REVEALED THE HARDWARE YOU REALLY NEED FOR GAMING Jf. \¥ oN THE BEST-SELLING MAG FOR PC HARDWARE, OVERCLOCKING, GAMING & MODDING /ISSUE.197i % ts oc al | a ey es] eaif Te ts ete oul cel Ta ed Core the merrier a eta enon A ferent ere Ske a Re an reigns: Siem Coon er a Ce aa es ore anne See ees Sn” 2h po Sia pp i eee ae ree Hr aiseaeeeirerenrvenei Pee eee — ee ae rariperereinmanenyietinae rane Pecan nacre Peers maven cee Seen mee See a Recall pee eo oe pare Aer preemies errers iaeerrcneerrenee ri eee a eee ore ee eae eee thy ea eee rere enters airman ae onion are eer ee) Sed | ea oy [ered ns ray ery Poet Paw Sd re ery eel rues ern FeccORICOCHEETSS COMMERCIAL Peer) PeC er lator) Peed Peery Chae igan Cae 3 eee TCT cahemcris Esmee) Leven peer piney errr) Pad ‘SUBSCRIPTIONS. co) Prorereceanortony rae or hand a plesk ety so Ce Ema Herter er ee coord reed etc oes Ce rn Pee ee rere earn Satter) peste ec Reenter ener eect meter hte toe piper epee ieee Hee ig epee crt Ecard pace teen a pe errr ne Pee Nereer e Sed Ce eee (od giContents Welcome to Issue 197 Highlights Aree —— 08 Thebest budget chip youcan'tbuy Richard Swvnbume picks up aRyzen '53500Xin Talwan, complote Y RY>= THRE Ami Sn Le. = witha retailbox and warranty 10 Gametherapy Can games elptotreatmental heath? Tracy King takes a look at The insight Project. ‘Weinvestgatethe changesto [AMD's Threachipper CPU design try utthenew 24-coreand'32-core (CPUsandfindutwhich merry Mince piemegatest ‘worksbestonthe new platform ‘ThetestftheyearisherelFind coutwhientestnvepasryrest 22 AsusROGZenith Extreme wor .overourpanelofjudges. 88 Allaboutanti-aliasing Wetryoutone ofthe frstnew CDon'tknow yourTAA from TRxAO motherboards off the bio 50 GeForceRTXonthe go vyourFXAA? EdwardChester for AMD's new Threadippe: CPUS. Weputeightaptops tna looks atthe various waysthat GeForce RIX GPUstroughthe yourGPUcan smooth outihe aces norertofncthetest Jagged edges ingames. AMD snewRyzen9 3950Kpaccs portable gamingmachines. 1ocoresintoan AMA package 98 Hobbytech formarsteammeneroaes. 70 Reading woes CaretnHofacce|ooks athe Argon Wetytoutinbothgamngand RickLane houghthednitke ‘P14 ands peedLongan Nano. rmul-tweacedworkoaes. havngtoreaextingames, wiehavinga goodrendotatome unitheplyedDisco ys about ypogrephy inarcade gare. 30. GeForce GTX1660 Super WeryoutNvia'statest weakto 78 Whatyouneedtor gaming 106 Makearadiatorblowhole the Tog formu whihpaksthe Doyeuneed mere CPUcores ‘Ourmodderinchie Antony Leatre, GTX1660 withGDORE memory. forgaming.andhowmuch shows ou how teboostyourcase's ference doesRAMmake?We vwater-coalingpotentialby creating irwestigate which components Yyourown sowhoiestorfans. rmakeadterencetogamng,Cover guide PTE ae 4 Al Regulars 3 Fromtheeditor 8 Richard Swinbume 10 TracyKing 12 Incoming 14 Letters 47 Customkit 62 Howwetest 64 Eliteproducts 70 Inverse look 76 Reality check 98 Hobby tech 103 Forthewin 104 CustomisedPC 106 Howto guides MH Readers’ drives 14 James Gorbold Reviewed this month Reviews PROCESSORS 18 _AMDTiveadnpper3960X 39. AMDTiveadpper3970X 24 AMDRyzen9 3950X 26. nte\Corel9-10950xE MOTHERBOARD 2 AsusROGZenshewtreme GRAPHICSCARDS 30 ZotacGoForceGTX1660 Super AMP 34 SopphireRadeon®XS700XT Niro PERIPHERALS 36. CoolerMaster M710 37. RazerTararusPro PCSYsTEMS 38 MSITrdentA 40 ApnaBetass RIX 42 Scan3XS Vengeance RTXTFid Mince pie megatest Morison Mince Pres TescoFinest Monisons The Best TescoMincePies Heston Chocolate and cherry Sainsbury's Taste the Diference MSS AllButter Sainsbury'sMince Pes MSS Putt PastryMince Pies Heston SpicedwithLemion Mrikping Ware Butter Erviched Co-OpMincePies Co-Op Truviresistible Butter Errched Customkit 47 Coz00Headphone Stand 47. Speetink OriosLED XL Gaming laptop Labs 51 AcerPredatorTrtonS0O 52 Alerware mi? 52. ChilblastPhantom17 54 HPOment5 56 MSICS7SSteaith8SC-O46UK 5B PCSpeciaist VortexiK 59 RazerBladetS {60 Scan3XSVengeance GL2070 Games Gap DscoElystum GhostRecon:Breakpoint Tinea Pistol Whip Hobby Tech 98 AcgoniPia 100 ‘Sipeed Longan Nano 102 ArcadeGame Typography 44 sR Lala SRRSSSSRRRRSEE aaaon I CyberPowerPC recommends Windows. Windows 10 One experience for everything in your life. 2090 Windows 10 Home Intl” Core™ 