Table of contents for June 2022 in Maximum PC (2025)

Home//Maximum PC/June 2022/In This Issue

Maximum PC|June 2022BE WATER, MY FRIENDBRUCE LEE PROBABLY wasn’t referring to liquid cooling when he made his famous water quote above, but this issue of Maximum PC makes a strong case for water’s merits in PC cooling. I have to admit, water cooling was a bit of a blind spot for me personally, having only ventured into AIO CPU coolers rather than creating any custom loops. So when Zak Storey, previously of this parish (and now of Corsair), offered the Maximum PC team a water cooling hands-on tutorial using the company’s XH303i kit, I jumped at the chance. Thanks to Zak’s excellent tuition, I soon realized there was nothing to be afraid of. While I may not yet be the most accurate at tube bending, I was rigging up reservoirs to radiators and flushing water…3 min
Maximum PC|June 2022RESTOCKED AND RELOADEDTHE GREAT GRAPHICS card drought is nearly over and to highlight this, Nvidia’s marketing campaign, dubbed restocked and reloaded, is spreading the word that its GeForce RTX 30 Series cards should be in stock. In theory, you have a chance of getting cards at list price, though some opportunistic scalpers are still at large, especially for the ‘hot’ cards. A quick survey of resellers shows a trend of increased availability and falling prices. The Radeon RX 6500XT and 6900 XT are now selling at just shy of list price though, on average, you can still expect to pay an extra $200. Nvidia’s 40 Series cards and AMD’s RDNA 3, are due at the end of the year. Both companies will want to shift the previous generation before they are rendered…1 min
Maximum PC|June 2022INTEL’S ARC ALCHEMISTIT FEELS AS THOUGH we have been waiting an age to see Intel’s discrete GPUs. Development started several years ago, and we’ve been teased by it ever since. Expectations are certainly high: Nvidia and AMD have carved up the graphics card market between them for decades. Intel has decided to release the mobile versions of Arc first, the A-Series Mobile, which offers a huge jump from the lackluster OEM discrete cards we’ve seen previously. At its heart, each Intel GPU uses Xe cores (replacing the old Execution Unit). These have 16 256-bit vector engines and 16 1024-bit matrix engines. This equates to 128 FP16 operations per clock. More Xe cores equals more power. The media decode engine is highly capable and includes AV1 encoding (the first time we’ve seen this…2 min
Maximum PC|June 2022PC sales boom overIt was ghastly for many reasons, but the pandemic led to a lot of people buying new PCs, creating a sudden boom in sales after years of stagnation. It appears that boom is coming to an end. A survey from market research outfit International Data Corporation shows that the market has slowed down, with sales dropping over 5 percent between January and March. After two years of double-digit growth, that’s an abrupt turn. Overall volumes are still respectable, with 80.5 million PCs shifted in the first quarter. As supplies increase, we should see a return to some good old-fashioned competition too, which is good news if you’re in the market for a new rig.…1 min
Maximum PC|June 2022The problem with the PC is power…Admittedly, this laptop is powered by Intel’s 11th gen rather than 12th gen CPU architecture. But 11th gen chips are still built on Intel’s latest 10nm production process. And if there’s one thing that 12th gen Alder Lake sucks at, it’s power efficiency. Give the 12900K desktop model a hammering and it guzzles as much as 300W while hitting 100°C. Not that Intel is alone in producing silicon power hogs. Nvidia’s Geforce RTX 3090 can breach 350W, while the new 3090 Ti can hit over 500W. AMD’s current graphics boards are little better. The Radeon 6900 XT will happily suck down 325W or so. Next-gen GPUs due later this year are expected to be even worse. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 is rumored to be a 600W board. A mooted…3 min
Maximum PC|June 2022INTO THE LIQUID LOOPLENGTH OF TIME: 4-5 HOURS LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY: MEDIUM 1 DISMANTLING RIGHT PEOPLE, we need as much room as we can possibly get out of this case. Liquid-cooling can be a fiddly operation with tight angles and impossible gaps. To make life easier, we start off by taking as much of the case apart as possible. You may be thinking, “well why have you left the front radiators in?” These work in our favor as we’ll be installing a 360mm radiator behind them. Other than that, the side panel wing doors come off with one screw holding each one. The front panel pops off with a gentle pull from the bottom and the same applies to the top panel. Now that’s stripped, on to some more tearing down. 2GPU TEARDOWN…16 min
Maximum PC|June 2022INTEL ARC PREPS FOR A FLOODThe big two GPU names are about to get some muchneeded competition from Intel’s Arc, or at least in theory. Arc, formerly DG2, aka Xe-HPG, has seen quite a few delays. We originally thought it would launch by the end of 2021, but now it’s looking like a mid-2022 launch for the desktop parts. It could be too little, too late for gamers, though the media aspects of the chips remain promising. Intel recently revealed the initial lineup for laptop Arc A-series models, which will inevitably be paired with Intel CPUs. Given Intel dominates the laptop landscape in sales, it’s probably a smart business move, but it doesn’t give us a lot of hope for high performance. Intel compared its lowertier A370M part against its own integrated Iris Xe Graphics,…2 min
