, and we think it was worth the journey. This build didn’t turn out quite the way we expected, but a little ingenuity made it come together in the end.

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LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY: medium

Build it Armed to the Teeth of a quiet PC build is the case. You want to keep the racket down, and that means soundabsorbing panels. You can glue your own in, or you can buy cases with panels pre-installed. Last time, we used a Fractal Design Define R4, which is still a fine choice. But we needed something with more airflow (the R4 comes with only two fans). Enter the NZXT H440. We decided to go a step further and get the Razer edition, which is almost all black, save for a few neon-green details. It has three 120mm intake fans, a 140mm exhaust fan and space for a large radiator up top. It fit the bill. The radiator belongs to the Corsair Hydro H110i GT. This has a 280mm rad, thick tubing and some nice aesthetics. The H110i will be cooling an Intel Core i7-5960X. Like we said, we’re not holding back. This 8-core, 16-thread chip is a monster for things like video editing and virtual machines, and we can overclock it quite a bit with the H110i. This hefty CPU sits on an Asus X99 Pro motherboard, which is a premium, featurepacked job. Along for the ride is 32GB of Corsair Dominator DDR4, a 960GB OCZ Vector 180 SSD, a 6TB hard drive from HGST, an MSI R9 290X Lightning and a Corsair AX1200i power supply. Ladies and gents, we do not mess around. Read on to see how this epic stack of gear comes together.

The most important element

INGREDIENTS

PART

PRICE

Case

NZXT H440 (Razer edition)

£90

PSU

Corsair AX1200i 1,200W

£247

Cables

Optional Corsair Cable Kit (White)

£65

Mobo

Asus X99 Pro

£243

CPU

Intel Core i7-5960X

£825

GPU

MSI R9 290X Lightning

£381

RAM

4x 8GB Corsair Dominator DDR4

£530

HDD

6TB HGST UltraStar He6

£413

SSD

960GB OCZ Vector 180

£350 (TBC)

Windows 8.1 64-bit OEM

£71

Total

£3,215

Power Behind the Throne The power supply finds its cosy new home in a separate chamber at the bottom of the case, and it gets in there by sliding gently through the back of the case, instead of coming in from the side as it usually would. To make that happen, you have to first remove this plate, which is held down by four thumbscrews. Then you slide your PSU in, put the plate back on, and screw the plate into the PSU. If you’re using a modular power supply, like we are for this month’s build, you also need to hang back and attach your cables before you get going with sliding the PSU in. That’s because the back of the PSU will be difficult to reach past this point. It’s a bit of pain, but good cable management is going to be one of the trickier aspects of a clean-looking case.

Going to Great Lengths Interesting hurdles show up right away. We’ve put

the mobo’s I/O shield in, screwed the motherboard into the case and installed our RAM sticks, when we notice the graphics card is longer than expected. Thankfully, we can remove a drive tray in the front to make room. It’s attached with two thumbscrews and slides right out. But connecting the power cables is tight, even when you use these flexible ones. That’s partly because this card is also taller than usual. If it used the reference height, then regular rounded cables would probably be fine. Also note this card uses an extra 6-pin cable. Our 8-pin cables come with two detachable pins, so we took the cable with the bonus pins and tucked it out of the way. There’s a side window, so we want it looking tidy.

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How to...

Uno, Dos, Trays

The H440 case can take up to two 140mm fans on top, as well as up to three 120mm fans. But because of the contour of the frame, you can’t set the radiator right against the metal. It’s too tight. You have to put the fans in between the case and the radiator, which can be pretty tricky if you haven’t tried it before. Getting the screws to line up correctly with the holes in the fans and the radiator is a time-consuming process. We have the fans facing upwards so that they will pull the heat rising off the rad and send it out of the vent in the panel that will sit on top of the case. The fans also need to be oriented so that their cables come out at the same location. This makes cable management much cleaner once the fans are hooked up to the cooler. You just tug the cables gently back behind the motherboard until you run out of slack.

There are two trays on top of the power supply compartment where we could have put our solid-state drive, but we like hiding it out of the way. You may have noticed by now that the H440 has no 5.25-inch drive bays. This cage has only 3.5-inch trays, which can also take 2.5-inch drives. After making room for the graphics card and the CPU cooler, we had three trays left. We took the two that were closest to each other and used them for the SSD and the HDD. That allowed us to use one SATA power cable (which also connected to the CPU cooler). The drive attaches with a set of small bundled screws.

Something Up Our Sleeve

Joining the Fan Club

Two Can Play This Game

Our fancy individually sleeved cables came in handy

The H440 had room for pretty much everything we threw

behind the motherboard, because there wasn’t as much space back there as we would’ve liked. The sound-absorption panel takes up a few millimetres in an already-challenging space. Thankfully, there was plenty of room in front of the power supply to tuck things out of the way, and we’d removed two drive trays for some more space. Since the drive cage in the front of the case is hidden by a large metal plate, we were able to use that to our advantage and obscure most of the mess. We also made sure we installed the 8-pin CPU power cable before installing the CPU cooler. Otherwise, the cooler’s radiator and fans would‘ve blocked our path. We also needed to whip out a Molex cable to power the hub that the case fans were connecting to. The fans themselves were hooked up to the hub at the factory, so that saved us some time and energy.

at it, but there wasn’t space to add two more fans to the radiator. This is pretty normal for a mid-tower case. What we didn’t expect is just how tight our fit would be. There’s literally 1 to 2mm between the radiator and the mobo’s rear I/O shroud. Because of this limitation, the radiator tubes had to be placed on the other end, and putting another set of fans on the cooler was out the window. The side effect was that installing the CPU cooler with the Corsair logo right-side up was difficult to do in a way that looked natural. So we ended up with the logo upsidedown. Not a big deal, and it has no impact on performance. We chalked it up to a learning experience. We’ve seen this case accommodate two extra radiator fans before – it’s just not going to work with this particular motherboard.