9-9620X Processor Gf MSR 20607 eo ard ASUS TUF}288MK 2 Nooo 4408 200m Cosi VergenceLPkMemory SUE Somsing 3700 PUSS 2p Segoe SAT AHO Cooker 45003 Ging ose so 5 Powe coy Casi ORE Pru lew 2x6 Fas TP ink rhe TS ua od ree Cod ) 6 759 WEES Windows 10 Home Intel” Core™ I5-S400F Processor Ny GeForce MS TED SO Vide Cord MS 2380-4 PRO Maino 838 COR 200 Cas vergearceLP Memayy 278 Seogote SATA HOD Inn 1 ever ering ose Ck Mate 4004 Power Suply Caer Most Most ipit 529 Windows 10 Home Intel® core” c-0100F Processor ENA Gare MSI GT ESO <8 veo ar 805 Prime SOR Marta G6 COR 24 Corsa engeorc LPk Merry 9 Seagate SATAN lester Mastaror MBS20 Gari Case Sacra ont power sunny tS enor o ORDER TODAY! 03333 237 776 aS ‘Windows 10 Home Intel® Core™I9-9900K Processor Pu uF WS AZO SLPER 5 iden Cos 1S Z390 0 Manto 1508 TOR 240 Cosa Veroemce > Mem) 50008 Sarsurg G60 £¥0 S30 210 Seogote SATA HOO Caeraster Masece MESSIP Gain Case Cask 750M PewerSualy Cooler Master str Ui te to cal PRO Oerdocting| Windows 10 Home Intel® Core™ 7-9700K Processor Pa GeFac HATZ SUPER EDS SUS PRME 2090? 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Extraordinary Performance Outside.RICHARD SWINBURNE / VIEW FROM TAIWAN THE BEST BUDGET CHIP YOU CAN'T BUY Richard Swinbume tells AMD to bring the Ryzen 5 3500X to the UK natn coh aentdtht AD ended chp exaptyoucant ny kine Uk Ot ee Bast Aon Nowe epsteoneupnarcatocth ate er evry foregut fend ns wich pared {rite tag end Ose Sura po ero AD tng tocofbsandthewinapaofo CBD Dit ang than en Sancangigsec8 M2 tFyou've been dinging onto anolderSondy Quit here in East Asia, | just picked one up ina BBildge, Ivy Bridge or Haswell-era chip and youre ona tight budget. aRyzen s3500Xand cores.incontrast, the Core g-9400F scores n the 980s here. The massive 3208 of 13 cache offers some advantages for AMD's architecture in certain benchmarks. You might be tempted by the discounts on the Ryzen ‘2000 series, but the Zen 2 performance uptick means its net really worth it. Meanwhile, the Ryzen 5 3600 with double the thread count itll a tempting buy, and certainly worth of the award Custom PC gave it, bt at £85, you could almost buy a R4so motherboard for the £60 price difference between that chip ancl the Ryzen s 3500% Using a B4so motherboara isn't really adownside either despite its lack of PCL-Eg support, as PCI-E 4 SSDs are out of the league of budget systems anyway. Ipaired the Ryzen § 3500X system with Radeon RX $80 4GB, which was another Sqsosetupotfersagreatupgrade epecally —retailbox with athree- bargain considering that these cards row ‘when DDRg prices are so love and even large Ma drives are now affordable Compared with the Intel Core is.qg008 it has the same 6-core/6-thread setup, similar clock speeds anc lek of integrated graphics. You can also everclock the 3500X, even on a cheap B4so board, ‘With Precision Boost Overdrive enabled all the cores hit 4GHz, and manual overclocking the preferred core enabled it toreach 4 GHz. giving it the single-threaded performance of, ‘more expensive chips. The hiccup was that couldn't have one 4.3GHz core and all the other five cores at gGHiz.as the system kept automatically doumclocking the other cores, Testing Cinebench Ris produced a multi-threaded score of 1,086 at stockspeed (3 6GH2) increasing to 1204 at 4GHzon all, year warranty cost almost half the price of the 8GB models Its the first time 've ever built a ‘fll AMD’ C.1 once paired an ATI Radeon g700 with a Socket A Athlon CPU, but that doesn't count because it was several yoars before AMD bought ATL Pairing a Ryzen § 3500 with a Radeon RX s80.4GB has madea great oBop gaming 1g for the money So ar,'vetried Cities Skylines Trire 4 and.even The Outer Worlds at very high settings, and my son is happy with the noticeable boost in Manectatt Java performance. ‘AMID 3s supposed to be replacing its Byso chipset with a newer 550 chipset at some point soon, and hope it uses the ‘occasion to bring its Ryzen § 3500X to te rest of the world, otherwise you guys are seriously missing ou Richard has worked in tech for over a decade, as a UK journalist, on Asus! ROG team and now as an industry analyst based in Talwan [] @ricsws