PC &amp Tech Authority - May 2016

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NBN AGAIN
The debate roars back into the spotlight
he NBN will be an election issue

this year, and rightly so. It will
be an interesting war of words
and promises, too. Malcolm Turnbull
understands technology better than
any Prime Minister Australia has had
though Kevin Rudd had a good grand
overview, and was ably advised by then
Minister of Communications Stephen
Conroy. Now Turnbull faces Jason Clare,
the Shadow Minister of Communications
and Clare is well versed on technology
and the NBNs low-level functionality.
So it probably wont be a heated
debate based on solely on marketable
big picture benets rhetoric it should
delve fairly deeply into detailed technical
nuances, and for techy-types like you
and I it should make for a compelling
spectacle.
I fear it will devolve, though, into
large parts political blame gaming lets not forget that Labors Stephen
Conroy started the NBN project so
Labor blaming Turnbull for the delays
and cost blow-outs that would in all
likelihood have also hit Labors plan is
slightly disingenuous. Its an interesting,
though now moot, question of whether
the Coalition would have initiated
anything like this on its own. Youd
assume so, knowing Turnbulls excellent
understanding of technology and the
digital economy, but then you have
luddites like Abbott and Christopher
Pyne somewhat negating any optimism
there for it getting going and indeed its
precisely this lack of understanding and
vision that resulted in the cut-back NBN
we have now.
Theres no denying that FTTN NBN is
not good enough, not now, and certainly
not moving ahead. Australia is gradually
slipping down the global ladder for
average broadband speed, with our
country sitting at 30th in the world three
years ago down to 36th now and
thats the period in which the NBN rollout

gathered pace. We should be surging
forward as a world leader for digital
infrastructure but were falling backwards.
With NBNs performance goals clearly
stated (though frequently modied) its
depressingly simple to see that the slide
will accelerate were being left behind
at an increasing pace. With a target of just
25Mbps for the nal NBN deployment its
not very reassuring for the future.
At my home Ive had the pleasure of
enjoying a Bigpond Cable connection
delivering around 125Mpbs for almost a
decade now. Its that quick in the morning,
is exactly as fast at peak hour in the
evening, and it hasnt ever dropped out
or slowed in a decade. So yes, Im living
the broadband dream. Im lucky enough
to live in a place that has that cable
infrastructure in place, and its quick. I
know Im fortunate and to many, have
an enviable situation. It costs me $90
a month. A couple of weeks ago I got a
call from Bigpond. It was NBN time. They
wanted an appointment to come around
and switch me over. Do I have a choice?
No. What speeds can you guarantee?
Around 50Mbps. And whats the cost? $95
a month which includes a speed boost
option to get it up to 50mbps.
Ill be paying more for well under half
the performance. Now, thats a paper
quote and it may turn out that the NBN to
my premises is able to come close to the
cable speeds Im used to. It may even be
faster. But I just dont know until the switch
is made, and believe me Im dragging the
chain as much as possible with Bigpond
over this.
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REAL TECH ADVICE

YOU CAN TRUST!
O
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O
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Our tests are performed by

experienced reviewers in our Labs in
accordance with strict benchtesting
procedures
Our brand new benchmarks have
been tailor-made to reflect realworld computing needs
We put tech through its paces
seriously. From processing power to
battery life, from usability to screen
brightness, our tests are exhaustive
We will always offer an honest and
unbiased opinion for every review
THE TEAM...
Digital Editor Tech
and Gaming
David Hollingworth
E dhollingworth@nextmedia.com.au
T @atomicmpc
Senior Labs Editor

Bennett Ring
Group Advertising
Manager Tech and
Gaming
Cameron Ferris
E cferris@nextmedia.com.au
Ben Mansill
Editor
Art Director
Tim Frawley
E tfrawley@nextmedia.com.au
bmansill@nextmedia.com.au
CONTACT US...
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www.pcandtechauthority.com.au May 2016 3
CONTENTS
20 MAKE WINDOWS
10 BETTER
A few simple yet tremendously effective tips and
REGULARS
Q FEATURES
Q FUTURES
MAKE WINDOWS 10 BETTER

Unlock the full potential of Windows 10
and make it all nicer to use. ........................ 20
CONSUMER CYBORGS
How smart prosthetics might
become affordable and whats next
for human and computer interaction. ...... 94
IOT APPS FOR PI

Its free and simple to develop Windows
10 Internet of Things apps for
microcomputers such as the Raspberry
Pi and Galileo. Heres how ........................ 106
Q TECHDESK
GIGA INTERNET
A new standard to replace TCP and boost
internet speeds .............................................. 97
WINDER
An encrypted physical drive offers several
advantages over software encryption .. 108
BITCOIN IS DEAD?
A key Bitcoin developer has declared
the digital currency over but others
disagree. Can it survive? .............................. 95
CASSIDY
The person standing in the way
of moving your PCs over to
Windows 10 is the developer who
never bothered to hone their
product to high efficiency...........................110
THE FUTURE OF VR
Is VR really the next big thing?......................8
GAME NEWS
Hands-on with Battlefleet Gothic:
Armada ............................................................. 10
CHIP NEWS
AMDs dual-GPU Fury surfaces................... 12
SYSTEM NEWS
Are All-In-One CPU coolers worth the cost
and potential risks? ....................................... 16
INVESTIGATOR
When the new model comes out the day
after you bought the old one ....................... 18
4 May 2016 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au
Q REAL WORLD COMPUTING

HONEYBALL
The sudden disappearance of a
tape library shows that when things
changethey usually do so for a reason ..100
OCKENDEN
A reader finds an ingenious way to
ensure a subwoofer is switched on
alongside his television .............................. 102
Q ALIST AND KITLOG ................. 88

Q DVD CONTENTS
APP GUIDE ................................................... 98
Q EPILOG .................................................. 114
CONTENTS
REVIEWS
REVIEW
Nokia Lumia 650 42
Q PCS & LAPTOPS

Lenovo Yoga 260 ...................................................32
Asus Eebook E402 ................................................34
Q HANDHELDS
Microsoft Lumia 650 ............................................42
Q PERIPHERALS
Asus PG328 monitor.............................................35
Asus PA329 4K monitor.......................................35
Billion 8900AX-2400........................................... 37
Synology DS216+ NAS ........................................ 40
Qnap TS251 media NAS.......................................41
Brother Pocket Jet PJ773......................................44
FUTURES Bitcoin is dead 95
Asus RT-AC68U .....................................................44

Rapoo Wireless Touch Mouse .......................... 46
MSI Interceptor DS300 ....................................... 46
Roccat Ryos MK FX .............................................. 46
TT esports Challenger ..........................................47
Q COMPONENTS
Kingston KC400 1TB SSD ...................................36
OCZ Trion 150 SSD................................................36
Thermaltake RGB AIO ..........................................45
Thermaltake RGB PSU ........................................45
Q GAMES
Total War: Warhammer ...................................... 84
The Division ............................................................. 86
Q WEARABLES
Runtastic Moment .................................................47
Marley Zion In-Ear.................................................. 47
Q CAMERAS
Panasonic DMC-TZ80 .........................................47
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off see page 80.
TECHDESK INBOX
INBOX
So, you say...
THE NBN DISASTER
I cannot begin to tell you what an
absolute catastrophe the rollout of
FTTN to my house has been. Three
months in total from application to
activation. Three solid weeks without
ADSL and phone service, which
decimated our home business where we
had to survive by tethering our PCs to
an iPhone and divert all calls from the
exchange to the same phone. This cost
us money and loss of client goodwill.
Now, with it nally operating we are
left with a substandard product that
is completely unreliable in the speed
it delivers. 70Mbps in the morning, it
drops to a pitiful and infuriating 2Mbps
during the evenings, every night. Worse
than my ADSL, that gave me 15Mbps
consistently, any time of day. Dropped
packets, schizophrenic pings, unusable
streaming services...
RSPs blame NBN, NBN blames the
RSPs, nobody takes responsibility.
Meanwhile the end user that is paying a
premium for this service is screwed into
oblivion.
After dozens of hours with my RSP,
I am at the end of my tether. I am tech
savvy and it is breaking me. I have no
idea how Average Joe copes.
The technology does not work. The
Australian public has been duped.
And we are all paying for it, now and for
a very long time to come.
Ploddy
A BETTER NBN EXPERIENCE
Ive been a FTTN user for a little over
four months and am quite happy with
it. Since having it connected Ive been
able to do a lot more with my internet
connection (multiple streaming video
users, more video chats & backup to
cloud services has all become a reality).
Im with Telstra and have found the
quality of the actual service to be good

