ISSUE 194 Contents Welcome to Issue 194 COVER STORY Highlights P74
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CUSTOM PC / ISSUE 194 Contents Welcome to Issue 194 COVER STORY Highlights P74 08 Intel Ice Lake is the new ‘Pentium M’ Richard Swinburne analyses the implications for Intel’s latest laptop tech on the desktop. 10 Does Rockstar deserve tax relief? Tracy King analyses the controversy surrounding Rockstar claiming tax relief while not paying corporation tax. 20 AMD Ryzen 5 3400G We check out AMD’s latest APU with integrated Radeon RX Vega 11 graphics. 72 No Man’s Sky VR 100 Corsair water cooling Rick Lane goes for a virtual wander Antony Leather tries out Corsair’s 28 Sound Blaster AE-9 around the worlds of No Man’s Sky new Hydro X fully fledged water- Is there room for expensive Beyond, while also trying some cooling gear. dedicated sound cards in the time space travel. of ALC1220 motherboard audio? 102 How to guides We take a look at Creative’s latest 74 The best upgrades for Our resident modder Antony Leather top-end Sound Blaster. under £100 shows you how to use a water- A small amount of money can cooling distribution plate, and how 42 120mm fans make a big difference to your to connect water-cooling gear to We test 12 of the latest 120mm fans PC’s performance and usability, quick-release fittings. to see which ones offer the best we take you through several sub- balance of airflow and noise. £100 options, from CPU coolers to peripherals, and also show you 52 Stereo gaming headsets how to set them up. 96 We try out seven sub-£100 stereo gaming headsets to find 84 How your GPU works the multiplayer gaming audio From triangles to shaders, we take sweet spot. you through the 3D graphics pipeline, 52 showing you how your GPU works its magic in today’s games. 94 Hobby tech Gareth Halfacree analyses a few options for cooling a Raspberry Pi 4, including a tower heatsink and fan assembly. 4 Reviewed 38 this month PRODUCTS REVIEWED Reviews Cover guide Regulars GRAPHICS CARDS 16 Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Super Founders Edition 3 From the editor PROCESSOR 52 84 20 AMD Ryzen 5 3400G CASE 8 Richard Swinburne 24 Phanteks Eclipse P400A 10 Tracy King MOTHERBOARD 26 Gigabyte X570 Gaming X 12 Incoming SOUND CARD 28 Creative Sound Blaster AE-9 14 Letters MONITOR 30 AOC U2790PQU 38 Custom kit PC SYSTEMS 34 Chillblast Fusion Axion 58 How we test 36 Delta Antihero i5 PC Custom kit 60 Elite products 38 Speclux RGB LED Strips 38 66 Inverse look Fizz Creations Lazy Mug 38 Razer Mouse Bungee 39 Skyocean Personal Fan Power Bank 72 Reality check 39 Cooler Master MP860 94 Hobby tech 120 fan Labs 43 Alpenföhn Wing Boost 3 99 For the win 43 ARCTIC Bionix P120 42 74 44 be quiet! Silent Wings 3 100 Customised PC 44 Cooler Master MasterFan SF120R 45 Corsair LL120 RGB 102 How to guides 110 45 Corsair ML120 Pro 46 EKWB EK-Vadar Evo 120ER RGB 107 Retro tech 46 Fractal Design Prisma AL-12 PWM 48 Noctua A12-15 PWM 110 Readers’ drives 48 Noctua A12-25 PWM 28 50 Noctua NF-P12 redux 114 James Gorbold 50 Thermaltake Riing 12 Gaming headset Labs 53 Corsair HS50 54 HyperX Cloud Alpha 54 Logitech G Pro (2019 edition) 55 Razer Kraken 56 Roccat Khan Pro 56 Sennheiser GSP 300 58 SteelSeries Arctis 3 (2019 edition) 68 Games 16 67 The Blackout Club 68 Wolfenstein: Youngblood 70 Sigil 71 Tetris Effect Hobby Tech 94 Libre Computer Project La Frite 98 The Friendly Orange Glow 5.