M AY 20 15

Build it

The rubber grommet we’re feeding the motherboard power cable through is at about a 30-degree angle, so your cable doesn’t have to bend as much as usual.

For reference, this graphics card is about 12 inches long and takes up three slots. It’s a big mother. If you have a dual-slot card, there’s still space to add a second one below.

This panel is a 2.5-inch drive tray held down by a thumbscrew. There are gaps behind it where cables can go in and out.

2 3

These feet elevate the case so that the power supply’s intake fan gets enough clearance to do its thing. There’s also a slide-out filter under here.

conquering the quiet life As we’re preparing this issue for the

printers, OCZ informed us it was pushing back the release date of its Vector 180 SSD, due to unspecified technical problems brought to its attention by people it had sent these units to for review. It was too late for us to re-build, re-benchmark and rephotograph, so you’ll have to visualise your favourite SSD in there instead. The good news is that SSD selection has a negligible impact on our set of benchmarks. Speaking of performance, we were impressed by how easily the Asus X99 Pro overclocked this CPU. An OC from 3GHz to 4GHz at 1.3 volts is nothing to sneeze at, but this board needed no tweaking beyond our initial set of adjustments, which was mostly just beefing up the power sent through the voltage regulators. Not many programs use 16 CPU threads, which is why this chip wrecked our test rig machine’s stockclocked hex-core i7-3930K in some tests, but not in others. The 5960X got into the low 80s Celsius during our Premiere Pro bench, indicating there wasn’t much wiggle room left. You’d probably need a custom water cooling loop to push performance much further. But let’s not forget why we built this system to begin with: quietude. Well, plugging the fan hub directly into the power

supply will create some noise, and there’s no fan speed controller. And the CPU cooler’s fans are also right underneath the top panel, instead of the radiator getting sandwiched in between. So the Fractal case we mentioned earlier still has some better options for noise level, and more space behind the mobo for cable routing. Still, the case’s stock fans aren’t loud, and the sound-absorbing panels do muffle some noise, though the window on the side panel has an acoustic cost as well. If low noise is really important to you, we’d

recommend the Define R4, though it needs at least one more fan for good airflow. The MSI Lightning card, with its monster three-fan, triple-slot cooler, hardly rose above a mild drone throughout testing, yet it still punched above its weight in Batman: Arkham City. The 290X is a great GPU that performs within range of an Nvidia GeForce GTX 980, but for less money. Overall, we enjoyed wrangling this build into shape, and we were gratified to get solid, stable overclocks without needing hours of experimenting and fine-tuning. n

benchmarks test rig Premiere Pro CS6 (sec)

2,000

1,263

Stitch.Efx 2.0 (sec)

831

753

ProShow Producer 5.0 (sec)

1,446

1,328

x264 HD 5.0 (fps)

21.1

31.8

Batman: Arkham City (fps)

3DMark 11 Extreme

5,847

5,005 -17% 0%

10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50% 55%

Our current desktop test rig consists of a hexa-core 3.2GHz Core i7-3930K 3.8GHz, 8GB of Corsair DDR3/1600, on an Asus Sabertooth X79 motherboard. We’re running a GeForce GTX 690, an OCZ Vertex 3 SSD and 64-bit Windows 7 Pro.

M ay 20 15

How to...

Repair Windows With One Easy Tool You’ll need this FIXWIN Download the troubleshooting app for free from www.thewindowsclub.com.

FixWin is a simple tool for troubleshooting your Windows installation. You can use the tool to fix more than 50 Windows problems and annoyances that might be caused by malicious malware. Anti-malware scanners can help you remove these harmful programs, but they won’t always undo the changes caused by the nasty malware to Windows itself, changes such as hiding the context menu, or disabling the Registry editor. With FixWin, you can repair these unwanted modifications to Windows. The tool lists all its fixes and their symptoms across several categories. Every problem has a ‘Fix’ button that you can click to apply the suggested solution. Remember that FixWin isn’t a diagnostic tool and doesn’t actually look inside your PC and uncover problems. You have to know you have a problem, and then use this program to fix it. Let’s get started. –MAYANK SHARMA

DOWNLOAD FIXWIN The latest edition of the program, FixWin 2.0, is designed to resolve issues with Windows 8.1. If you’re on Windows 7, stick to version one. Visit http://bit.ly/1BqhQ2R to download the tool and double-click on the executable file to launch the app. FixWin is a portable tool so there’s no setup process. This allows you to copy the executable file to any USB drive and run the program on any Windows PC.

FIX SYSTEM FILES The Welcome screen of the program advises you to first run the System File Checker Utility by clicking the button labelled as such [Image A]. This utility is designed to detect and fix any corrupted Windows system files and help the program assess your PC and detect possible errors on the drive. Note, this may take some time to complete depending on the size of your disk.

RESTORE INTERNET CONNECTIVITY Now switch to the ‘Internet & Connectivity’ section to fix any issues that are related to network connectivity. Here you can get rid of any runtime errors thrown by IE. You can also reset IE and the Windows Firewall to their default configuration if they’ve been modified accidentally or by another program [Image B]. There’s also an option to optimise IE for concurrently downloading multiple files.

CREATE A SYSTEM RESTORE POINT Once the System File Checker utility has scanned your system, you should create a restore point by clicking on the button. You can continue using the program without a restore point, but it isn’t recommended. Since the FixWin solutions are modifying the Windows Registry, a restore point will help revert any changes if the fix introduces unwanted stability issues.

FIX WINDOWS STORE The Windows Store is an essential component to the Windows 8 experience. If you have issues downloading or purchasing apps from here, head to the ‘Modern UI’ section in FixWin. This section lists fixes under two tabs. The ‘Windows Store’ tab resolves issues related to the store. You can clear and reset the store’s cache as well as apply fixes to common error messages.