service is usable at any time of the day.
Lastly the connection process was pretty
much seamless.
I add the above to share that not all
MTM stories are bad ones in my case its
delivering a huge step forward from what
I had before.
I do get the advantages of bre to the
premises and agree long term it has a
better value proposition. Also I do agree
the NBN could improve in a number in
areas. In saying that Im seeing what was
a technical argument devolve into a more
hysterical political one (i.e. bre = perfect
& MTM = toilet paper). This leads people
to start straying from the truth and means
the key issues arent getting a look in.
Michael
NBN LUNACY
I encountered a crew building a node
in my street today. Our suburb oods
regularly and is 3-4 km from the
telephone exchange, hence our 60-year
old copper only delivering 1-2 Mbps.
Placing an electrically-powered,
refrigerator-sized cabinet with eight car
batteries in its base into a regularlyooded suburb, to supply broadband over
badly degraded copper, is yet another
masterstroke from the millionaire genius
from Point Piper, who invests his personal
money into the FTTP build of France
Telecom.
Yes, our internet will move from
1.3Mbps to ADSL speeds and have
fewer dropouts. But the construction,
maintenance and operational costs
will cancel any up-front savings, and of
course the crew will be back in ve years
to build over with bre.
Finally, let me share a gem from NBNs
reply last week to my request for a
quotation to get FTTP instead of FTTN.
They tell me that they cannot give me a
quotation until the FTTN is operational!

That is, they must rst spend the money
to build FTTN before doing a one-off
FTTP upgrade. Anyone with a brain
would realise that this is just a means of
proving how costly FTTP is, because
you must add the initial FTTN build to the
FTTP build!
It would be an example of Kafkaesque
lunacy, if it wasnt so obviously part of Mr
Turnbulls plan to boost his credit with
Telstra for his post-political income.
Francis
Ben Mansill replies: As I also mention in
my Login editorial, the NBN issue is heating
up and its going to be an election issue.
We are hearing from readers often on this
hot topic, and the experiences vary as
you can see just from the small selection of
comments weve printed. Do please share
yours, we need as much information as
possible to be shared so the picture is clear
when election time comes around.
LINUX, PLEASE
I have a number of gripes with Microsoft
and Windows but my main concern is the
mountain of malware targeting Windows
users. But I wouldnt be comfortable
using any OS without a professional
security suite. Which ironically ties me to
Windows.
However Kaspersky do provide security
for Linux Workstations to Business
customers. So I asked Kaspersky Lab
Support if they might provide an internet
security suite to Linux home users and
their response was: With the growing
number of users choosing to use Ubuntu
Operating System for personal use,
Kaspersky Lab do look to protect these
users in the near future.
If and when this occurs I shall say a
fond farewell to Microsoft.
C Jensen
Want to get in touch?

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TECH NEWS
The latest trends and products in the world of technology
VIRTUAL REALITY: HOPE FOR
PC MAKERS AT LAST?
Virtual reality could drive sales for high-end component makers, but its by no
means certain to spark a revolution in PC specs, discovers Stewart Mitchell
irtual reality is the buzzword

of the moment, with analysts
predicting soaring sales and
consumer units such as the Oculus Rift
and Microsofts HoloLens set to launch
this year.
According to gures from Gartner
Research, global sales for headsets are
set to leap from 140,000 units in 2015 to
1.4 million in 2016 and 6.3 million in 2017.
The trend could also hold potential for
PC makers that have been driven towards
making cheap, low-powered machines,
rather than high-end PCs with more
sustainable prot margins.
The theory is that headsets such as the
Oculus Rift will put too great a demand
on current hardware, forcing buyers to
upgrade. The Rift, for example, requires
a minimum specication of an Nvidia
GeForce GTX 970 or AMD Radeon R9 290
equivalent, an Intel Core i5-4590 or better
and at least 8GB of RAM. Facebookowned Oculus believes only 1% of current
PCs are capable of running its peripheral
headsets.
VR places an enormous strain on PC
components. According to Oculus, while
a standard 1080p game at 60Hz requires
124 million shaded pixels per second,
the Rifts 2,160 x 1,200 pixels running at
90Hz on dual displays serves 233 million
pixels per second. Greater detail in certain
areas pushes the demand on the GPU
to 400 million shaded pixels
per second. In raw
rendering costs alone,
a VR game will require
approximately three
times the GPU power
of 1080p rendering, the
company said.
BOOM TIME?
But will consumers be
willing to invest in new
PC hardware, or
simply snub the VR
headsets? PC and
component manufacturers are outwardly

condent they will reap the benets,
with graphics chipmaker AMD banking
on increased sales. The interest in VR
is an exciting trend that is focusing the
software industrys attention, and some
of its brightest minds, back on the PC
platform, said AMD CEO Lisa Su. While
the initial wave of VR will be focused
on gaming, an increasing number of
developers see VR as the most signicant
advancement in how we interact with
technology since the introduction of the
mouse and graphical user interface. Most
importantly, these breakthrough software
experiences will only be enabled on highperformance, energy-efficient GPUs.
If the hype is true, then the PC industry
could expect a windfall, but the high price
for initial hardware, on top of the cost
of headsets, means virtual reality could
exclude all but the keenest enthusiast
who may already have the required PCs.
If the Oculus Rift is a fair indication of the
likely cost of dedicated VR headsets, we
feel they will remain a niche purchase in
the near term, said Ben Wood, chief of
research at CCS Insight.
There will likely be some additional
demand for more capable machines, he
added, but the additional volumes will
likely be negligible in the grand scheme
of things. We also expect there to be an
overlap between gamers who already
own powerful machines and those that
Sales of VR headsets are expected to rise to 1.4

million units this yeartech, including 3D cameras
and VR
invest in a dedicated VR headset.

Wood worries that VR could have
a negative impact on the PC market.
The proliferation of cheaper PCs will
certainly limit the addressable market for
dedicated VR headsets, he said. Less
knowledgeable potential purchasers will
be disappointed as their headset wont
work with their current PC and will be
shocked when they nd out the cost of the
high-spec PC they need to invest in to be
able to use the headset. Some PC makers
are already offering PCs optimised for
dedicated VR solutions.
DOWNWARDLY MOBILE
The main reason people may be unwilling
to invest in new PC hardware comes in the
shape of the smartphone a product that
most consumers already own. Samsungs
Gear system employs its top-end phones
in a goggles-format add-on, while
Googles Cardboard puts VR within reach
of all but the tightest budget.
The experience isnt anywhere near
as immersive or powerful as systems
driven by top-spec PCs, but for many
applications, the stereoscopic display on
a phones screen is adequate.
If youre doing something like design
and you want to experience what it
feels like to be in a space, then you dont
need to have super-high-end graphics
and explosion and shader effects that
TECHDESK NEWS
operate on the GPU, said Evan Suma,

assistant professor at the University of
Southern Californias Institute for Creative
Technologies.
If youre using it for some other task,
a phone-based VR or something thats
not hooked up to a PC is probably
more than sufficient. The ones that
use a PC generally have cables, but the
IN HUNT OF THE KILLER APP
Facebook-owned
Oculus believes only
1% of current PCs are
capable of running its
peripheral headsets
smartphone ones are wireless so theyre
untethered. That portability is really
important.
According to Suma, estate agents,
hotels and travel companies are all
looking into ways of using smartphone
VR that would allow users to look around
a resort before booking a holiday, for
example, or view a potential new home
without wasting time on an initial visit.
If the majority of app development
and content is on the smartphone,
PC-based VR becomes marginalised
and the industry may not see any uplift
from the new technology. We expect
the lions share of VR volume to come
from smartphone VR solutions be that
the humble Google Cardboard, or more
capable products like Samsungs Gear
VR, said Wood. The Gear VR delivers an
excellent experience given its price and
it obviates the need for an expensive PC.
Consumers have already embraced it with
a vigour, reected in the fact that it quickly
sold out in most markets.
Its unclear what

the first consumer
VR headsets will be
used for
The first consumer headsets might be set

for launch, but still nobodys quite sure what
theyre going to be used for. Whether its
gaming, exploring or conference calling, it
appears VR is still searching for its killer app.
Were still waiting to see what the
content creators are going to make
available, said the University of Southern
Californias Evan Suma. If youre an end
user, what are you going to want to use VR
for? Why do you want to put on the headmounted display and be immersed? Is it
for entertainment? Is it productivity? Is it
communication? And so its going to be
driven by the content creators more than by
the hardware companies.
The first driver of VR software is likely to
be entertainment whether its gaming,
Smartphones aside, Microsofts

