Custom PC UK June 2021

Form a circle, folks, because we’re going to witness a clash of arms between two grizzled veterans. I’m not sure we’ve ever seen such a tight fight between Intel and AMD. When AMD64 ruled the CPU kingdom, Intel was flailing around with NetBurst. When Core later reclaimed Intel’s honour, AMD was floundering with Bulldozer. Even the first Ryzen vs Core battles were fought on different terms, with Intel winning on gaming performance and AMD leading on multi-threaded performance. This time it’s different. Technically, AMD still wins on core counts, but that’s largely irrelevant when there aren’t any Zen 3 CPUs with more than eight cores available to actually buy. It mainly comes down to choosing a Rocket Lake-S or Zen 3 CPU with six or eight cores, both with decent…

This question has been on everyone’s minds for months, and I’m attempting to answer it. However, in the process of digging into as many internet rabbit holes as I could find on the subject, there’s a lot of opinion and little on specifics of what’s happening this year. We’re already a third of the way through the year and forecasts are still vague. Rick Lane has taken in-depth look at this situation on p88, but I also wanted to share my own findings while speaking with people in Taiwan. The whole semiconductor industry is anticipated to grow by anywhere from 11-20 per cent in 2021, depending on which analysts you read, but what does that mean for us? When can we get affordable graphics cards? Well, spoiler alert, put the…

Growing up, we weren’t a console family. My cousin had an Atari and then a NES, which were fun when I visited, but because my dad was a computer salesman at a time when home computing was brand-new, our house always had computers. We didn’t own them, but that was a benefit as we got regular upgrades. My popularity on our council estate may have been related. My dad worked for Apple in the early 1980s, then Apricot, Tandy and Amstrad. I loved the Tandy TRS-80, with its bafflingly obscure games (Cuthbert in Space or Pettigrew’s diary, anyone?) and the Amstrad CPC series, which could run more famous games, such as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or The Hobbit. Time had filtered out bad memories and left me with…

CORSAIR LAUNCHES MINI MECH KEYBOARD Corsair is the latest tech firm to get into the mini gaming keyboard trend, launching its first ever 60 per cent mechanical keyboard. The K65 RGB Mini eschews the dedicated numberpad, F keys, cursor keys and so on in favour of a  design that just keeps the core keys. There’s a choice of Cherry MX Red, Silent Red and Speed Silver key switches, and they’re topped by a set of PBT double-shot keycaps. What’s more, the keycaps can be swapped out for custom designs, and Corsair is offering kits with several colour options, including Onyx Black, Arctic White, Elgato Blue, Rogue Pink, Origin Red and Mint Green. Other features include dynamic per-key RGB backlighting, which can be customised with Corsair’s iCUE software, as well as…

GEFORCE RTX 3080 Ti INBOUND Tech Twitter is currently buzzing with rumours about a new high-end Ampere GPU from Nvidia being launched in mid-April. The GeForce RTX 3080 Ti is rumoured to sit in between the current RTX 3080 and 3090 in the current line-up, and feature 10,240 CUDA cores, compared to 10,496 in the RTX 3090 and 8,704 in the RTX 3080, meaning the 3080 Ti is likely to be much closer in performance to the 3090 than the 3080. Chinese tech site news.mydrivers.com also says the new GPU will feature a 384-bit memory interface, as with the RTX 3090, but will come with 12GB of GDDR6X memory rather than 24GB. The site also says the card will have a driver that limits cryptocurrency mining performance, as with the…

Multi-room wireless? Firstly, top marks on the magazine. Secondly, I’m thinking of creating a downstairs VR system, but I still want to be able to game on my desk upstairs. Instead of having two completely separate systems with a NAS box, I’m thinking of building one monster system and then having wireless accessories on the desk upstairs. I already have a wireless screen, but I’m struggling with wireless peripherals and speakers. Do you have any recommendations for getting gear to work through the floor, and are there any problems you think I might stumble across? Keep up the great work, and please tell Tracy that I completely agree regarding the positive impact of gaming on mental health. I have a regular session with friends that really boosts my mood and…