FIX FILE EXPLORER You can now start resolving your PC issues. Click on the ‘File Explorer’ link in the left-hand bar to view all the fixes related to the Windows Explorer. The fixes listed can help restore the Recycle Bin icon to the desktop and the Folder Options settings under the Control Panel. You can also fix the infamous ‘Class not registered’ error encountered when launching apps, from under this section.

FIX SYSTEM TOOLS Some malware can disable access to Windows tools. FixWin can restore access to these tools and help you take charge of your PC. The ‘System Tools’ section lists fixes around the Task Manager, Registry Editor, Command Prompt, Windows Defender, System Restore, Windows Action Center and more. This section helps restore access to these tools or reset them to the default configuration.

MISCELLANEOUS FIXES Fixes that can’t be classified under the other sections mentioned above are listed under the ‘Additional Fixes’ section [Image C]. Here you can enable the hibernate feature if it’s missing from the Shutdown menu. You can also fix and rebuild the icons cache if

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Repair Windows c

the icons aren’t rendering properly, and restore Aero features. This section also helps you prevent Windows Media Player from crashing.

REVERT CHANGES In the off chance a fix destabilises your PC, you can restore your computer to its previous state by reverting all the changes made since the previous restore point. Launch Control Panel and head to ‘System and Security > System’. Click on ‘System Protection’ and click the ‘System Restore’ button in the window that pops open to launch the System Restore wizard [Image D].

RESTORE SYSTEM The wizard will show you a list of restore points [Image E]. The last system restore point will automatically be selected. If this isn’t the one created by FixWin, toggle the ‘Choose a different restore point’ option to list the available restore points. Select the restore point that was created by FixWin and click on ‘Finish’. This will exit the wizard, restart Windows and begin the restoration process. n

Quick fixes 1. CATEGORIES The various fixes are housed under these categories that represent a particular area of Windows.

2. ERROR ALERT A brief explanation of the odd behaviour that needs fixing.

3. SORTED To apply a fix, simply press this button corresponding to the error you wish to resolve.

M AY 20 15

How to...

Customise the Win8.1 Lock Screen You’ll need this CHAMELEON Automatically update Lock screen photos with National Geographic images with this free, third-party app from the Windows Store.

and it should be the first thing you make your own. Fortunately, there’s a whole heap of ways you can do just that, from changing the image and colour on show, to the type of information updates you receive. You can even set up picture passwords. Likewise with the login screen. From playing around with accessibility, to personalising your profile picture, there’s no reason why your PC experience shouldn’t start out exactly how you’d like it to. Read on to find out how. –MATT HANSON The Lock screen is the first thing you see in Windows 8.1,

CHANGING THE IMAGE The standard Lock screen may look pretty enough. but you can switch the picture. Press [Windows] + [I], click ‘Change PC Settings’, and open the Personalisation menu. The first things you see are your options for replacement images. You don’t have to stick with the classy images that Microsoft has provided. You can stick a picture of your other half, cat or favourite pot plant on the Lock screen instead – just click the ‘Browse’ button and choose the image you want to use from now on.

EXTRA INFORMATION At the bottom of the Lock screen you’ll see a few quick updates about happenings on your PC. You can see more, though. On the Personalise screen, you’ll find options that enable you to change the specific icons that get displayed. Certain apps – Calendar and Weather, by default – can show you more information on the Lock screen [Image A]. Just make sure the app you’re interested in is highlighted at the very bottom of the Personalise page of Control Panel. » You can take the Lock screen further with third-party apps. Search the Windows Store for Incredilock. It’s free, offers customisable wallpapers, and can add things, such as to-do lists to your Lock screen. Many apps can add information to your Lock

screen beyond those that are installed by default. Hunt through the Windows Store and you should be able to find plenty of apps that you can configure to display useful information at lock; things such as Twitter clients, thirdparty weather apps and more.

PICTURE PASSWORDS Open up the Start screen control panel and go to the ‘Users’ tab. Here you can change your login password. Note that changing this also changes it for other machines or services (such as Outlook mail) that your account is linked to. You should try the picture password function on the ‘Users’ tab of ‘Change PC Settings’. It’s a fun way to log into your PC, and it’s pretty secure, too. Just try not to leave telltale smears on your touchscreen.

FAST LOCK Want to bring the Lock screen up in a flash if, for instance, you’re stepping away from your PC for a while? Easy. Either click your profile picture at the topright corner of the Start screen and click ‘Lock’, or just press [Windows] + [L] at the same time.

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Customise Lock screen B

SCREEN COLOURS You can customise your Lock screen colours separately from your Start screen colours. Open the desktop, hit [Windows] + [R], type ‘regedit’, and go through HKEY_LOCAL_ MACHINE, SOFTWARE, Microsoft, Windows, CurrentVersion, Explorer and then Accent. Right-click on ‘Accent’ and create a new Dword, which we suggest that you call ‘DefaultColorSet’. Now edit this, switch the base to decimal and set this to be a number between 0 and 24.

HIDE SCREEN If you want to ditch the Lock screen altogether, then hit [Windows] + [R], type ‘gpedit.msc’, go to ‘Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Control Panel > Personalisation’, and change the option ‘Do not display the lock screen’ to enabled.

AUTO IMAGE UPDATE Add some pep to your Lock screen by automatically changing its image. Search the Windows Store for Chameleon. This pulls in photographs from sources such as the National Geographic and Bing, and pastes new ones on your Lock screen at set intervals [Image B]. Another option for shuffling is Lockerz. This app works by either displaying a selection of your local pictures that you’ve chosen, or it can be hooked up to your OneDrive account for a truly personal random experience.

accessibility dialog to turn on the onscreen keyboard. It’s really useful on touchscreens and for those who can’t use a keyboard.

QUICK SHUTDOWN Log out! Shut down! Do it all without logging in. There’s an icon at the bottom-right of the login screen that does the business. Access it by tapping [Tab], [Tab], then [Enter], then selecting the function you want with the arrow keys.