HoloLens is a standalone device powered
with its own processors and software, one
that might mean more copies of Windows
in circulation, but wont help Microsofts
PC partners.
sports broadcasting or drama but at this

stage the interaction with other users is
still experimental, something that needs to
change in a world where social interaction is
so important. At the moment, the industry is
trying to get single-user VR to be compelling
enough because thats the first step but
mixing with other users will come, said
Mr Suma.
Facebook invested US$2 billion to
acquire Oculus, and its not a company
that builds single-user games Facebook
would only invest in VR if it thought that
this was going to be the medium for people
to communicate. Theres a lot of money
thats going to be invested in multi-user
communication and collaboration. Thats the
killer app, and thats five-plus years away.
Once again, it appears the PC might

not capitalise on an emerging technology.
Theres little doubt that VR will make an
impact, but its unlikely to be a return to
the days when the PC was the hub of
digital entertainment.
STORIES NOT TO MISS

APPLE FIGHTS THE FEDS
ON IPHONE ENCRYPTION
Apple issued an extraordinary
public rebuke to the FBI after the
agency demanded that Apple
provide a special version of iOS
that could circumvent encryption
on the device of a terrorist. The FBI
issued court documents requiring
Apple to create a new system
information file that would allow
the feds to force their way past
Apples encryption and not risk
automatic deletion of data from
failed passcode attempts. In a
public letter posted on its website,
CEO Tim Cook said the company
would fight the court order, saying
such software would compromise

every iPhone users security. In
the physical world, it would be
the equivalent of a master key,
capable of opening hundreds of
millions of locks, wrote Cook. No
reasonable person would find that
acceptable.
MICROSOFT FINALLY
REVEALS WHATS GOING
INTO WINDOWS 10
UPDATES
Having steadfastly refused to
divulge whats going into the now
mandatory updates to Windows
10, Microsoft has published a
new web page covering whats
actually been fixed or added

to the operating system. After
listening to feedback regarding the
level of disclosure for Windows
10 updates, we decided to
implement a new system for
communicating updates to the
operating system, a Microsoft
spokesperson told The Register.
Today we are rolling out the
Windows 10 update history site,
a hub for the release notes that
will accompany each update
and serve as a historical record
of prior release notes. See all
historical upgrades and changes
to Windows 10 here: tinyurl.com/
hxhu3ku.
TORVALDS: IM NOT A
PEOPLE PERSON
The famously prickly creator of
the Linux kernel, Linus Torvalds,
gave a brutally frank TED talk in
which he openly confessed to
disliking many of his fellow opensource collaborators. What I
love about open source is that
it really allows different people
to work together, he said. We
dont have to like each other. And
sometimes, we really dont like
each other. Torvalds admitted he
wasnt a people person and was
baffled by the rows that erupt over
software. Code either works or it
doesnt, he said.
NEWS TECHDESK
GAMING NEWS
Nathan Lawrence is deep in space
BATTLEFLEET GOTHIC: ARMADA

Early Access time with this latest Warhammer 40K strategy title reaps promising results
ve had my eye on this game

since it blipped on my radar last
year. While there is the option
to play 1v1 (a 2v2 option is greyed out
at the moment) against human or AI
opponents, theres also the rst few
levels of the campaign on offer, too.
This is where I spent the majority of my
time, after initially fumbling around in an
ill-fated skirmish against an AI foe (set
on normal difficulty, which is apparently
quite tough). While generic RTS skills
certainly aid in wrapping ones head
around the basics of Armada, theres a
lot more going on beneath the surface of
whats shaping up to be a deep, tactical
experience.
As was expected (and welcomed), the
opening campaign mission is dedicated
to teaching some of this depth beyond
the usual right click to move here
fare. As the title suggests, Battleeet
Gothic: Armada revolves around pitting
beautifully designed spaceships against
other beautifully designed spaceships.
There are two factions available at
this pre-release timeImperial Navy
and Chaosboth of which have specic
strengths and weaknesses that are listed
before you select one. I chose to play
as Imperial Navy, mostly because their
spaceships look like ying cathedrals,
and the level of detail when zoomed in
with graphics settings pushed to Epic
is sufficiently gorgeous. Of course, the
catch is that theres very little time
to admire the eye candy when battle
commences.
Ships are controlled on a 2D plane,
which is actually a relief given the

multiple tactical nuances that can be
used to gain a competitive edge during
battles. Players can set engagement
ranges, perform speed boosts and
emergency turns, and decide whether
their ships should engage head-on,
which is perfect for torpedo attacks
and lower-prole ring, or side-on,
which makes your ship a bigger target
but opens up satisfying broadside
possibilities.
Set the engagement range to the
minimum distance, and watch as your
powerful capital ships close the distance
before ring, which also happens to be
a great tactic for the Lightning Strike
ability that teleports a squad of elite
troops onto a nearby enemy ship to
cause internal damage. True to the
source material, this ability operates on
an RNG system, which only help add to
the intensity of battle when it fails at a
crucial moment.
On top of this, specic parts of an
enemy ship such as engines or turrets
can be prioritised, and you can even get
down to the nitty-gritty of micro-ing

your individual ships to the point where
you force them to engage on the port
or starboard side. Push your ships in
too aggressively against overwhelming
odds, as I have a tendency to do in most
strategy games, and youll nd that
certain ship captains will want abandon
their post and warp away to safety.
Theres a time limit before they can
successfully get away, and in true brutal
fashion, you can choose to execute the
mutinous and cowardly captain to regain
control of their eeing ship. You can also
use probes to spot enemy ships before
they spot you, to engage them at greater
distances, or hide your eet in gaseous
clouds to ambush unsuspecting foes as
they pass by.
On top of this, there are hints of grand
strategy in the campaign overview
section. Similar to the Total War games,
the lead-up to each mission is controlled
in a turn-based overview of a galaxy
map. The more territory you control,
the better perks you have access to,
and the inverse is seemingly true, too.
Ship commanders level up based on
veterancy, and ships can be upgraded
in a variety of areas to match your
preferred gameplay tactics, all of which
is limited by a ships total tonnage.
After a couple of hours of playing, I felt
like I had only scratched the surface of
Battleeet Gothic: Armadas depth and
fun potentiality, and was left hungry for
a whole lot more. Its a good thing, then,
that its scheduled to ship in the next
month.
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02 9755 0668
1300 727 446
02 4721 3457
02 9939 1548
02 9649 3288
02 9746 7886
02 9742 3988
02 9897 9993
02 9648 2261
02 8090 3332
arc.com.au
auspc.com.au
capitolcomputer.com.au
iibuy.com.au
ijk.com.au
megaware.com.au
msy.com.au
mwave.com.au
dcomponline.com.au
nscom.com.au
pclan.com.au
pcmeal.com.au
ddcomputer.com.au
diycomputers.com.au
maig.com.au
jw.com.au
Computer Alliance Pty Ltd

Game Dude Pty Ltd
MSY
Umart Online
AUSCOMP COMPUTERS
WA
07 3420 3200
07 3387 1500
07 3290 1738
07 3369 3928
07 3722 5100
computeralliance.com.au
gamedude.com.au
msy.com.au
umart.com.au
auscompcomputers.com
03 8542 8688
03 9560 2288
03 9551 0889
03 8311 7600
03 8561 3200
cpl.net.au
msy.com.au
pccasegear.com
centrecom.com.au
scorptec.com.au
08 89412119
pcsolutions4u.com.au
VIC
Computers & Parts Land
MSY Technology
PC Case Gear
Centre Com Sunshine PTY
Scorpion Tech. Computers
NT
PC Solutions 4 U
Austin Computer
MSY
Netway Computers
Netplus Micro Computers
PC West
PLE Computers
Worldwide Net Solutions
ARROW COMPUTERS
08 9201 2788
08 9344 1002
08 9332 0888
08 9242 7288
08 6398 4813
08 9309 4771
08 9375 9666
08 9258 7733
austin.net.au
msy.com.au
netwaycomputers.com
netplus.com.au
pcwest.com.au
ple.com.au
netsolution.com.au
arrowcomputers.com.au
08 8340 2021
08 8186 2110
08 8212 1656
08 8186 2736
08 8349 4334
hypernetdist.com.au
mats-systems.com.au
msy.com.au
itwarehouse.com.au
photech.com.au
SA
Hypernet Computer Distribution
MATS Systems
MSY Technology (SA) Pty Ltd
IT&Computers
Photech Computers Pty Ltd
TAS
www.asrock.com
The specification is subject to change without notice.
The brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies.
Any configuration other than original product specification is not guaranteed.
NEWS TECHDESK
CHIP NEWS
AMD has Zen in its hands, releases a farewell to 28nm graphics card that looks at
transitioning them into the future and Nvidia silently refreshes its mobile parts.
Mark Williams covers a somewhat quiet month of Chip News
CPU
ZEN IN TESTING
Word is going around that AMDs new
eight core hyper-threaded CPUs sporting
its new Zen architecture have taped
out and are going through testing and
validation as we speak. The same
rumours are also claiming we may see
these Summit Ridge family of products
in October, much earlier than the
December everyone seemed to be taking
from AMDs late 2016 claims.
With so many cores and threads and