Maximum PC|June 2022MAXED OUT AT 4KIt doesn’t make sense to test most graphics cards at 4K and ultra quality, as the vast majority of older GPUs will gurgle and die while trying to choke down such a workload. However, for those that have the requisite display and want to know what sort of graphics card they should use, we tested a subset of the fastest 18 GPUs from the past five years. The RTX 3090 Ti naturally claimed top honors, with an even greater lead over the competition than at lower resolutions—CPU bottlenecks are no longer a factor at 4K. It’s 10 percent faster than the RTX 3090, and 20 percent faster than AMD’s RX 6900 XT. More importantly, the previous generation’s top GPUs came in well below the 60fps mark, with 48fps on the…1 min
Maximum PC|June 2022WHEN TO UPGRADEIt’s easy to get carried away looking at the top-performing cards and thinking it’s time for an upgrade. Resist the temptation, at least until the games and applications you’re using warrant the expense. Even then, make sure that your ‘upgrade’ actually represents a true leveling up of performance. The oft-quoted rule of thumb is that a previous generation GPU represents one step down in performance, but that’s not entirely accurate. For Nvidia, the RTX 2080 lands midway between the 3060 and 3060 Ti, the GTX 1080 performs about on par with the RTX 2060, and the GTX 980 lines up with the GTX 1060. That’s two steps down, but if you look at the – 70 cards, it’s maybe one to one and a half steps down, and among the…2 min
Maximum PC|June 2022PROBLEM CHILDRENLet’s be honest with ourselves: gamers can be a notoriously difficult bunch. The same can be said for virtually every audience within the entertainment industry, but toxicity and vitriol are often widespread in gaming communities, whether that manifests itself as homophobia-riddled region chats or outright death threats aimed at individual developers on social media. The echo chambers of subreddits and private Discord servers are no help, especially when they are populated by gamers who have little idea of how the game production process actually works, or worse, have huge misconceptions about how that process can realistically be conducted. It stands to reason, then, that some games are shut down not due to any fault of the developers, but because the players themselves are simply uncooperative and unruly. One of the…1 min
Maximum PC|June 2022CONNECT FOUR DISPLAYPORT AND USB UPS THE ANTEAs resolutions and refresh rates climb ever higher, display interfaces are becoming more critical than ever. Already, it’s only the very latest AMD and Nvidia graphics cards that can drive a 4K display at 120Hz over HDMI. At full 4:4:4 chroma and 8-bit color, that requiresfully 32Gbps of raw bandwidth. Now imagine what’s required for 8K and the usual 60Hz. Then double that for 8K 120Hz. Now we’re talking crazy numbers. As it happens, both HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4 have the bandwidth minerals, so to speak, for 4K at 120Hz,but compression is required for 8K@60Hz. HDMI 2.1 can actually go as high as 10K (10,420x4,320 pixels) with compression. Anyway, once you also factor in the bandwidth requirement of HDR, it’s clear that new interfaces are going to be required…2 min
Maximum PC|June 2022MSI Special Single Manufacturer BuildLENGTH OF TIME: 2-3 HOURS LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY: EASY THE CONCEPT IF YOU BUILT your desktop PC, it’s probably a hodgepodge of different manufacturer components all working in tandem. That’s the beauty of PC building—if you want to mix things up for price or performance reasons, common standards mean you can. But every manufacturer seems to have its own lighting standards and management app, and some use different styling or coloring that can mess with a uniform look. But what if you want to build a computer, while still recreating the feel of a pre-built system. What would that look like? Thanks to the good people at MSI, we can find out this issue. During discussions about the company’s 2022 components, including its first SSD drive, the Spatium M480, and…11 min
Maximum PC|June 2022CHRISTIAN GUYTONStaff Writer I started a free trial of PC Game Pass this month, and I’m impressed. I’ve used subscription-based gaming services such as PS Now and Utomik in the past, but they struggle to feature the latest game releases, relying on a back catalog of older games. However, Microsoft has invested heavily in Game Pass, with plenty of big-name releases available on launch and a large library of titles, from triple-A to indie gems. I also play games on PlayStation (I know, stone the blasphemer) and I’m curious about Sony’s approach to the PS Plus service. Rolling PS Now into a tier-based Plus makes sense, but I’m apprehensive about paying more for the higher tiers. PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan recently confirmed that Sony’s biggest exclusives won’t be available from day…1 min
Maximum PC|June 2022Velocity Micro Raptor Z55WITH INTEL’S Alder Lake CPUs now firmly entrenched in the PC hardware market, we’ve been keen to see how far custom PC manufacturers can push them. Enter Velocity Micro, which has taken the already fearsome Intel Core i9 12900K, overclocked the eight Performance cores to 5.1GHz, and taken the eight Efficient cores to 4GHz. That maxes out the performance of this already impressive chip while pairing it with other bleedingedge components, including a PCIe 4.0 SSD, DDR5 RAM, and a 3080Ti GPU. If you’re reading those specs and struggling to imagine what the price could be, let us put you out of your misery—the Raptor Z55 costs $4,999. That’s a healthy chunk of change, but it’s in the same ballpark as the similarly-specced HP Omen 45L ($4,700) and Corsair One…4 min