SHORTCUTS Once you’ve logged in, you might want to try getting around the Start screen using nothing but your keyboard. This can be done by using the arrow keys to flick between icons, and [Enter] to run your selection. Jump through the Start screen by using [Page Up] and [Page Down] to hop to either end, or use [Tab] to jump up to your profile picture.

mouse control You can also use the mouse wheel to scroll through your Start screen, particularly if you have a lot of items on there. It is the quickest way to see everything. If you find the amount of apps intimidating, don’t worry, simply start typing the name of the app you’re looking for and it appears on the right.

ONTO THE LOGIN SCREEN If you just want to get past the Lock screen, to the login screen, there are loads of ways to do that – click it, drag it up, spin your mousewheel, or hit [Space] to progress. You see your account picture on your login screen. Or you might not. If you’ve not set one up, you will just see a silhouette. Use the ‘Users’ menu in ‘Change PC Settings’ to add a picture. This will follow you anywhere you use your Microsoft login.

ACCESSIBILITY OPTIONS The login screen has a neat feature for visually impaired users in the bottom-left, so you can turn on narration, the magnifier and more, before you log in. Press [Tab], then [Enter] if you want to get there without clicking. You can also use the

ALL APPS Don’t forget the ‘All apps’ menu, which shows everything, not just those apps you’ve got pinned to your Start screen. Right-click on the Start screen and choose its icon. Right-click any of the apps in the ‘All apps’ screen and select ‘Pin to Start’ to make them visible on the Start menu.

SWITCH ACCOUNTS Many people can use the same machine. If you’ve set up more than one in the ‘Users’ tab of the ‘Change PC Settings’ screen, just click your profile picture to switch accounts. n

M AY 20 15

How to...

Secure Your Windows 8.1 PC You’ll need this MALWAREBYTES The anti-malware scanner is available, for free, from www.malwarebytes.org.

improving the security mechanisms in its operating systems, and Windows 8.1 built on the security enhancements of previous releases to protect you against malicious bits of software, such as viruses, spyware and other nasties out there. Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing team has outlined the security improvements in Windows 8.1, and broken them down into four categories: trustworthy hardware, modern access control, protecting sensitive data, and malware resistance. The first three are focused on enterprise users, and are geared towards BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) scenarios. The good news for home users is that Microsoft is also beefing up its built-in malware resistance. For one, Internet Explorer 11 ships with the Enhanced Protection Mode enabled by default, which is designed to safeguard your data even if an attacker has managed to compromise the browser or one of its add-ons. Secondly, Microsoft has also improved its builtin Windows Defender tool. Read on to discover how to make the most of it. –GRAHAM BARLOW

Microsoft spends a lot of effort

USING WINDOWS DEFENDER Windows Defender was upgraded to become a full antivirus program with the release of Windows 8. To bring up the program, type ‘defender’ on the Windows 8.1 Start screen. The coloured bar at the top of the Windows Defender interface reflects the protection status of your computer. » You will see big red warnings if the program has been turned off, or if your database is out of date, while Windows Defender keeps itself updated by automatically downloading new updates to its virus database.

starting a tab The main Windows Defender interface lists four tabs. From the ‘Home’ tab, you can run a quick scan or a full scan by selecting the appropriate button and clicking ‘Scan now’. Alternatively, with the ‘Custom’ button, you can scan specific drives, directories or even individual files.

GOING INTO QUARANTINE If Windows Defender finds something objectionable, it moves it into a quarantined area. To view these items, switch to the ‘History’ tab, select the ‘Quarantined items’ radio button and click the ‘View details’ button. This brings up a list of programs that Windows Defender has taken action on, along with the alert level, and the date. From here you can choose to ‘Remove all quarantined items’, or remove them selectively. getting out of QUARANTINE Sometimes Windows Defender might accidentally quarantine a harmless program. In such a case, you can use the ‘Restore’ button to ask Defender to let you continue using the program. This program is now listed as an ‘Allowed’ item, and Windows Defender will not flag the program in future scans.

SWITCH TO A FREE ANTIVIRUS PROGRAM

1 DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL Malwarebytes is available as a free download, so pay a visit to www.malwarebytes.org and grab it from there. When installing the program on your PC, make sure you uncheck the box that enables the free trial of the Pro version.

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2 REVIEW SETTINGS The free version of the program doesn’t automatically download new malware definitions, so you’ll need to do update it each time you use it. Switch to the ‘Settings’ tab to tweak the behaviour of the program, although the defaults should work for most people.

Windows Defender

Taking action

ne important component of Windows 8.1 that plays a crucial role in keeping your computer safe and secure is the Windows Action Center. It monitors the most important aspects of the PC and divides them into two broad categories: security and maintenance. You can find the Action Center located within the desktop Control Panel, under ‘System and Security’. When something needs your attention, the Action Center flags up the problem. It colour-codes any warnings that need your attention. Issues flagged with a yellow border could potentially affect the security or performance of the PC, while a red border is used for highlighting critical problems. In addition to the colour-coding, the Action Center also displays a description of the problem, along with a link to open the configuration window of the relevant tool to resolve the issue.

DEALING WITH MALWARE Although Windows Defender does a good job of keeping your system clean, if you’re particularly paranoid about malware, you can use a dedicated anti-malware scanner, such as Malwarebytes (see “Switch To A Free Antivirus Program”, below). However, there’s a certain type of malware, known as a worm, which specialises in spreading over the network. Having a wellconfigured firewall is an essential safeguard against this type of malware. It also protects you against attackers trying to sneak into your computer, who are exploiting the network capabilities of trusted programs.

WINDOWS FIREWALL Windows Firewall is designed to block unwanted and potentially dangerous connections. Remember how Windows prompts you to choose whether a new network is a

home, work or public network? If you choose a public network, where your computer could be a sitting duck for a network attack, the Windows Firewall blocks almost all incoming connections in order to dissuade attackers.

tweaking the FIREWALL For the most part, there is no need to configure the Windows Firewall. Most programs that need to listen for incoming connections automatically tweak the Windows Firewall to allow such connections during installation. However, Windows does allow users to manually configure the firewall. To bring up the Windows Firewall controls, type ‘firewall’ on the Windows 8.1 Start screen. You’ll notice several options in the main interface of the Windows Firewall. » The ‘Allow an app or feature through Windows Firewall’ option gives you a list of network-aware programs installed on your PC.