no integrated graphics, the Summit
Ridge FX CPUs will be most analogous
to Intels Haswell-E/Broadwell-E
solutions. And with those requiring
up to 140W of power compared to
AMDs claimed 95W, AMD may have an
advantage over Intel for the rst time in
many many years, at least in the HEDT
segment.
GPU
RADEON PRO DUO
AMDs latest dual-GPU card was unveiled
at GDC. Formally being dubbed the R9
Fury X2, the new Radeon Pro Duo at 16
teraops of compute performance is over
50% faster than Nvidias closest option,
the GTX Titan Z.
Continuing the Crossre-on-a-stick
mentality of the previous R9 295X2, the
Pro Duo has two fully enabled Fury GPUs
on board, however with most of the official
specs not released yet until it ships were
not sure if AMD has done a Fury Nano
and down clocked them to save power
compared to the core in a Fury X.
The Pro Duo is liquid cooled like the
Fury X too, even using the same radiator
conguration (which is rated to dissipate
up to 500W of heat) and has gained an
extra PCI-E power connection so that
power draw on those rails remains within
specications unlike the 295X2 and its two
connectors which sneakily ran outside of
power draw limits.
Revealing some in-house Futuremark
Firestrike benchmark results AMD showed
that the Pro Duo was around 20-25%
faster than the outgoing 295X2.
With the new moniker AMD is also trying
to shift the industries focus. In partnership
with Crytek and their CryEngine AMD
will seed Pro Duo equipped systems
into universities with the aim of getting
developers working with DirectX 12/
Vulkan and manipulating multiple GPU
congurations without the need for the
abstraction layer Crossre uses to extract
the most performance from multi GPU
situations. Crossre proles will of course

still be provided by AMD for games but
with this release AMD is wanting the
industry to fully embrace Vulkan/DX12s
close to the metal capabilities and have
the developer rather than AMD extract the
desired performance from these types of
congurations.
Eventually getting rid of Crossre and
SLI can only mean good things for gamers.
BEYOND POLARIS
GDC also saw the future roadmap for
AMD shown off. After Polaris around June
comes Vega at the beginning of next year
and then Navi at the start of 2018.
Interestingly it showed that Vega would
be their rst architecture to sport HBM2
which was previously thought to be
coming with Polaris, so by inference we
can say that Polaris will be HBM1.
Although marketing material, the
timeline also seems to suggest that Navi
may be 2x the performance of Polaris,
feature next gen memory (HBM3?) and
have scalability as a focus. With Raja
Koduri suggesting that smaller chips offer
better scales of economy going forward
it could mean Navi may feature more

than two GPUs on board and multi-GPU
cards not being limited to the top tier halo
products like the just launched Pro Duo.
NVIDIA LAUNCHES NEW

MOBILE PARTS
With no fanfare Nvidia has quietly
launched a refresh of its low end laptop
GPUs. Replacing the Geforce (non-GTX)
900M series of last year the new Geforce
900MX series new headline feature is
that along with GDDR3 the chips now also
support GDDR5.
Core clock speeds are slightly up, barely,
and apart from the new memory support
not much else has changed for the new
Geforce 920MX, 930MX and 940MX.
Some quick and dirty benchmarks were
performed on these and the results show
that with the same GDDR3 subsystem
they basically match last years models,
however the GDDR5 equipped versions
showed a 15 20% performance boost in
3DMark 11s performance test.
So if youre going to buy a laptop with
Geforce 900MX series graphics inside, be
sure its a GDDR5 version.
MOST WANTED
Lewis Vaughan scoops up the
tech joy we want right now
Boosted Boards Dual +

This electric skateboard is something that gets us very excited. Appealing
to our inner child as well as our environmentally conscious inner adult, the
Boosted Board is all about having fun and feeling good while doing it. The board
boasts a motor that generates 2000 watts of power which drives the board to
a maximum speed of 35kph. It also has a Bluetooth remote and even recharges
when braking. Speaking of recharging, it only takes an hour to fully charge the
board with the included power supply which will get you around 11km of travel.
Thats plenty of range to get you around town.
MOST WANTED The Boosted Board weighs in at around 6.8kg, which is
pretty light when you consider that a push bike can weigh significantly more
than that. With that said it would be nice to see what some other materials
could achieve with weight and durability.
NOT WANTED The jealous looks you will get from people as you zip pass
and are having the time of your life. Although lets be honest, we kind of do
want that a little bit. Also, the first time you take a fall when you get a little too
enthusiastic and confident when going around a corner.
Bugatti Chiron
The successor to the insanely powerful, and equally beautiful Veyron has some big
shoes to fill. The Chiron looks to be up to the challenge and is shaping up to potentially
be the fastest production car ever made. This car has a ridiculous amount of the newest
technology that is on offer today. All of which is crammed into what we think is one of
the most aesthetically pleasing cars ever made.
MOST WANTED Were hoping that Bugatti keeps pushing the boundaries of what
cars can do. The Chiron can only get better from here and we love that. We would enjoy
seeing some special edition variants just to add to the rarity of the car, not that it needs
it. How about an all-electric version in collaboration with Tesla? It would be really cool to
see what those two companies come up with.
NOT WANTED The tree you will inevitably crash into if you ever get behind the wheel
of one of these things.
PowerEgg Drone
This Egg-shaped drone is something
were pretty excited about. The
compact and lightweight folding
blade design gives it an edge over
other drones, which require more
space to store and travel with. The
PowerEgg is said to have a
360-degree panoramic 4K HD camera
on a 3-axis gimbal, real-time long
range video transmission, advanced
optical flow sensors for indoor
navigation, and an intuitive and easy
to use remote control. So its light, scifi sexy, compact and seemingly crash
proof. The software is also said to be
significantly easier to pilot than many
other drones.
MOST WANTED Autonomous
following would be great, as well as
having an app that actually works. A
lot of drone apps are twitchy at best,
so we hope the PowerEgg comes with
a great and tightly integrated app.
The ability to throw it like a football
and have it deploy the propellers
would be pretty awesome too,
however impractical that may be.
NOT WANTED Lacklustre software,
poor durability and connectivity
issues seem to be the main problems
with drones these days. If the
PowerEgg addresses these and
delivers on what it has promised, this
drone could be a real competitor in the
market for pros and hobbyists alike.
TECHDESK MOST WANTED
Saitek Star
Citizen
Controller
One Wheel
Another futuristic sci-fi skateboard,
the One Wheel has a crazy amount of
technology in it. Taking full advantage
of todays microprocessors, sensors,
brushless motors and lithium iron
phosphate batteries, it looks like a lot of
fun. We like fun, so of course this piqued
our interest. The One Wheel is different
from other types of portable electric
transport in that allows you to stand
sideways, in a more traditional way
like on a surfboard, rather than facing
forward like youre on an escalator which
we think is just asking to be catapulted
off and land face first on the ground.
MOST WANTED The One Wheel is
said to be easier to ride than similar
products, with intuitive controls that
allow you to lean forward, to go and
lean backwards, to slow down or stop.
Seems pretty simple. There is also only
one moving part which in theory means
that it shouldnt be too hard to maintain
and fix if something goes wrong. The app
has something called digital shaping
which allows the user to tailor the riding
experience to their own needs and
preferences. The One Wheel is also said
to be life proof meaning that it can go
on dirt, sand, grass and even in light wet
conditions.
NOT WANTED Swappable batteries
would be a nice touch. And considering
that the One Wheel is a bit bigger and
seemingly more awkward than some
of the other products currently on
the market (like the more traditional
skateboard style Boosted Board), maybe
a specially designed backpack to carry it
around in would be a good addition.
U.K. flight stick manufacturer,