Maximum PC|June 2022Lenovo Legion 5i Pro (2022)LAST YEAR’S LENOVO Legion 5 Pro laptop won many fans by packing an AMD Ryzen 5 5600H processor, RTX 3070 GPU, and 16-inch 16:10 display into a 15-inch chassis and a $1,600 price tag. It was released at a time when being able to buy a desktop 3070 was near-impossible, and it marked itself out as one of the best value gaming laptops on the market as a result. The 2022 version of the machine is here, albeit in Intel form (the “5i” moniker signifying the Intel version—an AMD model will follow later this year). The Legion 5i Pro is a significant step forward from a tech perspective, with Intel’s 12th gen i7-12700H also allowing for the inclusion of DDR5 RAM as well as a PCIe 4.0 SSD. Other improvements…4 min
Maximum PC|June 2022Razer Huntsman Mini AnalogWHAT DO CONTROLLERS have over the reliable old keyboard-and-mouse combo? How can they hope to match the unerring precision of the mouse? How can they keep up with less than 20 buttons to press? Pfft. There’s absolutely no reason to use a controller, no sir. No reason whatsoever. Except… Yeah, alright, analog sticks are great. Variable input force has long been an advantage of rocking a gamepad in all sorts of games, from racing titles to shooters and fighting games. The ability to move your avatar or turn your vehicle slowly, delicately, with a single sustained input rather than constant anxious keytapping, can be an oft-underrated boon. Fortunately, keyboards are catching up. The Huntsman Mini Analog isn’t Razer’s first foray into using analoginput key switches, nor its first attempt at…3 min
Maximum PC|June 2022Ghostwire TokyoA CURIOSITY IN FORM as well as function, Ghostwire Tokyo is in some ways a callback to Japanese horror games of the early 2000s (although this is much more of an action game), and also a graphical monster capable of serving up spectacular slices of neon lights and raytraced reflections. To call the story outlandish would be something of an understatement, but it’s a good word to start the review off with. Everyone in Tokyo is dead, or at least gone, reduced to piles of clothing that lay where they fell when the body was somehow removed from them. Instead of its once bustling population, Tokyo is now home to a huge population of escaped pets looking for attention and rather a lot of ghosts and other visitors taken straight…5 min
Maximum PC|June 2022LETTERS> Keeping a Low Profile > Unclear Windows > RAM Raider > Desktops vs. Laptops Tackling TKLs I feel that you missed a few important items in your review of the MSI Vigor GK50 Low Profile TKL in the March 2022 issue. Now, I’m no expert, but I’m sure adherence to functional consistency and standardization are paramount to a keyboard’s success and usability. I am versed enough to have experienced proper QWERTY keyboards (even TKLs), where the individual key’s functions are arranged vertically, so the normal function is the bottom character, and the shifted key function is the upper one. This allows for easy comprehension of functional operation. Lately, I’ve seen many keyboards (including the TKL I’m typing on now) where the key characters are arranged horizontally and the functional…8 min
Maximum PC|June 2022Intel’s hot new modelTHE CROWN for making the world’s fastest gaming chip may ultimately be a hollow one, but Intel and AMD take it seriously. AMD’s Zen architecture may give Intel a hard time in many areas, but that final accolade never quite falls into its grasp—and Intel is keen to make sure it doesn’t. When AMD’s cacheheavy Ryzen 7 5800X3D was announced, you knew Intel would answer back. It has, with the Special Edition Core i9-12900KS: a chip that only really exists to break records. It’s a classic Intel response that we’ve seen before: take an existing chip, carefully ‘bin’ it (essentially use quality control testing to pick only the most robust silicon), and you have a new halo processor, without producing any new silicon. The Core i9-12900KS is a faster i9-12900K,…4 min
Maximum PC|June 2022Tech Triumphs and TragediesTRIUMPHS FASTEST CARD LANDS Nvidia’s RTX 3090 Ti has launched, with a monster 10,752 CUDA GPU, 24GB of GDDR6X, 450W, and a $2,000 price tag. OPEN SOURCE BIOS A project to build Coreboot, a configurable open source BIOS, has got it running on an Alder Lake board, albeit a Linux one. 3D MODEL YOUR STUFF Epic did a beta test of RealityScan, which makes 3D models using smartphone images. TRAGEDIES NO E3 THIS YEAR Last year’s E3 was held online but this year there’s no show. It will return “reinvigorated” next year, organizers say. DRONE CRASHES Amazon’s $2bn drone program is struggling with “safety issues”. Insiders claim delivery speed has been prioritized. SMART HOME BRICKS Insteon shut its servers, killing all its smart home gadgets and showing how transient the…1 min
Maximum PC|June 2022AMD’s 6000 series goes ProAMD SEEMS DETERMINED not to let a month go by without launching something. This month, we have a new set of 6000 Pro series laptop processors. These feature Rembrandt architecture with 6nm Zen 3+ cores, and integrated RDNA 2 promising “ultimate performance for professionals”. The top chip is the Ryzen 9 Pro 6950 in H (45W), and HS (35W) flavors. You get eight cores, a 3.3GHz base clock, and a boost speed of 4.9GHz, with 20MB of L2/L3 cache. Below this is the Ryzen 7 Pro 6850 and the 12-core Ryzen 5 Pro 6650, then two ‘U’ low power 28W versions: the Ryzen 7 Pro 6850U, and Ryzen 5 Pro 6650U. The Zen 3+ core brings DDR5 memory, Wi-Fi 6E, USB 4, and Thunderbolt support. There are also three less…1 min
