Maximum PC

SHOP THE FULL RANGE WWW.MAGAZINESDIRECT.COM/SUBSCRIBE Offer open to new subscribers only. Please allow up to six weeks for delivery ofyour first subscription issue. Payment is non-refundable after the 14 daycancellation period unless exceptional circ

MONTHS AGO, some gamers in South Korea reported problems with their unlocked high-end Intel Core i9 processors, typically Core i9-13900K and 14900Ks. While playing Tekken 8, the game would shut down. More reports emerged involving other games, partic

SOMEONE GOING BY ‘Skatterbencher’ has been overclocking AMD’s new Zen 5, and pushed a Ryzen 7 9700X to 5.8GHz on single-core. This is impressive, as it has a Fmax (frequency maximum) limit of 5.55GHz. He also reached 6.0Ghz using AIO water cooling. M

AFTER THE STOP-GAP that was Intel’s 14th-gen chips, we await the real next generation of desktop processors: Arrow Lake-S, or Core Ultra 200. We get a tile design, Intel’s new 20A process node, a new socket, backside power delivery, and more. Launch

GOOGLE’S RISE to search engine dominance has been rapid. It has even become a transitive verb, and been added to the dictionary. Any company with such a grip on a market faces legal troubles, but this latest one has landed hard. The DoJ has ruled tha

THE BEST MOUSE PADS offer slick movement and awesome aesthetics, no matter what surface you prefer. At the most basic level, you want something that offers a smooth and precise surface for your mouse, which thankfully can be bought for not much more

> Music streaming > Switching to Linux > Duplicate removal I read with interest your advice on how to use your WireGuard VPN to make it possible to take sensitive services ‘offline’ by making them accessible only through your network. My only disappo

LET’S FACE IT, this industry isn’t exactly one that has avoided controversy over the years. The PC enthusiast landscape has always been riddled with, let’s call them, issues. In fact, right now, we’re witnessing one of those very moments rising up ag

WWW.AMD.COM What we’ve seen from early looks at the 9700X and 9600X doesn’t fill us with much hope in terms of massive IPC jumps. That makes the 7th gen an increasingly interesting value proposition right now. For $359, you can pick up the 7900X, com

LENGTH OF TIME: 1-2 hours DIFFICULTY: Easy OKAY, HANDS UP, this is perhaps one of the easiest builds we’ve pieced together in the last few months, maybe even in the last year (bar perhaps the integrated GPU build). There’s no crazy new cable standard

THERE YOU HAVE IT, folks—one seriously slick mid-range(ish) PC built in one supremely svelte chassis. Generally, we always try to take around 16 images or steps for these builds. We actually struggled with our NZXT build, predominantly because everyt

We’ve massively revamped our testing methodology for all of our builds moving forward. The aim is to provide a broad suite of benchmarks that consider how a system performs at both 1080p and 4K gaming, along with a range of benchmarks that push them

For our system testing, we use a multitude of separate benchmarks. For our CPU tests, these include Cinebench 2024 and Geekbench 6.3.0. All results are indexes in this case. Multi-core per thread is achieved by dividing the total multi-core scores by

Game tests are performed on ‘Ray Tracing Ultra (Cyberpunk)’, ‘Ultra (Far Cry 6)’ / ‘Maximum (Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail)’ and ‘Ultra (Total War: Warhammer 3)’ graphics presets respectively. Three runs are performed per title, per resolution. Cyberpu

THERE’S SOMETHING inherently human about pushing technology to its limits. Companies do this all the time: building, developing, iterating on designs, new hardware, trying to eek out every last fleck of performance to beat the competition. The same c

It’s a little known fact, but the reason Zak landed his first job at Maximum PC as a staff writer was partly because of his ability to overclock. In his portfolio, not only did he include a CV, cover letter, writing exercise and extensive photography

There’s another side to overclocking, and that is undervolting. This pursuit is a little different compared to just ramping up clock speed, volts and temperatures in that it generally involves reducing voltage from the chip itself, while trying to re

magazinesdirect.com • From tech and gaming titles to fashion and celebrity magazines there’s something for everyone. • Immerse yourself in our specialist one-off publications about your favorite hobby or interest. • Exclusive Offer - Get 15% Off Guid

As a premium subscriber you instantly get access to 100+ back issues $34.95* for one year/13 issues www.magazinesdirect.com/MPP *Price in US $. Offer is valid on US orders only, visit us at www.magazinesdirect.com or call 1-844-779-2822 for other sub

AS A MAXIMUM PC READER, your expert knowledge of PCs no doubt makes you a popular target for technical support requests from friends and family. “It’s why I sent you to university,” this author’s mother used to say, forgetting he studied history and

When rendering technical assistance to a friend or family member, ask them to carefully study the access request pop-up before clicking ‘Accept’. By default, the seven permissions buttons are all colored blue to indicate they’re all enabled. This eff

RustDesk’s Display menu gives you a host of options for controlling your remote display, some of which—adaptive versus scaled, changing resolution—we cover in the main text. Other options are concerned with balancing the image quality with the speed

Anyone wishing to connect through your RustDesk server needs a permanent address to point at. This could be your public IPv4 address (visit http://whatismyip.com to find out what this is), but apart from being difficult to remember, it’s also likely

IT’S FINALLY HERE. Notebooks, laptops, ultrabooks—all of them have led to this point in time. We’re finally witness to an immeasurable change in how our portable world of computing will be moving forward. The world of TN, IPS, and VA screens is comin

AMD AND INTEL have traditionally released new processors every year, often with the biggest updates arriving for the fall season. 2024 continues that trend, but there are new processors, and there are new processors. In what has become mostly a two-y