Saitek has teamed up with
Roberts Space Industries,
maker of Star Citizen, to
make a custom joystick
controller. According to
Saitek, the idea behind the
joystick is that you can split
it apart and combine it with other devices. With it, players will be able to fly with
a joystick and keyboard, a joystick and throttle, two joysticks or any combination
of custom made Star Citizen branded accessories. We think it looks pretty great
and considering the scope of Star Citizen, where you can go from a space flight
simulator to on-foot first person shooter, a dedicated and customizable controller
setup like this will make it a lot easier to get comfortable with the game.
MOST WANTED Easy integration and customization are a must have for any
controller, but with one like this, it is the most important feature. We would love to
see it work seamlessly across the board and allow less time playing with settings
and more time playing the game.
NOT WANTED Poor quality materials and hard to manage customization
features. Some plastics and rubbers used in other Saitek products that weve used
in the past tend to wear down easily, especially under excessive use, which is a
fast way to having the controller end up being shoved in a cupboard never to be
seen again.
Raspberry Pi 3
The Raspberry Pi is pretty great. A tiny low-powered computer with near
limitless potential for the budget conscious and those prone to making
custom toys. Whats not to love? The latest in the line of mini-computers
is the Pi 3. Sporting internal 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, and a quad-core
64-bit ARM Cortex A53 clocked at 1.3GHz, which actually makes it a very
usable basic computer.
MOST WANTED Were glad Wi-Fi has been added as well as an Ethernet
port as well as Bluetooth 4.0. The Pi can be used in a wide variety of
applications. Anything from a retro games console to an autonomous
tea maker, theres a lot of potential here. We recently did an article about
attaching a Pi to a weather balloon and sending it into space (Issue 220,
page 106). For now the Pi 3 is rather desirable as is. Not to mention the
US$35 price tag.
NOT WANTED There isnt much to complain about here, although
some of the previous models had issues with supply. We only hope that
Raspberry can make enough units of the Pi 3 to meet the excited market.
System news
THIS MONTH MARK WILLIAMS LOOKS AT WHY BUILDING CUSTOM WATER LOOPS IS
FADING AWAY AND WHY AIO LIQUID COOLERS SHOULD RULE THE WORLD OF COOLING
ve been building bespoke

custom water cooling loops for
my self-built computers ever
since I got out of high school and
could afford the parts, basically
because it was the only way to get
water cooling back then. Pumps,
reservoirs, tubing (diameter, thickness and lengths), water additives,
quick disconnects or barbs, clamps,
radiators, grommets (because
cases back then werent designed
to internally house radiators) plus
more were all of concern when
researching what parts to buy in the
hope they all t together.
CLOSED LOOP HASSLES
Theyre extremely time consuming to put together too, cutting the
tubes to length meant checking
tube routing rst and loop topography, where to stick the reservoir
or T-line and pump, getting tight
tubes onto the connection barbs
(dip tube ends in hot water rst
people!). Then theres the heart
stopping moment after youve
primed the loop with uid and you
re up the pump to start pumping liquid life into your system and
bleed out all the bubbles, whilst
praying that nothing leaks onto
your new and expensive gear.
Which Ive had happen with a
brand new $1500 graphics card!
Thankfully, with care it was undamaged.
However, when you nish it, my
goodness it is a sight of beauty.
This Frankenstein of a cooling
system that youve built, perhaps
simultaneously cooling both CPU
and GPU, maybe it has some fancy
UV colour in the liquid to make
your colour scheme pop, now
provides you near silent running

even under peak loads with far
superior temps especially on GPUs
than any air cooler can offer. Once
you go water, you never go back.
THE AIO ADVANTAGE
While theres a lot of advantages
still to putting together your own
water loop, the All-In-One (AIO)
liquid cooler market is slowly
taking away the need and expense
of building your own loop and is
making it stupidly easy to access
all the benets of water cooling,
often with the extra benet of
being self-sealed so you never
have to worry about relling or
water contaminants, which is a
constant maintenance issue with
self-built loops.
AIO coolers are currently really
only available for the CPUs,
however many graphics card
companies are wising up and
starting to build liquid cooling
directly into their products, like the
R9 Fury X.
AIOs are extremely simple to
install too. Over a heatsink fan
(HSF) combo, the only extra
thing of concern with an AIO after
attaching the heatsink/pump unit
to the CPU is where to attach the
radiator, which is usually of not
much concern with most modern
cases providing ample mounting
room for them.
AIOs do cost more than HSFs
but not by much if you compare
top end HSFs with entry AIOs.
However, the extra cooling
performance and lowered
system acoustics especially if
you overclock make AIOs a highly
worthy consideration.
SHOP TALK
How popular are All-In-One liquid cooling
solutions with the systems you make and with
your customers? Do the benefits outweigh the
extra cost and space requirements?
James, Scorptech:
All-In-One Liquid Cooling solutions are extremely
popular in the systems we pre-build, and in customer
systems. They have proven themselves to be on par
or better than the top end air coolers, and can give a
much cleaner look to the build. In my opinion, the extra
cost and space requirements are certainly outweighed
by the benets, especially due to the fact almost
all cases nowadays will support a radiator in some
capacity. Failures were quite common on rst release
of AIO, most of them due to pump failure (no longer
working or noisy), very rarely saw returns from leaks.
These days the pumps are of a much better quality and
we are not seeing the returns we used to see.
John, TI Computers:
Our customers do recognize the value of a quality cooler,
and are willing to invest in this area. However, the all-inone liquid cooling solution has never been the preferred
option, mainly due to concerns of pump failure and
chances of leaks over time. After all, the more active
components there is in a system, the more likely they
are to fail over time. In order to maintain our success
in delivering one of lowest return rate in the industry,
we actually adopt quality large tower solutions such
as Noctua NH-D15 in replacement of all-in-one liquid
cooling solution, as they easily deliver equivalent or
better cooling capability under a lower operating noise,
while with less service concerns.
Jaya, Mwave:
AIO coolers are very popular with our customers. There
is a very low failure rate for these products and the
performance is top notch.
The AIO units themselves are also safer for system
integrators like us to ship nationwide because of the
design where the bulk of the unit directly attaches
to the cases frame unlike air coolers where they are
mounted to the motherboard which can cause strain
in transit.
We would denitely recommend AIO liquid coolers to
customers who use their systems for heavy workloads
or who are interested in overclocking. An aftermarket
cooler. whether its an air or AIO liquid may not always
be suitable for all builds but if youre looking for
something to help you push your system and dont
want to deal with the cost and maintenance of having a
custom loop then we wouldnt suggest anything else.
SYSTEM NEWS
Market snapshot
A SAMPLING OF PC SYSTEMS AVAILABLE THIS MONTH
UNBEATABLE MONSTER
COOLING OVERKILL
Mwave Infinite Battlebox
Scorptech Carbide 390X
$3,274 http://tinyurl.com/j8co554
$2,299 http://tinyurl.com/jfcglpy
As the saying goes, what doesnt kill you only makes you
stronger, and while the price hit to your wallet is a big one, if
you can afford it youll have an almost unbeatable monster of
a machine.
This system is housed in a rather roomy case with a dual
zone cooling design where the PSU and drives are housed
behind the motherboard in their own chamber.
The six-core CPU has water-cooling pre-installed and with
the graphics card able to be upgraded to a water cooled
version as well (for $200 extra) this would be one silent and
cool machine. Being X99 this system will also be compatible
with the upcoming Broadwell-E CPUs coming in a month or
two.
In whats becoming a bit of a fashion, the case for this system

utilises a clear panel that isnt recessed in a metal frame,
providing a sexy borderless window effect that really opens up
the view inside.
Another point of interest is that the window is on the
wrong side. The case uses a ipped ATX layout meaning the
motherboard sits upside down on the left side that conceptually
may give better cooling to air cooled graphics cards, which in
this system is the R9 390X, known for getting toasty.
The only real weakness in this build is the CPU, which at 65W
and with locked multipliers, couldve saved you money by simply
using the stock cooler rather than going overboard with the AIO
included. But at least itll give you thermal headroom should you
upgrade CPUs later.
KEY SPECS
CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K
KEY SPECS
Cooler: Corsair Hydro Series H110i GTX 280mm
CPU: Intel Core i5-6500
Motherboard: MSI X99A SLI Krait Edition
Cooler: Corsair Hydro Series H110i GTX 280mm
Graphics: Gigabyte GeForce GTX

980 Ti G1 GAMING 6GB
Motherboard: MSI H170 GAMING PRO
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws 4, 16GB

(4x 4GB) 2400MHz DDR4
Memory: Corsair 8GB (2x4GB) 2400MHz DDR4
Graphics: Sapphire Radeon R9 390X Tri-X 8GB
Storage: Samsung 950 Pro 256GB NVMe
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO 250GB SSD, Seagate