Maximum PC|June 2022AMD 3D V-Cache Boosts Gaming PerformanceL2 caches have grown from around 128KB per core in the 90s to today’s 512KB to 1MB, sometimes even 2MB, per core. But it’s the L3 cache sizes that have really ballooned. Intel’s various mainstream Core processors have included 8MB of L3 cache going back to the Bloomfield and Lynnfield chips in the late 2000s. In contrast, AMD chose to put 16MB of L3 cache (per eight cores) on its first-and secondgeneration Ryzen processors, then doubled that to 32MB of L3 (still per eight cores) on the third-and fourth-generation CPUs, Zen 2 and Zen 3. One big difference between them was that Zen 3 made it a unified L3 cache, instead of a split 16MB+16MB cache, which reduced latencies and improved performance. But AMD had bigger plans. From the start,…3 min
Maximum PC|June 2022DOCTOR> BSOD-plagued PC > CPU for Windows 11 > Rekindle old magic Strange BSODs Ever since Windows 11 was announced, I’ve started experiencing the notorious Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) at least once a day. I’m still running Windows 10 Pro 64-bit and have kept up to date with Windows Updates. In fact, that’s often when I get a BSOD crash—just checking for updates. Is this Microsoft’s new policy to force us off Windows 10? According to Microsoft, my laptop will support Windows 11, so I assume it should continue to support Windows 10 until the Windows 10 end date. I’ve thought of switching to Linux and even looked at Apple briefly. If I do switch, I don’t want anything to do with Microsoft, but I can’t find anything that…7 min
Maximum PC|June 2022WATERCOOLING, CHECKWELL, WE’VE MADE IT. One liquid cooled loop completed and for my first attempt, I have to say it’s not half bad! It goes to show that if you’ve yet to build a custom cooled machine, then fear not, as it’s really not as tricky as you may think. Sure, there are a lot more points of potential failure, but if you plan your flow path, you’re patient, and meticulously check your fittings, you’ll be alright. As with most builds, there are other issues to consider. When priming our pump, the Molex cable that worked for the secondary PSU didn’t work on our primary PSU. We swapped this out for another cable and this fixed the issue but nevertheless spooked us for a moment. Cable management was also a pain…3 min
Maximum PC|June 2022THE BEST EXTREME, HIGH-END, MIDRANGE, AND BUDGET GPUsGoing all out on pure performance might sound great, but most people need to strike a balance between framerate and cost. Putting everything together, we’ve picked the four best options for various budgets, keeping in mind that graphics card prices still aren’t completely back to normal. If you need something right now, here’s what we recommend, though waiting for the next-generation cards to arrive later this year should provide more bang for your buck. BEST EXTREME GPU GEFORCE RTX 3090 TI ($1,999) When your only goal is to get the fastest graphics card possible, the choice is simple. Nvidia’s latest and greatest might not be particularly efficient, and your wallet might go on strike, but there’s no question this represents the current pinnacle of GPU performance. The law of diminishing…2 min
Maximum PC|June 2022AMD AND NVIDIA GPU FEATURESThe latest generation GPUs from AMD and Nvidia both support ray tracing and the full DirectX 12 Ultimate feature set, which defines the baseline of what we expect to see going forward. Nvidia still has some extra hardware in its tensor cores, which power technologies like DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) and Nvidia Broadcast, and those are both useful additions. AMD offers something of an alternative to DLSS with its FSR technology, which is due for a major update in the not-too-distant future. FSR 2.0 will move to a temporal upscaling solution, but it will still work on a wide range of GPUs, including those from the competition. Intel meanwhile has XeSS (Xe Super Sampling), which sounds an awful lot like DLSS, only done on Intel hardware. But having a…2 min
Maximum PC|June 2022LOST AND DAMNEDIt’s always sad news when a game gets canceled, but some titles don’t even get that closure, remaining on development death row indefinitely. The term ‘development hell’ was coined long before the rise of the games industry, referring to media that ends up trapped in a state of limbo for any number of reasons, whether due to lack of funds, creative differences, legal disputes, or something else entirely. The tech and gaming industry actually has its own term for projects like this; ‘vaporware’ refers to games and software (and sometimes hardware) that is officially announced but releases late or doesn’t release at all. Some games stagger through development hell only to be released in a lackluster final form, such as the infamousDuke Nukem Forever,which spent a whopping 15 years in…2 min
Maximum PC|June 2022SCREEN TECH IN 2022NAILING DOWN the exact launch date of the very first color LCD monitor for the PC isn’t easy. But one of the earliest was certainly the NANAO F-1020 from Eizo. Launched way back in 1993, the F-1020 spanned a mighty 10.4 inches and rocked no fewer than 640x480 pixels. Count ‘em! As it happens, by Eizo’s own estimations, it was a sales flop. Yet here we are nearly 30 years later drowning in LCD panels. The technology absolutely owns the PC monitor market. But is everything about to change? The arrival of the awesome new Alienware OLED gaming panel (see page 78) certainly suggests so. At last, per-pixel lighting is actually a thing for the PC and not just smartphones and TVs. Plus far faster response, not to mention much…15 min
Maximum PC|June 2022HOW TOTIP OF THE MONTH TEMPORARY FILE DELETE If it feels as though your PC is getting a little sluggish, clearing temporary files can help to make things run faster and smoother. Press ‘Windows + R’ to open up the run application, then search ‘temp’ and then hit OK. This will open up a load of temporary files, most of which will be unnecessary. To clear all of these files, press ‘CTRL + A’ and then hit delete. Hopefully, this will help speed your computer up a little. MAKE – USE – CREATE 58 Get the most out of the Registry Editor in Windows 11. 62 Japan’s 1980s home computer, the NEC PC-9800. 66 Build It, using one manufacturer’s components only. submit your How To project idea to: editor@maximumpc.com…1 min