Sharing is caring Along with these programs are details of whether they’re allowed to communicate over private and public networks. Remember that private networks are those that allow sharing, while public networks are those over which sharing is restricted.

STAYING ALERT To change the settings for a program, click ‘Change settings’, then adjust your options. With ‘Change notification settings’, you can tweak how Windows Firewall alerts you – for example, when a new program is blocked – for both public and private networks. You also get options to either completely block incoming connections, which prevents you from even browsing the internet, or to turn off the firewall altogether.

10 3 SCAN From the ‘Scanner’ tab, you can perform either a quick scan of your PC, or a full scan, which is more thorough and takes a fair bit of time to complete. The third type of scan offered, flash scan, is only available to licensed users.

RESTORING DEFAULTS If you wish to tweak Windows Firewall in greater detail, click on the ‘Advanced settings’ option. Here you can control network traffic in far greater detail by creating firewall rules. For example, you can restrict traffic to specific ports and from specific IP addresses. » Although incorrect modifications to the Windows Firewall can isolate your computer from the network, don’t be afraid to experiment. You can always select ‘Restore defaults’ to revert the Windows Firewall back to its original settings. n

M AY 20 15

AskLuis

by luis villazon

All The Stuff You Didn’t Know About

Dismissing thoughts of spring love to keep it technical Rainbow Chasing

Knock knock

I’ve got into an argument with my CS tutor that I hope you can settle. We’ve been learning about port knocking as a security technique and I came up with the idea of using a similar thing to make passwords more secure. Each user has three passwords that must be entered in the correct order. Each time you enter a password, the server looks like you entered the wrong one, but actually if you enter the three passwords correctly, in the right order, it lets you in. This would make it much harder for hackers to brute force the password. Even if they guessed one of the right passwords, they wouldn’t know. My tutor says this is no more secure than just using a longer password. Who is right? Clement Artour You are both wrong. You’re wrong because password knocking is a dumb idea, and your tutor is wrong for just

telling you this, instead of making you understand why it’s a dumb idea. Let’s see if I can do any better. Port knocking is a way to remotely open a port on a firewall. You attempt to open a predetermined sequence of ports and the server appears to reject each one, but if you get the sequence right, the firewall magically opens a connection just for you. In effect, the series of open requests (or ‘knocks’) is used as a sort of password to verify the identity of the remote host. Port knocking isn’t used because it’s more secure; it’s used because there isn’t any way of suppling a traditional password to a server firewall. Your password knocking idea is basically a form of security through obscurity. If the hacker doesn’t know you are using it, their brute force technique will fail. But you can’t keep it secret, because you have to tell every ordinary user about the password knocking system, so that they can log in. Once the hacker knows you are using a three-

password knocking system, then brute forcing password A + password B + password C is no harder than brute forcing the longer password (A+B+C). In fact it’s probably slightly easier, since your users will rebel against this extra hoop that they must jump through and use three passwords that are very similar, or words from a common phrase. Worst of all, this will be unbelievably annoying to use, because if you mistype one of the passwords, the server won’t tell you until you have entered all three, and then it still won’t tell you which one. Random Weirdness

Karma police

All this talk of the new Heart of Thorns expansion has got me excited about Guild Wars 2 again, so I have dusted off my account to level some of my characters up a bit more. Something I have noticed with the event system is that sometimes I get credit in the form of karma and XP for events that I just

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The six categories of all human misery eproducible Calamity R Things that break predictably. Random Weirdness Things that break unpredictably. Creeping Badness Things that just get worse. Ominous Portents Things that might be a problem. Spontaneous Breakage Things that definitely are. Don’t waste time when you go back to Guild Wars 2 .

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Rainbow Chasing Things that could be so much better.

You Asked!

Smart Rendering for VR There’s a good reason you always hit level 15 by the end of the first act.

happened to be passing through. Like maybe I just threw a single AoE attack on my way past and it still counts. Will this work for the bosses that drop chests as well? If I come back later, will there be a chest waiting for me? I’d hate to think I’m missing out on phat lewts. Aidan McNeilly You only get credit if you stay within the instanced area until the event finishes. If you run out of the area or use a waypoint or jump to a WvW instance, or even join another party instance of the same event, you won’t get credit. Those drive-by attacks of yours must have been sufficiently close to the end of the event that it finished before you ran out of range. Even a single point of damage will be enough to give you bronze level credit for an ordinary event but to get loot from a boss you have to do

and the bonus on Expert mode is just +100 per cent. This sounds like a lot, but my guess is that by the time you are good enough to play on Expert, you already know your way around Act 1 well enough that you are taking a much more efficient route to the skeleton king. So you probably end up killing about half as many mobs along the way, at double the XP for each one. Ominous Portents

International gaming

I’m moving to the USA soon, for work. I’m planning to take my Xbox and PC with me of course, but I’m not sure if there will be any problems playing my existing games in the US. Are there region locking pitfalls waiting to trip me up? Dane Paige

“like everything from the noughties, we’re done with 32-bit operating systems.” a minimum amount of damage. That threshold is different for each monster but it’s usually between 5 and 10 per cent of their total health. Random Weirdness

Level playing field

Why is it that in Diablo 3 you always hit level 15 by the end of the first act, whatever difficulty you have it on? Like, what’s the point of playing on Expert if you level at the same speed? Lucas Joffee Well in fact, the amount of XP to reach each level is fixed, and you do get more XP per kill on higher difficulty levels (+75 per cent on Hard all the way up to +1,600 per cent on Torment VI). Of course, Expert is the highest difficulty level that you can start at with a level 1 character because the others need to be unlocked,

You don’t trip on a pitfall, you fall into it. But ‘up’ or ‘in’, I think you’ll be okay. The Xbox One isn’t region locked. The Xbox 360 is region locked for lots of games, but even then it should be a non-issue, because you’re taking your console with you. Region lock is designed to prevent you playing games from one region on consoles from another. More of an issue is the fact the US uses the NTSC broadcast standard, rather than PAL. So if you plug your XBox into a US TV, it will need to be a modern enough one that can switch between PAL and NTSC. The broadcast standard output by the game is normally hard-coded into the .xex file, so it isn’t something you can just change in settings. But even then, the worst case scenario would be that you’d have to connect your Xbox to your PC monitor for those games.