Desktop HDD 2TB
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 850W G2
Power Supply: Corsair CX750M Bronze 750W
Case: Corsair Carbide Air 540
Case: Corsair Carbide Clear 600C Inverse
AN IMPRESSIVE BARGAIN
TOTAL PACKAGE
TI Computers
TI Power Gaming PC
JW Computerss
JW Intel i3 Package V2
$1,670 http://tinyurl.com/gpjhg4c
$899 http://tinyurl.com/jt5l42t
This is the system you buy when you want no fuss near top line
performance at a great price. The CPU cant be overclocked but
its just 200MHz behind the 6700K at stock anyway.
The graphics card is also a fantastic choice in this price
bracket offering up factory overclocked speeds and completely
silent gaming under light loads like League of Legends or
StarCraft.
Generous storage is also included with 16GB of RAM and
a 240GB SSD. This is a great buy. The only
potential down side is whether you like the
somewhat dated design of the case or not.
Starting from scratch and need a PC with all the peripherals

included? This may be the package for you.
With a 20-inch monitor, stereo speakers, keyboard and mouse
all included this offers everything you require to get up and
running.
Although the CPU is only a dual core solution it is hyperthreaded and actually has a respectable clock speed of 3.7GHz
meaning it will snappily handle lightly threaded tasks like web
browsing or office tasks quite well. Theres many things you can
optionally upgrade during checkout, one of which wed highly
recommend considering is the $79 120 GB
SSD for that extra system snappiness.
KEY SPECS
KEY SPECS
Cooler: OEM
Motherboard: ASUS Z170-P
Cooler: OEM
Graphics: Asus 4G Strix Geforce GTX

970 OC 0dB Fan
Motherboard: Intel H110 based motherboard
Memory: 16GB Kingston 2133Mhz DDR4
Memory: 8GB DDR4 2133MHz
Storage: 240G Kingston SSD, Seagate 1TB HDD
Storage: 1TB HDD
Power Supply: Cooler Master 750W
Power Supply: Tsunami 600W
Case: Cooler Master K282
Case: Tsunami P43
Graphics: Integrated
INVESTIGATOR TECHDESK
WHAT HAPPENS
WHEN YOU MISS
A DISCOUNT?
Its happened to all of us
ou want to get your hands on

a shiny, new device. You spend
some time shopping around,
comparing deals and after doing your
research you hand over a credit card or
cash to secure your coveted bounty.
Youre happy for a while. But when
you get home you troll through the
thick wad of junk mail and discover
that all your shopping around was
for nought as someone has just
discounted the item and youve over
paid by a reasonable margin.
Some time ago, I purchased a
notebook computer from one of the
top ve manufacturers in the world.
It wasnt a top of the line model but I
didnt get a lot of change from $2,000.
That was a Friday night.
The following Monday, that model
was superseded, and replaced with a
new unit with double the memory, a
faster processor, a signicant boost
to storage capacity and a $400 price
drop. I was not happy.
I put in a call to my local Consumer
Affairs office at the time who told me
I didnt really have any real recourse
through them and that any refund or
exchange would be at the discretion of
the vendor as the product I purchased
wasnt defective or otherwise unt for
purchase.
Under consumer laws, you do not
have the right to return a product if
youve found it cheaper elsewhere.
Fortunately, the reseller in question
had a 14-day no questions asked
Anthony Caruana
has worked for almost every major
masthead in the Australian IT press. As
an experienced IT professional having
worked as the lead IT executive in
several businesses, he brings a unique
insight to his reporting of IT for both
businesses and consumers.
returns policy. So I returned

the almost brand new notebook,
swapped it for the updated model and
pocketed the almost $400 saving. As
gesture of goodwill, the reseller copied
my system to the replacement so I didnt
have to go through the entire set up
process again.
Interestingly, some online shopping
sites offer buyer protection. For
example, it may be possible to get a
refund on a price reduction within seven
days of purchase through Amazon.
You may also have recourse through
your credit card company. Some cards
It may be possible
to get a refund on a
price reduction within
seven days of purchase
through Amazon.
did offer this kind of buyer protection in
the past but it seems much tougher to
nd these days.
Recently, Fitbit released its newest
smartwatch activity tracker, the Fitbit
Blaze. Priced at the premium end of the
market, with a recommended price of
$329.95, it was available for under $300
almost immediately through many local
sports and electronics retailers.
In particular, those really keen to get
their hands on the Blaze were able to
pre-order direct from Fitbit several
weeks before the official release and get
the Blaze delivered on the release day.
We asked Fitbit why the price was
reduced by retailers almost immediately.
Heres their response.
Fitbit have a 45-day money back
guarantee advertised on the store.
There is a link to our returns policy
and warranty on the store page and
customers must agree to this before they

check out www.tbit.com/au/returns .
This page outlines how customers can
return the goods to us within that 45 day
period.
Fitbit sets the RRP but has no inuence
over retailers and their pricing.
Its not surprising that Fitbit doesnt
directly inuence pricing at stores
as there are resellers agreements
with distribution companies that can
inuence the nal price consumers pay.
Fitbits return policy is similar to
many Ive looked at before. You need
to register the return before sending it
back, include all the accessories that
came with the device and its up to you
to cover any shipping costs.
But the magic words in the return
policy are If you are unsatised with
your purchase from Fitbit.com for any
reason, you have 45 days from the date
of purchase to request a full refund.
I dont want to single Fitbit out here.
But theres a strong take away message
to learn here.
Its important to check out the return
policy for online purchases. In particular,
look at how much time you have for
returns, how long the no questions
asked period extends, and who pays
for returns.
NEED HELP? EVER HAD AN

ISSUE AS A CONSUMER?
INVESTIGATOR CAN HELP.
If youve had an issue or had something
happen and you think investigator
could help, email your problem to
investigator@pcandtechauthority.com.au
It's not a toaster*

*But it will read any SATA drive via the world's fastest USB port
AVAILABLE FROM:
Capitol Computer (NSW)
www.capitolcomputer.com.au
Centre Com Superstore (VIC)

www.centrecom.com.au
Computer Alliance (QLD)

www.computeralliance.com.au
PLE Computers (WA)

www.ple.com.au
Make
Windows 10
better
MICROSOFT IS HELL-BENT
ON MOVING EVERYONE TO
WINDOWS 10, BUT WHAT IF
YOU CANT GET ON WITH
THE OPERATING SYSTEM?
STUART ANDREWS REVEALS
WAYS TO MAKE IT BETTER
e all know that Windows 10 is pretty good. With

some smart interface tweaks, solid behind-thescenes plumbing and more of a have it your way
approach than Windows 8, its arguably the best version of
Windows ever.
However, that doesnt make it perfect at least not as
it arrives fresh after installation. Many users will always
prefer the more traditional look and feel of Windows 7,
or will find that Windows 10 isnt tuned to the way they
work. Power users often find that the simplicity of the
UI works against it, making it harder to get to the more
sophisticated control panels that theyre used to or the
applications, files and folders they use the most. And, for
some of us, Windows never looks or feels right until weve
tuned and customised it to our individual tastes.
Thats where we can help. Over the next few pages, well
show you how to tweak major elements so that Windows
10 suits your style, and how to optimise performance so
that you can unleash the full potential of your system.
Well cover speeding up startup, dealing with updates
and freeing up hard disk space. Well also look at the thirdparty tools that can make Windows 10 easier to use or give
it a more familiar Windows 7-like look and feel. Read on to
make Windows 10 work for you.
WINDOWS 10 FEATURE
WINDOWS TWEAKS
DONT FEEL 100% COMFORTABLE WITH THE

WAY WINDOWS 10 LOOKS AND FEELS? NOT
SURE THAT WINDOWS IS MAKING THE MOST
OF YOUR PC? WITH A FEW QUICK TWEAKS,
YOU CAN CREATE A WINDOWS SETUP THAT
SUITS YOUR HARDWARE AND THE WAY YOU
WORK
STOP APPS SHOWING

IN MOST USED
Maybe you dont want your boss to notice
that Crossy Road sits high in the Start menus
Most Used apps list. Perhaps you just want
to keep your list to a minimum. Either way,
remove apps from the list by right-clicking on
the app and selecting Dont show in this list.
SCALE WINDOWS
FOR YOUR DISPLAYS
Windows 10 scales every element of the UI to
make it legible. It does so automatically but,
if Windows makes everything too small for
comfort, you can fix it.
Right-click on the desktop, then select Display
settings. Scroll down and youll see a slider
marked Change the size of text, apps and other
items. You can drag this upwards or downwards
in 25% increments, then click Apply. If you have
multiple screens connected, click on the large
blue icon for your screen at the top and then
adjust the setting for each display.
If you want even more control, click the
Advanced display settings link then Advanced
sizing of text and other items. You can change
the text size of specific items on the desktop or
click on the Custom scaling level link to make
more granular adjustments.
FIX FILE EXPLORER