Subscribe today and get instant access on your iPad, iPhone or Android device. www.magazinesdirect.com/B3XMPC■

Whatever you do with your SSDs, ensure that when formatting, you perform a quick format. If you try to do a full format on an SSD, it treats it like a traditional HDD, and Windows will run a full read/write cycle over every cell on the SSD, writing a

presents: Finnish mobile maker HMD, which owns and manufactures Nokia handsets, has made a pledge to offer more repairable phones. The Skyline aims to deliver on this promise. • Screen: 6.55 in 20:9, OLED, 144Hz refresh rate, 1000 nits peak brightnes

The best browsers integrate features to automatically detect and prevent social media trackers, cross-site cookies, and cryptominers. You can also make exceptions so that trusted domains load correctly. Firefox containers isolate browsing sessions us

ADAPTIVE AND EVASIVE MALWARE, phishing domains, harmful links, and packet sniffing can all target a common point of weakness: your web browser. In May, Google was forced to release an emergency security update for the Chrome browser, which exploited

In late 2021, Google announced plans to deprecate its Manifest V2 API. As of June, browser extensions using Manifest V2 are no longer supported. This change has proved controversial, as Manifest APIs manage how extensions interact with Chromium-based

IF YOU’RE A SERIOUS GAMER, you’ll be aware of the advantages of using a VPN. As traffic between your device and the server is encrypted, your ISP can’t monitor and ‘throttle’ it, slowing down your game. With the IP address hidden behind the VPN serve

ACCORDING TO KASPERSKY’S LATEST ‘State of Stalkerware’ report, over 40 percent of those surveyed worldwide said they’d experienced stalking or suspected that they were being stalked. Stalkerware is a form of spyware, which is used by bad actors like

WE’VE ALL BEEN THERE. Just picture it for a moment: you’re rampaging through your favorite game, decimating monsters left right and center, silver sword drawn, coated in oil, and then suddenly, pop! System crash. What the heck?! The PC reboots, you g

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE has gone from buzzword to fascinating topic. Whether that’s in the form of data analysis, processes to make workflows more efficient, or debating with LLMs pretending to be Socrates, the ramifications are clear. I’d heard how

IT MIGHT NOT surprise you that I love stats and data, particularly tied to measurable metrics that I can control and analyze. Fitness is a big passion of mine, and right now, I’m on a bit of a calisthenics hype. This is body weight training, pull-ups

IT’S BEEN A BUMPY ROAD getting here, what with AMD recalling all stocks of the new Ryzen chips weeks before they were due to be sold, and all about jumping around motherboards, updating firmware, and endlessly fiddling about with settings. But at las

THE LENOVO LEGION Pro 7i Gen 8 delivered a superb mix of performance, size, and price. We expected similar results from the Legion Pro 5i Gen 9. Instead, we’re feeling miffed by the new Gen 9 model. With impressive gaming performance, you’d think we’

CAN A LAPTOP BE CUTE? This model from Asus certainly makes an attempt, behaving like a manga hero character, as it’s all chibi on the outside, but reveals great strength when put to the test. The ProArt PX13 is a 13-inch two-in-one machine, so needs

WE’VE ALL DONE IT when buying a new PC: Let the imagination run wild and picture not only the case, studded with RGB fans and radiators, but the entire setup. The precise mouse we want, the keyboard with its mechanical switches, perhaps a headset pos

THERE’S BEEN A RACE to make laptops smaller for years now, with extreme thinness and lightness prized in portable machines. Acer has had enough of that, and its Predator Helios 18 is about as big as a mobile PC can get in 2024. Actually, is it mobile

TAKE A LOOK at the Hyte Thicc Q60, and you might come to the conclusion that this is an all-in-one liquid cooler that pushes appearance over performance. That’s not strictly true, however. Yes, the Q60 is adorned with a 5-inch screen, a litany of RGB

WE’VE NEGOTIATED a killer deal with Norton. No subscriptions; just a one-off bargain price of $29.99, compared to the regular $109 charge. That buys you 15 months of cover from the Norton Security suite across 10 devices Because it’s the Premium vers

THE C1500 PLATINUM, the latest addition to NZXT’s power supply lineup, is priced at $370. That alone limits it to a niche audience, along with the few people who actually need that sort of power in 2024. 2025, with its rumored even higher-powered GPU

THIS IS A BEAUTIFUL piece of kit. The X300G from BenQ sits somewhere in the middle of its latest projector product stack. It’s complete with 4K 3LED projection lens, exceptional keystone accuracy, auto-adjustment, and impressive brightness and respon

THE ROG AZOTH EXTREME is a $500 gaming keyboard. You’re probably reading this, mouth agape, wondering what it makes it worth anywhere near that price. In many ways, that’s how I’ve approached this review, because I didn’t get it at first, and to be h

IT HAS BEEN 16 YEARS since World of Goo squidged its way into our hearts and hard drives. The much-loved physics-based puzzle game was one of modern indie gaming’s earliest and biggest successes, but a lot has changed since then. Polished games from

4K GAMING is a problem. It’s always been a challenge to render at that high a resolution. If anything, the res arrived long before any graphics card or console could touch it. The problem is simple: compared to 1080p, 4K represents a 300 percent incr

> Irresponsible Intel > What the BTF? > AI, AI, Oh? I read with intrigue and a small amount of concern in your September issue that you’d decided to drop Intel’s 13th and 14th generation CPUs from your Blueprint builds that issue, given the ongoing c

Sponsored by AH, 2024, a time of change. Here we have it folks, a new generation of CPUs. The cycle continues, and AMD has finally debuted its latest Ryzen 9000 generation chips to the masses. Only one problem: they’re a bit underwhelming on the pric