Maximum PC|June 2022TOUR REGISTRY EDITOR1. ADDRESS BAR This recent addition to Registry Editor allows you to type or paste in Registry addresses to quickly jump to the specified subkey. 2. FAVORITES Registry Editor allows you to store frequently accessed subkeys in its Favorites menu, giving you one-click access. Make sure you give them a suitably descriptive name. 3. NAVIGATION PANE This left-hand pane allows you to move up and down through the various keys and subkeys that make up the Windows Registry. 4. SUBKEYS A key or subkey that has a > next to the folder signifies that it contains further subkeys inside. Double-click on the arrow icon to open the subkey and reveal its contents. 5. REGISTRY VALUES Each subkey contains one or more values that are used to record preferences and other…1 min
Maximum PC|June 2022Machine of the Month: NEC PC-9800 (1982)YOU’LL NEED THIS A COPY OF THE NEKO PROJECT http://nenecchi.kirara.st/ THIS MONTH’S COMPUTER may be unfamiliar, but NEC’s PC-9800 series, usually shortened to PC-98, was arguably Japan’s most important computer and played an integral part in developing both Japanese language computing and video games. Despite the potential gaming fun offered by this system, there are technical hurdles to be overcome. So after a brief history of the PC-98, let us show you how to emulate the machine as easily as possible. 1 DEVELOPMENT AND LAUNCH The PC-98 was a strategically brilliant move by NEC, beating Western competition by exploiting their inept support for Kanji: the complex characters inherited from Chinese, used in any formal writing. NEC recognized the limitations of Western rivals and designed its machine from the ground up…7 min
Maximum PC|June 2022THE CONCLUSIONCREATING AN all-MSI build using its latest components was a fun and relatively trouble-free experience that resulted in a satisfyingly uniform look. The stealth black look on the major components helped the lighting on the fans, GPU, and heatsink block really pop, and I was particularly enamored with the relatively small footprint of the case itself. Our benchmarks demonstrated a few interesting results as we opted to compare it to a couple of other recent Intel 12th generation builds. In both our April 2022 Intel 12th gen build and May 2022 Intel NUC build, we used the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3050 Gaming OC card, which outperformed MSI’s card by up to 20 percent in a couple of our tests, thanks to its higher core clock speed of 1822MHz compared to…3 min
Maximum PC|June 2022Editor’s Pick:Nubia RedMagic 7 ProUNLIKEMANY, I like gaming smartphones. In fact, I credit one for prying me out of the Apple ecosystem—I was sent a Black Shark 3 Pro phone for review, reluctantly gave it a go, and saw my Call of Duty Mobile K/D ratio improve so much it felt like cheating. I got so used to the 90Hz display, I couldn’t go back to my iPhone. I say “unlike many” because much like folding phones, I’ve never seen a gaming phone out in the wild. I was discussing smartphones with friends last year, and when we’d seen the usual Apple, Samsung, and OnePlus blowers, I took out my Lenovo Legion Phone Duel 2. I was immediately mocked for the phone’s distinctly uncool RGB lighting, dual USB-C ports, and popout selfie camera—and many…3 min
Maximum PC|June 2022Alienware 34 AW3423DWTHIS IS THE DAWN of a new age of screen tech. We give you the Alienware 34 AW3423DW, the first true OLED monitor for the PC. That’s a qualified ‘true’ because it’s not, strictly speaking, the first OLED monitor of any kind. Instead, it’s the first aimed at consumers and marketed at a vaguely attainable price. The AW3423DW is designed for gaming, where OLED promises much thanks to response times an order of magnitude faster than any LCD. But the basic form is entirely familiar. The 34-inch panel has a gentle 1800R curve, 21:9 ultrawide aspect ratio, 175Hz refresh, and 3,440x1,440 native resolution. It’s right at the sweet spot, striking a balance between detail and frame rates. Nothing radical so far, but make no mistake, this screen is special. Enhanced…3 min
Maximum PC|June 2022Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel ProIT’S ALL TOO EASY in this job to become blasé, to think you’ve seen it all before. So, in that sense, the Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel Pro is thoroughly refreshing. It’s not truly unique, nor is it entirely issuefree. But it is unusual and it does some things so well that it makes conventional clamshell laptops seem clunky. The showbiz bit involves the clever dual-hinged display. It’s an ergonomic design that unlocks an entire universe of input options you didn’t even know existed. Combined with the bundled Wacom EMR input pen, which slots neatly into the side of the screen, the result is a rather remarkable productivity tool for digital artists and other content creators. The not-quite-unique bit involves the Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio, which offers a similar—but not quite…4 min
Maximum PC|June 2022MSI MPG Sekira 100RMSI MAY BE more commonly known for producing motherboards and graphics cards, but recently, it‘s been making an effort to break into the PC case market. The MSI MPG Sekira 100R is one of its newest cases to arrive, bringing to the market a mid-tower that includes a wellstocked front I/O panel, tempered glass, and four ARGB fans. What’s not to like? At first glance, you notice the vented top panel and a two-tone front that is split with a brushed aluminum-style finish to the top and glass to the lower half. It’s a unique look, especially when you light up the case, something made easier by the included 1-6 ARGB controller that connects to your motherboard for seamless Mystic Light integration. Lighting can also be controlled via the front…4 min