By default, Windows 10s File Explorer puts
the focus on the Quick Access view, where
Windows tracks the files and folders youve
been using frequently and recently, and
puts them right at your fingertips. Its a
smart idea, but those of us who remember
Windows 3.1s File Manager and have spent
years working with Windows Explorer
sometimes prefer to have things organised
the old way. You can revert to the more
traditional approach. Open File Explorer and
click the View tab in the ribbon. Click the
Options button, then Change folder and
search options. Where it says Open File
Explorer to Quick access, set the dropdown
to This PC. Now click Apply. From now on,
File Explorer will default to the This PC view,
with all your drives and primary folders
ready to go. If you like, you can even rightclick This PC in the navigation pane and
rename it My Computer. You can practically
smell the nostalgia.
SET UP THE QUICK

ACTION BUTTONS
The Action Center isnt merely a
notifications bar, but a handy hub
for common Windows tasks that can
be useful if youre using Windows
on a tablet, touchscreen laptop or
convertible device. In the default view,
you only see four of the Quick Actions
buttons, and if youre using a laptop or
desktop PC youll find some of these,
such as Tablet mode, superfluous.
Luckily, theyre easily changed. Go to
Start | Settings | System | Notifications
& Actions and click on any of the four
buttons under Choose your quick
actions. Youll get a dropdown where
you can select a new function to
replace the existing one, enabling you
to swap the Tablet mode button for,
say, the Quiet Hours button to quickly
switch off all notifications. Or bring in a
Brightness control for quick adjustments
to your laptops screen.
USE FIND MY DEVICE

With Windows 10 now installed on
many laptops and tablets, we finally
have the device-location features
that Android and iOS users take for
granted. Make sure youre logged
on with an Administrator account,
then Click Start | Settings | Update &
Security | Find My Device. Youll see a
button marked Change under Find
My Device is off. Click Change and
turn the Save my devices location
periodically slider to on.
To find your device, fire up your

browser and go to account.
microsoft.com/devices. Log in to your
account and youll see your laptop
or tablet listed under Your devices.
Select it, click Find My Device, and
the last spot where your device was
online will be located on the map.
Sadly, were still waiting on Microsoft
to deliver the remote-lock and -wipe
features that iOS and Android users
can deploy.
GO TO GOD MODE
God Mode is one of the great tricks for Windows
power users, giving you access to all of Windows
tools and settings from a single panel, with
everything sorted logically for expert users. To enable
God Mode, create a new folder then right-click on it
and rename it to GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E825C-99712043E01C}.
Hit Return and watch as the icon transforms into
a control panel icon. Simply double-click on that,
and you will see the new control panel, with all the
different tools and settings sorted into categories and
listed in alphabetical order. Uncharacteristically, God
Mode even works on Sundays.
MAKE THE START

MENU YOUR OWN
The easiest way to customise the Start menu is by
pinning or rearranging the apps on it, but youll also
find a range of options by clicking Start | Settings |
Personalization | Start. Here youll find the switches
to turn suggestions on and off, along with the most
used or recently used apps. You can also use Jump
Lists in the Start menu or taskbar to make recent
documents or websites more accessible. Click on
Choose which folders appear on Start and you
can add a link to Documents, Downloads, Music
or Pictures to the Start menu, not to mention your
HomeGroup or Network.
WINDOWS 10 FEATURE
TAKE CONTROL OF
NOTIFICATIONS
Notifications can be one of Windows 10s best
features, but not if theyre constantly distracting
you with updates that you couldnt care less about.
Go to Start | Settings | System | Notifications &
Actions, and you can turn app Notifications off
globally (turn the Show app notifications toggle
to Off). You can also set whether all notifications or
only crucial notifications appear on the lockscreen.
Click the switch for Show notifications on the
lockscreen and Show alarms, reminders and
incoming VoIP calls on the lockscreen on or off. In
the section at the bottom you can turn notifications
on or off, app by app, or click on the apps name
to select whether the notification will appear as
a banner on the desktop. Turn this off if you only
want it to appear in the Action Center. You can also
toggle whether notifications make a sound when
they arrive.
SIGN IN FASTER WITH A PIN

Long, complex passwords are the way
forward for security and still the best
way to protect your Microsoft account.
All the same, wouldnt it be great to log
in to Windows without all that hassle? Go
to Settings | Accounts | Sign-in options,
then click Add in the PIN section. Now

enter your accounts password and click
OK. Type in your new PIN in the New PIN
box and in the box underneath to confirm
it. Click OK and you can sign in with only
the PIN.
TURN
BACKGROUND
SCROLLING
ON AND OFF
Windows on the desktop
no longer need to be
active in the foreground
for you to scroll through
their contents using the
two-finger touchpad
gesture or the mouse
wheel. Go to Settings
| Devices | Mouse &
Touchpad, and look for
Scroll inactive windows
when I hover over them.
This is also where laptop
users can switch their
touchpad on or off.
FEATURE WINDOWS 10
OPTIMISING
WINDOWS 10
WINDOWS 10 IS GENERALLY SPEEDY, EVEN

WHEN RUNNING ON LOW-END HARDWARE,
BUT UNNECESSARY APPS, EFFECTS AND
BACKGROUND PROCESSES CAN SLOW IT
DOWN OR DELAY STARTUP. ALL IT TAKES
IS A FEW EASY TWEAKS TO GET WINDOWS
10 RUNNING MORE EFFICIENTLY
ENABLE FAST STARTUP
By default, Windows 10 caches certain

system files on shutdown, enabling it to
start faster when you next boot your PC.
Fast Startup should be switched on when
Windows is installed, but to check it is
and keep your PC starting smoothly, sign
in with an Administrator account, click
Start | Settings | System | Power & Sleep
and then click the Additional power
settings (or type Power Options into the
Cortana search bar and select the Power

Options control panel result). Now click
Choose what the power buttons do on
the left, then click the Change settings
that are currently available link near
the top. Scroll down to the bottom of the
page and look under Shutdown settings.
Make sure that the Turn on fast startup
checkbox is ticked, then click Save
changes.
OPTIMISE
YOUR STARTUP
So many programs, apps and miscellaneous
bits of bloatware think theyre special, which
is why they try to load during the startup
process, hogging system resources and
slowing startup. Lets stop that right now.
Right-click on the Start button and select
Task Manager. Now click the arrow button
at the bottom left to see more details. Click
the Startup tab at the top and youll see
all the apps that load during startup listed,
along with their status, their publisher and
the impact they have on startup speeds all
good information to Google for what comes
next. If you think one of the apps listed is
unnecessary, right-click on it and select
Disable. This app can still run on demand, but
it will no longer initialise during the startup
sequence.
SHARE UPDATES
ACROSS YOUR PCS
If you have many PCs and laptops, theres no
need to download the same updates for them
all, as Windows 10 has grown smarter about
how it downloads and distributes updates.
Go to Settings | Update & Security and click
Windows Update on the left. Scroll down and
select Advanced options.
Below the section marked Choose how
updates are installed is a link for Choose
how updates are delivered. Youll arrive at
a new page, Updates from more than one
place. With the switch turned on, your PC
will download updates both from Microsoft
and from other PCs on your local network and
the internet. By selecting PCs on my local
network, you can stop using your bandwidth
to update data with others good if youre
still on a metered connection and only share
it with your PCs.
RECLAIM WINDOWS
STOLEN DRIVE SPACE
DISABLE ANIMATIONS AND EFFECTS

One way to keep Windows feeling snappy
on old hardware is to turn off animations
and effects. The quickest way to do this
is to right-click on the Start button and
select System, then click Advanced
system settings on the left. Look at the
top section, labelled Performance, and
click on the Settings button. Make sure
the Visual Effects tab is active and you
can either Let Windows choose whats

best for my computer, optimise for
best appearance or best performance,
or turn the effects off one by one. For
example, unchecking the box next to
Animate windows when minimizing
and maximizing should see individual
windows and the Start menu snapping in
and out of action more quickly.
If youre using a system with a small