What is this? It’s a better way of drawing scenes that will be viewed through head-mounted displays. What’s wrong with the old way? In order to save weight and cost, VR goggles use a single lens for each eye. This inevitably creates some distortion towards the edges of the image, so that only the central third is properly in focus. Normal VR rendering engines produce images with the same amount of detail everywhere and a lot of this effort gets wasted. With cheaper lenses such as Google Cardboard, the effect is even more extreme. What’s Google Cardboard? A totally amazing system to turn your Android phone into a cheap VR headset. Check out google.com/get/cardboard/ How does smart rendering help? It concentrates computational effort on the centre of the screen, where you notice detail the most. The edges can be rendered using faster algorithms that don’t waste time on anti-aliasing you wouldn’t be able to see anyway. Aren’t frame rates already fine? For current resolutions, yes. But Intel calculates that to truly match the resolution at the centre of your field of view, you would need the equivalent of an 8K display. That isn’t practical to render at 60fps simultaneously on two screens. But with smart rendering, you can get 8K levels of detail at the screen’s centre. What happens if you move your eyes within the goggles though? That doesn’t matter. Smart rendering isn’t adapting to the limitations of your eyes; just the lenses in the head-mounted display itself. Those don’t move relative to the image, so the blurry edges are always blurry. Read more at: http://intel.ly/1AJZicd

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AskLuis Ominous Portents

The accidental hacker

I’m dipping my toe into Linux and I find that it’s hard to remember all the syntax details of every new command. I have taken to scribbling them all down on a rapidly growing crib sheet. But it’s getting unwieldy and I’d like to put it online to make it easier to refer to. But I’m worried about something. Isn’t Linux just a collection of text files? If I create a new text file with a long list of commands, won’t I change the operating system somehow? Is this safe to do? Markus Smit Linux definitely isn’t just a collection of text files. It’s a collection of executable files with some text files that hold configuration parameters. If you couldn’t store any text documents on your computer without corrupting the

“The answer is obviously no, but the fact you’re asking makes me nervous.” operating system, then Linux would be useless. So, of course creating a text file with a list of the commands you have learnt so far is a perfectly safe thing to do in principle. However, it’s like being asked if it’s possible to overdose on lettuce. The answer is obviously no, but the fact that you’re asking makes me nervous. So I’m going to cover my behind with this disclaimer. A text file with a list of Linux commands won’t do any harm, provided that you don’t accidentally execute it. If you used the source command to call the text file, it would be treated as a script and any valid commands in it

How To Find Your Steam ID And not just your own…

1 Serial First up, note that a Steam ID

is not the same as the nickname you see in your friends list. It’s actually a unique identifier, or serial number, for your account. It’s what is used to refer to a user’s profile page. You might need this to join some gaming leagues or to prove your identity.

2 Query At steamcommunity.com,

you can click on your profile and add ‘/?xml=1’ to the address in your browser. This will show you lots of interesting information, including the steamID64. But it won’t show your steamID32, which is actually more commonly requested.

would be executed. You aren’t likely to type ‘source mytextfile.sh’ by accident, but it’s conceivable that you might type ‘. mytextfile.sh’ and unhelpfully, the ‘.’ is a shorthand for the source command. To guard against this risk, you could preface every line in your file with the ‘#’ character, which makes the shell interpreter treat that line as a comment. But it’s even safer simply to make sure that the first line of your file says ‘exit’. That way, if the file is ever accidentally run, the first command simply tells it to stop running. Spontaneous Breakage

banish The eater of flash RAM

I’m at my wits’ end! All I want to do is emulate some of the beloved games of my youth – surely that’s not too much to ask! I was assured by various sources online that this would be a simple matter, using the RetroPie Project. Trustingly I went ahead and bought a Raspberry Pi and downloaded the SD card image files from blog.petrockblock.com. And here’s where I came unstuck! I’m using an 8GB SD card, which should have masses of space for what I need. But after installing the RetroPie (about 4GB) it tells me I have less than 60MB free. Where has the other 4GB gone? Grant Stanhope

Allow me to cut you a large slice of chill cake. Make sure you eat all of it, including the sprinkles on the top. How do you feel now? Calmer? Good. The missing space isn’t missing. You just need to run the ‘sudo raspi-config’ command to start the configuration tool and select the option to expand the filesystem. This will resize the operating partition to fill your SD card. This is quite normal for every RetroPie installation and is mentioned on the petrockblock instructions. No, you can’t have any more chill cake. Two slices would potentially be dangerous. Rainbow Chasing

I’m confused

3 Reveal To get your steamID32

account info, make sure you have ‘Display Steam URL address bar when available’ ticked in the Interface Settings of the Steam client. Then type the address that is shown when you click your profile into steamidfinder.com.

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4 Repeat What you might not realise

is that you can also click on your friends’ profiles to get their SteamIDs using exactly the same method. That’s because there’s nothing secret about a SteamID; it’s just a handy way of uniquely identifying different players.

So, what’s the difference between BIOS and firmware then? James It’s the difference between Victoria sponge and cake: the one is a specific kind of the other. But it’s such a ubiquitous exemplar that we tend to forget that there are other sorts. Software can be reprogrammed and hardware can’t. With firmware, you can reprogram it, but it’s a bit of a hassle

Flashback

What Luis Said...