Maximum PC|June 2022OBS Studio vs. XSplit BroadcasterLIVE STREAMING is no longer just a niche corner of the internet, with the huge increase in its popularity over the past decade puhing it to vast global audiences and making it one of the most popular forms of online video. The live aspect of streaming brings in the anticipation and excitement offered by live TV but with the opportunity for anyone to create their own content. Whether it’s live streaming games, tournaments, chatting, IRL videos, talk shows, podcasts, music, and even ASMR, there is an almost infinite amount of content available. As a result, the production side of streaming has gone way beyond just hitting a broadcast button and talking down the microphone—audiences expect more. To stand out from the crowd, you’ll need to use live streaming software to…6 min
Maximum PC|June 2022WINDOWS 11 UPDATES APP SECURITYMICROSOFT has a new security system dubbed Smart App Control, which aims to make Windows as secure as possible for ‘hybrid’ working from home. The new system uses cloud servers to monitor an application’s behavior, employing AI to spot anything potentially malicious. Sounds good, but the problem is that it won’t work on any application you’ve already installed, so you’ll need to wipe and start again. Ouch! Having to reinstall Windows and all your applications is a big price to pay for that extra layer of security. There are other issues too, because it doesn’t like unsigned or unrecognized applications. Meaning your obscure utility or elderly application will set alarms off. Until Microsoft figures out how to enable Smart App Control without a clean system and adds more control, this…1 min
Maximum PC|June 2022ETHEREUM GOES GREENCRYPTOCURRENCIES are volatile, rife with scams, and at the mercy of legislation, but the concept remains sound. Which currencies survive is another matter. Many will die. In fact, nearly all of them will—there are over 18,000 in existence, and a good number aren’t worth the electricity used to create them. Like many technical developments before it, the original design is no longer a good fit. At its heart cryptocurrencies, or rather the blockchain that supports the biggest of them, has a problem. It uses a proofof-work (PoW) system. Transactions are made using complex calculations which the miners compete to finish to earn their slice. All this works neatly on a small scale, but as it gets bigger, it gets ridiculous. Bitcoin consumes enough electricity to run a small country, such…2 min
Maximum PC|June 2022Win11 still relatively rareA survey of 10 million Windows systems by IT Asset Management outfit Lansweeper, has revealed that few have taken Microsoft up on its free Windows 11 upgrade offer. It puts the numbers of Win11 systems at 1.44 percent, with Win10 at 80.34 percent. There are still more people running WinXP, 7, and 8 combined than Win11. Even data from Steam, where games systems and modern rigs are more common, puts Win11 at just 11.56 percent, with Win10 at 74.69 percent. It may be free, but with no standout features, Win11 isn’t attractive enough to lure people away from their familiar Win10 desktop. Is Windows, as Microsoft once claimed, pretty much completed as an OS?…1 min
Maximum PC|June 2022THE TOP FIVE PC SPEAKER SYSTEMS1 LOGITECH G560 These Logitech speakers look great and sound fantastic, thanks to serious volume levels and a bulky subwoofer that creates an immersive soundstage. The RGB lighting is based on Logitech’s Lightsync system and it also works with your phone over Bluetooth. $240, www.logitechg.com 2 CREATIVE PEBBLE PLUS If you primarily use headphones but want a speaker option, the Creative is a fantastic choice. It’s a full 2.1 system with a separate subwoofer to drive the bass. The two pebble speakers are small, but sound crisp and go relatively loud. They’re powered by USB, saving plug sockets at your desk. $50, www.creative.com 3 RAZER NOMMO CHROMA This stylish offering is a 2.0 speaker system with no subwoofer, making it the best option for those short on space. The speakers…1 min
Maximum PC|June 202212TH GENWATERCOOLINGLIQUID COOLING MACHINES are the show cars of the PC world—striking setups that grab your attention. However, the benefits of switching to a water-cooled system go way beyond just the aesthetics—it can cool down your build while performing at a whisper-quiet volume. There are some downsides to water cooling your build though. It gets complex, so there’s more planning involved than in your regular PC build, but we’re going to show you that anyone can give it a go. There are two types of water cooling setups, soft tubing, and hard tubing—the latter requiring heating and bending pipes into position. Mixing fundamental plumbing with PC building might sound like the stuff of night terrors, but it’s not that scary once you get into it. We’re going straight into the deep…5 min
Maximum PC|June 2022STATE OF THE GPU-NION ADDRESSTHE PAST TWO YEARSof pandemic-induced scarcity and supply chain disruption, coupled with cryptocurrency mining mania, have for many dashed hopes of a new graphics card. Nearly 18 months after the launch of AMD’s Radeon RX 6000-series and Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 30-series GPUs, Steam data shows only 15 percent of gamers use Ampere cards, and under one percent use AMD’s RDNA 2 chips. But plenty of graphics cards are still fast enough to play today’s demanding games. To help put things in perspective, we rounded up all the major GPUs from the past six years (plus a few from further back) and put them to the test. Which cards still have staying power and which have fallen by the wayside? Our requirement is that each card needs to work with Windows…14 min
Maximum PC|June 2022YOU DON’T NEED ULTRA QUALITYDepending on the game, the difference in visual fidelity between medium settings and ultra settings may not be worth the performance penalty. Those running extreme GPUs, like the RTX 3090 or RX 6900 XT, can safely set phasers to vaporize and carry on. But if your GPU is long in the tooth, dropping the settings a notch or two can do wonders for performance—particularly if you’re using a graphics card that doesn’t have at least 4GB VRAM, and some recent games even want 8GB just for 1080p ultra. Take the GTX 1050, which sits at the bottom of the rankings in terms of 1080p ultra-performance and delivered just 15fps on average. Dropping to 1080p medium doubled its performance, and while a few games still struggled—Warhammer 3andFlight Simulatorstill failed to break…1 min
Maximum PC|June 2022WHAT ABOUT LAPTOP GPUs?All our testing has focused on desktop graphics cards. It allows us to test the various GPUs while keeping all other hardware constant, but there are also mobile variants of most graphics cards. As you can guess, packing something like a 450W RTX 3090 Ti into a laptop just isn’t going to happen, not without drastically cutting the power use. That results in the latest mobile GPUs from Nvidia and AMD generally being at least one step down in performance from their desktop counterparts. Take the mobile RTX 3080, for example. It uses the GA104 chip, whereas the desktop 3080 uses GA102. It also has 8GB of memory on a 256-bit bus instead of 10GB on a 320-bit interface and comes with 48 SMs and 6144 CUDA cores compared to…2 min
Maximum PC|June 2022LEFT BEHINDWe’ve all been there; watching a trailer for a newly-announced game, streamed live from a major show such as Gamescom or (should it ever return) E3, setting the mighty wheels of the hype train turning. ‘What’s the release date?’ ask the fans. ‘Coming soon’, teases the pre-rendered reveal video. It’s a hotly-anticipated title and the developers are remaining tight-lipped about their new project. Maybe you’ll get a less-than-concrete release window in six months’ time. A year passes, then two, then three. Radio silence. No second trailer, no new screenshots, no dev diaries. If you’re lucky, you might see a senior member of the development team pop up on social media, assuring eager fans—without any actual proof of life—that the game is very much still in production. However, nothing arrives and,…13 min
Maximum PC|June 2022GETTING CLOSUREIn cases when a game has been canceled or left unsupported, fans are usually left with nothing to fill the void. There have been rare cases, however, where publishers have seen fit to release additional media outside the game to tie up loose ends. One such example wasMass Effect: Andromeda,the fourth entry into BioWare’s beloved sci-fi series.Andromedasuffered from a buggy launch version and character writing that many fans felt was lackluster compared with the original trilogy, dooming it with mediocre review scores from the outset. Although BioWare worked quickly to patch the game’s worst issues, it underperformed in sales and the Edmonton-based team was reassigned to work on the studio’s new IP,Anthem(which ironically also bombed on release). Attacks on social media targeting individual members of the dev team and EA…1 min
Maximum PC|June 2022THE ULTIMATE DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY BUT YOU’LL HAVE TO WAIT FOR ITIt’s the flat panel to rule them all, the ultimate display tech—we give you MicroLED. But it’s not coming to the PC anytime soon. It’s still years away, which is a pity because when it does hit the PC, it’s going to be awesome. Like OLED, MicroLED is a self-emissive technology that offers true per-pixel lighting. So, each individual pixel can be turned off completely. That means essentially infinitecontrast and true black tones. The difference is that MicroLED sidesteps organic compounds and so doesn’t suffer from burn-in. The latter is a major issue with OLED displays because of the differential degradation within the RGB subpixels. In an OLED panel, the blue subpixels wear out faster than the red and green subpixels. That eventually causes permanent color distortion seen as burnin.It’s…3 min
Maximum PC|June 2022INTEL’S NUC 12 MINI PCWith Intel’s latest NUC 12 Extreme Dragon Canyon gaming Mini PC in my possession, you can bet your bottom dollar that it’s found its way into my living room—at the expense of my Wii console. The Intel NUC 12 is so compact it sits and hides neatly under my TV unit, and with the RGBs turned off, it’s actually a discreet little monster. I’ve also been testing SCUF’s Instinct Pro, so I essentially have a console-killer combo that I can use in the evenings. I’m not too thrilled about having to return the NUC back to Intel—the performance is just so impressive. Though I do feel guilty that I’m not pushing it to its absolute limits when playing older titles, I’m having a blast. As sad as I’ll be when…1 min
Maximum PC|June 2022REGISTRY 101The Registry consists of a series of files known as ‘hives’, stored in two separate locations: Windows > System32 > Config for system-wide settings, and your personal User folder for settings associated with your user account. Each hive consists of a different set of preferences and configuration data—for example, system-wide software settings are stored in a file called SOFTWARE. This information is organized into sub-folders or ‘keys’. Each key contains one or more ‘values’ with associated ‘value data’, which are the configuration settings for your PC. There are numerous types of value, depending on the data they contain. The most common include REG_ DWORD values, which contain binary or hexadecimal numbers in 32-bit format (the 64-bit equivalent is REG_ QWORD), and REG_SZ, which contains text such as drive labels, context-menu…1 min