The Raspberry Pi is a great system for emulating older games.

because you’ve usually got to reflash things, so it’s sort of in between. Rainbow Chasing

The least worst Windows

I have just upgraded an old PC to 4GB RAM. Which is the best operating system to use, in order to use all 4GB – XP 64-bit, or Windows 7 32-bit? Paul McMahon Can I choose option c) Windows 7 64-bit? Almost all the 32-bit versions of Windows (some of the server versions are exceptions) are restricted to 4GB of physical RAM and of that you’ll only get to use 3GB, because the top 1GB is taken up with address space for various other things. But XP? Come on! You can do better than that. With a gun at my head, I might crumble and say it’s better to run Win7 with 3GB, than XP with 4. But that’s just giving in to terrorism dammit! We’re done with 32-bit operating systems now. Like everything else from the noughties, they aren’t new enough to be useful and they aren’t old enough to be retro. No, we must make a stance. I’m going to open the bidding with Windows 8, 64-bit and allow myself to be haggled down to Win 7 64-bit. But no lower, do you hear!

Reproducible Calamity

Griefers be griefing

Is there a way to hide whether I am online in Minecraft? I am getting sick of griefing and I’d like to make it so they can’t see me log in and out. Taylor Mundas The stock version of Minecraft doesn’t let you do this but there’s a mod for the Bukkit API called Vanish No Packet that will do this. If the server admin has this mod installed and gives your username the right permissions, then you can type ‘/vanish’ to make yourself invisible to other players and you won’t show up in any of the other commands that list online players. You can also use the ‘/ vanish fakequit’ command to send the “Taylor has left the game” message to the other players. There are other commands that will prevent you from accidentally interacting with the game, by picking up objects or attracting the attention of mobs. By itself, this won’t protect you from griefing, though I suppose you could travel invisibly to a distant part of the map and play on your own. But in which case, why not just play single player? The main purpose of Vanish No Packet is for server admins to spy on suspected griefers, to catch them in the act. You should be running 64bit now, as 32-bit operating systems are old school.

5 years ago (PCF234) About that apocalypse ‘Make sure you are connected to the network’ is an example of how Microsoft error messages blame hardware, not the OS. ‘Check the computer is plugged in and the zombie apocalypse has not arrived.’ Cables. Zombies. Easy targets with easy solutions – plug back in, decapitate with a shovel. If the blame for all the world’s evils could be laid at the feet of unplugged cables and reanimated corpses, life would be simpler. And probably shorter.

10 years ago (PCF173) About the best game ever I never said Planetside was the only game I was going to play ever again. Well, maybe I did, I can’t remember. I was going to be the greatest player the game had ever seen. And then one day, Planetside was boring so I stopped playing. Now it’s World of Warcraft. Next month, I’ll probably have switched to EverQuest 2. Or religion.

15 years ago (PCF108 ) About the secret of wealth I have half a dozen sure-fire internet money-making schemes. These include: Feng Shui web consulting; internet clock; an email worm that encrypts everyone’s hard disk unless they send me £5. These are just to whet your appetite. For the killer ideas, send me £9.99 for a copy of my book(let): How to Make Money on the Internet by Telling People How to Make Money on the Internet.

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AskLuis stats know-it-alL?

1. What is the feature size for Intel’s Broadwell CPUs? a) 22nm b) 17nm c) 14nm d) 10nm

Creeping Badness

The fastest disk

I’ve an Acer Aspire laptop that I’ve had for about five years now. It’s currently running Win8 but it originally shipped with Win7 64-bit. It’s horrendously slow. I don’t even mean for games. It’s slow just browsing the web, checking emails or even turning on! I know you’ll tell me I should just get a new PC, but I am planning to upgrade anyway when Windows 10 is out. What I want for now is a temporary speed boost. Am I better off doing a factory reset and restoring everything from a disk image onto the existing 500GB hard disk, or swapping the hard disk for an SSD and restoring the disk image onto that? Peter Hanley A ‘factory reset’ (by which I assume you mean reformatting the hard disk) won’t do anything if you then restore from a disk image of the current state of your disk. That’s like hoovering your house and then walking round carefully sprinkling the dust. The thing that’s making your laptop slower is all the Windows patches and the drivers and utilities that load themselves at startup. Reformatting and reinstalling Windows, as I point out roughly every other month, doesn’t really help because your first task on a clean install is to download all the Windows updates again. You can make things a little quicker by simply uninstalling apps you don’t use. But don’t expect miracles. An SSD on the other hand, will definitely make everything a lot faster. Instead of giving Windows fewer things to load, you’re making it load the same things much faster. A 500GB SSD will cost around £150, which is a lot to spend on a five-year-old laptop, but you can recycle the drive into your new machine later, so you can think of it as an investment. (It isn’t really, but I find that if you think of things as an investment, they seem more appealing.) Reproducible Calamity

There’s only the one internet

I have a TalkTalk router in my kitchen that provides a Wi-Fi signal through the

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house. I also have a shed at the bottom of the garden (about 120 feet) that has its own phone line and power supply. I currently have a second router (also TalkTalk) that I can use to run the laptop when I am there. Unfortunately, to get an internet signal in the shed, I have to turn off the router in the kitchen – and vice versa. Is there some way of configuring them so that they don’t conflict with each other so I can have both on at the same time? Trevor Maunder

2. What process did the original Intel 4004 CPU use? a) 50nm b) 1,000nm c) 1,500nm d) 10,000nm

It sounds like the telephone line running to your shed is an extension for the home phone line. This means that both routers are on the same phone number and therefore connecting to the same broadband account. That’s why you can only have one on at a time. What you actually want to do is connect just one to the phone line and then extend your home LAN so that the house and the shed are networked together. The first thing is to see whether the Wi-Fi signal will actually reach down to the bottom of the garden. It’s only 120 feet, or 36m, which should be in range of Wi-Fi, provided your router isn’t tucked behind the fridge and you don’t have too many hedges and fences between you and the shed. If you can’t get a signal, I would run some Cat 5 Ethernet cable down your garden to the shed and simply wire the two routers together. Put the cable in a trench, protected by some trunking to protect it from animals and the elements (automation24.co.uk has some good cable protection). Drill holes through the walls of your kitchen and the shed, angled slightly downwards, to stop rain dripping in, and seal them with a bit of silicone. This will give you the most reliable connection and the highest bandwidth.