Maximum PC|June 2022GIMP 3D perspectiveYOU’LL NEED THIS GIMP 2.1 OS: Windows 7 or newer. FOR THIS TUTORIAL, we ‘ll be turning our attention to 3D image placement and how to bring two images together while maintaining the same 3D perspective. We’ll be using GIMP for this tutorial and a royalty-free image by Jurre Houtkamp on Unsplash (unsplash.com) to show how to build your photo manipulation skills. Practicing using sites like Unsplash allows you to play around with high-quality images with plenty of manipulation potential. We’ll also be using a flat graphic site called the Noun Project (thenounproject.com) for a flat sign we’ll be adjusting. This should build your knowledge of perspective and help you blend images together while maintaining a natural finish. We’ll also be touching on textures, as we bring the texture from…5 min
Maximum PC|June 2022A long time comingTHIS MONTH, a certain game has been taking up my life and all I can think about is when I next get to play it. Regular readers will know about my love and nostalgia for this type of game, but I haven’t spoken about this particular title as frankly I didn’t want to jinx it. As you might have seen from the image to the right, the game is Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. I’ve been waiting excitedly for it for a year and a half now and, in the meantime, I tried to park the idea of it to one side. This plan worked pretty well as, all of a sudden, the release date crept up out of nowhere. I’ve only had a few days playing the game…2 min
Maximum PC|June 2022Asus RTX 3090 Ti TUF GamingMORE THAN AYEAR and a half has now passed since Nvidia launched its Ampere GPUs, including the RTX 3090 and RTX 3080. Ampere was supposed to bring the GPU empire under control but it was plagued by shortages in the ensuing time, an unforeseen weakness in Nvidia’s plans. However, things are finally starting to improve and you might be able to find an RTX 3080 for under a grand. This is apparently unacceptable because the RTX 3090 Ti doubles that price, kicks performance per watt considerations to the curb, and goes for a no-holds-barred implementation of the GA102 processor. The 3090 Ti, like its 3090 predecessor, packs 24GB of GDDR6X memory, but Nvidia has improved things with this update. Specifically, it’s using 16Gb modules and only needs 12 of them,…4 min
Maximum PC|June 2022Acer Nitro 5AFFORDABLE GAMING laptops (and we use the word ‘affordable’ loosely here) are a tricky proposition. Of course, you could spend upwards of $3,000 on a high-end laptop with a powerhouse GPU and a 4K screen, but plenty of gamers want a desktop alternative that won’t break the bank. Unfortunately, many of these laptops have, over the years, struggled to perform well enough to justify their price tags, with GPUs like the GTX 1650 and now the RTX 3050 just not quite measuring up. Thank goodness, then, for the GeForce RTX 3060. It’s the perfect budget GPU, balancing top-notch 1080p performance with relatively low power consumption and a sensible price—assuming you can get one at RRP. This is the graphics card at the heart of Acer’s latest Nitro 5 laptop, a…4 min
Maximum PC|June 2022NZXT CapsuleWHEN WE THINK of NZXT, the picture that springs to mind is a case company with a clean design language and reputable build quality. So when the company started to branch out into peripherals, we had plenty of faith that the brand could produce a range of items of the same caliber as its cases. A move over into the audio world wasn’t the most obvious choice, but the company has gone all out with the NZXT Capsule microphone. So, was this a wise decision by NZXT, and does the Capsule match the level of quality of its cases? The Capsule certainly fits nicely into the rest of NZXT’s lineup. There are two versions, one in white and one in black, both of which get our seal of approval. With…4 min
Maximum PC|June 2022THE BUILDSWE’VESEEN SOME price increases on components this issue, starting with a $10 hike on the Corsair 4000D Airflow case that houses both of these builds. The CV550 80+ Bronze power supply (also from Corsair) is back up to $50, so we’ve added an alternative in the same price range for the AMD system: Asus’s TUF Gaming 550W PSU, which touts its ‘military-grade’ specs. This should perform as well as the Corsair one and comes with a six-year warranty. The Gigabyte B550 mobo in the AMD build is listed at $130 in our parts table, but you may be able to pick one up for less. Meanwhile, the Intel machine gets a new B660-chipset motherboard from MSI, the Pro B660-M, which is more expensive but offers a superior port selection to…5 min
Table of contents for June 2022 in Maximum PC (2025)

References

Top Articles
Latest Posts
Recommended Articles
Article information

Author: Van Hayes

Last Updated:

Views: 5237

Rating: 4.6 / 5 (46 voted)

Reviews: 85% of readers found this page helpful

Author information

Name: Van Hayes

Birthday: 1994-06-07

Address: 2004 Kling Rapid, New Destiny, MT 64658-2367

Phone: +512425013758

Job: National Farming Director

Hobby: Reading, Polo, Genealogy, amateur radio, Scouting, Stand-up comedy, Cryptography

Introduction: My name is Van Hayes, I am a thankful, friendly, smiling, calm, powerful, fine, enthusiastic person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.