4. What is the smallest size possible using silicon? a) 14nm b) 10nm c) 7nm d) 1nm

Reproducible Calamity

Every other pixel

I have just invested in a 4K monitor with a max resolution of 3840 x 2160. I’m trying to test it on my current system which has Intel 4000 graphics. According to all the spec sheets I can find, the chipset should support up to

3. What process did the 486 CPU use? a) 50nm b) 100nm c) 150nm d) 1,000nm

5. What will replace silicon transistors? a) Gallium arsenide b) Indium gallium arsenide C) Unobtanium d) Quantum tunnelling 2560 x 1600, but Windows 7 won’t let me go above 1920 x 1080. I’ve looked everywhere for newer drivers but nothing seems to help. Dan Rhys-Evans No driver can save you. The HD4000 does support 2560 x 1600, true, but only over DisplayPort. The alternative interfaces are either Dual Link DVI or HDMI 1.4. The HD4000 only supports single link over these cables, so the maximum pixel clock it can use is 165MHz. This translates to 1920 x 1080 at 60Hz. You can get 2560 x 1440, if you really want, but it will be at just 35Hz. Right-click the desktop, choose ‘Graphics Properties > Advanced Mode > Display > Custom Resolutions > Basic Settings’. Manually enter the resolution and refresh rates, set the colour depth to 16 and the timing standard to ‘CVT-RB’. Now change it all back again quickly because 35Hz refresh looks much worse than lower resolution. n

Answers: 1c 2d 3d 4b 5b

Intel’s HD4000 supports high resolutions display, but only with DisplayPort.

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Month in numbers...

7,984

The lifespan in years of some internet cookies, according to the UK’s Information Commissioner. While most will expire after a year or two, in some cases they’ll stop working in the year 9999. Vampires and that bloke from Highlander have voiced privacy concerns.

The number of Paragon levels Diablo III player Nokieka clocked up. It’s quite a feat in itself, but all the more impressive when you consider that Nokieka was playing in hardcore mode, which leads to permanent death. Give this man a medal and/or XP.

The number of pseudoInstagram filters in Linguica’s Doom mod InstaDoom. The addon replaces the BFG cannon with a selfie-stick and adds Doomguy to the Polaroid-style snapshots. This is, apparently, something people like to do these days.

720,000 The number of wearable devices, out of a total 4.6 million shipped last year, running the Android Wear OS. Apple’s watch might improve Google’s fortunes, as might redesigning smartwatches so it doesn’t look like you’ve got a tin strapped to your wrist.

5 million

The total number of Raspberry Pi mini computers sold thus far – quite a feat considering the tiny PCs were only really intended for schools and DIY computing fans. It also makes the Raspberry Pi Foundation the biggest selling UK computer manufacturer ever.

The voice of reason

The Godus Complex PC Format has a mole. A man wedged inside the games industry’s nether regions. A man rendered so hideously paranoid by a life spent playing sub-standard PS2 ports that he won’t even let us edit his copy. These are his troubled thoughts… Every Wednesday morning my good friend Peter Molyneux and I head into Guildford town centre with our steam-powered Copper Bowel. We then promise poor people – the homeless, the unemployed, the EA employees – outlandish things. We told a tramp we’d buy him a yacht. He was overwhelmed and started crying. We said we’d need a little bit of his money to make the yacht, and he gladly handed over the £3.82 he’d raised over a decade. But we took his cash, put it in the Copper Bowel and turned it into steaming copper poo. We flung the molten metal faeces at his face, laughing at just how awfully we were behaving while he screamed in agony. Peter has attracted a lot of flak recently for not delivering on promises. His career has been built on empty promises: that Magic Carpet would come with a free flying rug, that Syndicate was actually a message sent from the future, and that Fable II would be released on the PC. Godus, Molyneux’s most recent game, has attracted criticism for seemingly being abandoned by the king of the sim with very few of the features promised in its Kickstarter campaign. After our metal manure mayhem, me and Peter returned to his abode – a Caribbean underwater castle made of compressed blocks of white truffles and

teenagers’ dreams – and he let me in on a little secret about Godus. Before he left Microsoft, Peter was working on Project Milo, a Kinect-powered AI entity which responded in an uncannily human way. While it was a great demonstration of what Kinect and gaming could do, it disappeared without a trace. But it got Peter thinking about how gaming AI could be improved. Curiosity, 22cans’ warmup for Godus, was a simple game which involved chipping blocks off a cube to reveal random images underneath. It was half scratch-card, half Rubik’s Cube, and apparently quite innocent. But Peter was using the data from Curiosity combined with its captivating nature to build models of people’s brains as they played the game. Seemingly insignificant details such as the side and area you scratched and the amount of time you spent playing gave Peter an amazing insight into how you think and react. The purpose of this experiment was to create realistic characters in Godus, with each NPC based on an actual human brain. But there’s a chilling twist to the story: Peter erased the identity of every person who played Curiosity, effectively trapping them within Godus. So if you played Curiosity, instead of living in the real world, you’re actually within the world of Godus. And it’s really easy to prove. Go to Guildford town centre on a Wednesday morning and embrace a random stranger – the older and more poor-looking the better. This is the time Peter tries out Godus’s new features, so you’ll get unexpected, emotionally-charged results, and you may even be able to escape your virtual imprisonment. Me and Peter’s avatars will be on hand to check you’re doing it right. n

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illustration: kevin february

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