SSD, every gigabyte counts. But
Windows hogs much of that capacity,
particularly after an upgrade. While
you can delete some folders, such as
the Windows.old folder used to hold
earlier installations, you can let the Disk
Cleanup utility do the work for you, and
reclaim more of your drive. The easiest
way to open it is to type Disk Cleanup
into the Cortana search bar, then select
the top Desktop app result. You can
make space by removing Temporary
Internet Files, files in the Recycle Bin
and clicking OK. Click Clean up system
files and the app will do a deeper
sweep, clearing Temporary Windows
and Previous installation files.
FEATURE WINDOWS 10
DISABLE
TRANSPARENCY
Windows 10s transparency effects
might be more accurately described as
translucency effects, but they can also
slow down systems with undernourished
graphics hardware. Click Start | Settings |
Personalization, then click Colors on the
left-hand side. Now scroll down below
the enormous colour picker and youll
spot an option to Make Start, taskbar
and action center transparent. Turn this
on or off.
SAVE APPS TO
EXTERNAL STORAGE
If youre using a laptop, tablet or
convertible, theres another easy way to
preserve your internal drive space: store
your apps on external storage instead.
Reintroduced in last Novembers update,
this feature allows you to install new
Windows Store apps to an SD or microSD
card or a USB memory stick. Just go to
Settings | System, then click Storage on
the left-hand side. Now look under Save
locations and click on the New apps will
save to: dropdown. Select your SD card or
USB stick and any new apps you install will
be saved there instead. In fact, you can use
the same space for new documents, music,
pictures and video, freeing up the internal
drive for applications.
DISABLE FLASH
IN EDGE
Flash is widely considered a nightmare,
with bad Flash content often responsible
for crippling your browser and slowing your
whole PC. If youre using Windows 10s
Edge browse, click the Options button (the
three dots in the top-right corner), then
select Settings. Now scroll down to View
Advanced Settings. Near the top, youll see
an option to Use Adobe Flash Player. Unless
you really need Flash enabled to watch
web video or use an online app, wed advise
switching it off.
TURN OFF THE TILES

Dont want the distraction of Live Tiles?
Click on Start, right-click on any offenders
and select Turn live tile off.
MASTER RESOURCE MONITOR

If Windows 10 seems slow and you dont know why, Microsoft includes diagnostic tools
that may help. The most useful and accessible is Resource Monitor. Type resource
monitor into Cortanas search box, then select the Desktop app result. In the main
Overview, the graphs on the right show how heavily the main system resources are being
hammered in real-time, while the lists on the left show which apps and services are using
them click the arrow button in a resources title bar to see the detailed view.
You can use Resource Monitor to track down apps that are hogging too much CPU power
or RAM. For example, click the CPU tab at the top and youll see all the processes in
action. Click on the CPU header at the top of the list to see those processes listed in order
of utilisation or click the Average header to see them listed in order of utilisation over
a 60-second period. If anything seems to be taking up too many processor cycles, you
can either work out what it is from the name and description (hover on the line between
the columns to resize them if you need to see more) or by right-clicking on its name and
selecting Search Online to get Bing to help you work out what it is.
You can do the same for Memory by clicking on the Working Set column there. If a
program is using either too much RAM or too much CPU power, restart it or shut it down.
The rest of your system should begin to gather pace.
TRANSFORM WINDOWS 10
WITH THIRD-PARTY APPS
SOMETIMES YOU NEED TO GO BEYOND WHATS BUILT INTO WINDOWS 10 TO

MAKE IT LOOK, FEEL AND WORK THE WAY YOU WANT IT TO. MAYBE YOURE
LOOKING FOR A MORE TRADITIONAL WINDOWS EXPERIENCE, OR MAYBE YOU
WANT TO CREATE THE ULTIMATE DESKTOP-FOCUSED OS. WHATEVER YOU
NEED, THERES AN APP FOR YOU
STARDOCK START10
PRICE US$5 (30-day free trial)

WEBSITE www.stardock.com/products/start10/
Has Windows 10 not scratched your itch for a Windows 7-style UI?
Well, you can either try and replicate the Windows 7 Start menu
the hard way manually or let Stardocks Start10 do the heavy
lifting. The latest version of the tool that put the Start button back
in Windows 8 is even better on Windows 10. Install it and the tileheavy Start menu disappears in favour of a convincing facsimile of
the Windows 7 version, with apps and programs listed on the left
and Documents, Pictures, Music, My Computer and the rest where
youd expect them on the right. Settings, Devices and Printers and
Shutdown options are also only a click away, and if you want apps
arranged in folders and the old Windows 7 jump lists, thats just as
good too.
Whats more, Start10 is impressively configurable. You can
switch between Windows 7, Windows 10 and a halfway-house
Modern style in seconds; change the Start button icon; or adjust
colour and transparency settings to find your perfect look. You
can also alter the toolbar to match, showing or hiding the Cortana
search bar, and even apply translucent background textures.
Theres no noticeable dent to performance, and the only downside
is that you lose the power users right-click menu: with Start10
installed you get Run, File Explorer and Shutdown options at a
right-click, but thats it. Still, given that Start10 puts so much useful
stuff right at your fingertips, that shouldnt be a deal-breaker.
CCLEANER
PRICE From free to US$30

WEBSITE www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download
A PC & Tech Authority favourite, CCleaner has also been

updated to support Windows 10. Its a system cleanup
tool, running through your PC and finding all the stuff you
can afford to delete, freeing up your hard drive space. Its
also equipped to scan the registry for mess and mop it up,
not to mention uninstall unwanted programs without
leaving any trace. That includes the crapware installed on
so many new PCs. The interface is a little too jam-packed
with tools and options, while the most expensive
Professional Plus version throws on a raft of extras you
probably wont use, but if you want to keep your Windows
10 system in optimal shape, its worth running CCleaner
periodically.
WINDOWS 10 FEATURE
STARDOCK FENCES
PRICE US$10 (30-day free trial)

WEBSITE http://www.stardock.com/products/fences/
Fences is a desktop enhancer that, as the name suggests, creates fenced-off

zones on your desktop where you can gather icons, files and folders. You can
create a new area just by dragging a rectangle out on the desktop, then
giving it a name. Its an effective way of keeping work apps or frequently
used folders together.
You can stretch your desktop across several pages, sweeping left and right
through them as you would screens on a tablet. You can also quick-hide
fences and icons by double-clicking on a blank space, then repeat the trick to
see them reappear.
You can create Folder Portals, fenced-off zones that act like a permanent
window into a folder, putting the contents right on your desktop. As you can
switch views between icons, lists and details, its more useful than a
standard shortcut. Fences doesnt make sense if your computing doesnt
centre on the desktop, and the program tries to install a trial of the old
Start8. But, if youre looking for a different take on a next-gen desktop OS,
Fences is worth a try.
ULTIMATE WINDOWS TWEAKER 4

PRICE Free
WEBSITE tinyurl.com/pajrmax
A formidable (and slightly terrifying) Windows toolkit, now enhanced for Windows
10, the UWT enables you to tweak just about everything from File Explorer to the
Start menu and the taskbar from one control panel, with one-click tweaks for
performance, security, Windows 10s context-sensitive menus and Internet Explorer.
The security and performance tweaks delve deep into the OS without requiring
potentially risky changes to the Registry, and UWT is smart enough to suggest and
even automate restore points before you apply too many tweaks.
This is a comprehensive utility which covers most of the ground that power users
will want covered. The downside is that its daunting for less-experienced users, who
may find the lack of guidance and information off-putting but plenty can be found
on the site. If you want to optimise Windows and can spend time on research, this is
an effective tool.
CLASSIC SHELL
PRICE Free
WEBSITE classicshell.net
For some users, Windows 7 was a step too far for

Microsoft. For them, the pinnacle will always be Windows
XP or even Windows 2000. If thats you, Classic Shell can
make your sepia-tinged dreams come true. The latest
version offers Windows 10 three tastes of the past:
Windows 7, the Windows 2000-style Classic and a version
of Classic with a dual-column layout like Windows XP. You
can further customise each view with skins, giving you the
Vista or Windows 7 Aero look or the much-loved Luna
design of Windows XP. Old-school power users will
appreciate touches such as the direct links to the control
panel and Windows settings, not to mention a My
Computer link. Classic Shell doubles this nostalgia with a
Classic Explorer feature that dresses File Explorer as the
old Windows Explorer, complete with old-school
navigation pane and a customisable toolbar with big
icons. If youre running Modern UI this can make your
experience feel oddly juxtaposed, but if you prefer the old
to the new, this is an essential and free download.
EAR TRUMPET
PRICE Free
WEBSITE tinyurl.com/pssrd53
Ear Trumpet doesnt do much, but its great at what it does. At first glance, its just
a volume slider, replacing or augmenting the default Volume Mixer applet in the
system tray. But Ear Trumpet beats the built-in option using simple design and
independent, app-by-app volume controls, enabling you to turn down the racket of
ambush ad video streams while youre browsing in Firefox, but still turn up the
sound on Spotify.
IN THE LABS
You wont find better reviews anywhere in Australia!
Tinker time
BEN MANSILL LIKES A GOOD TINKER
Computer magazines are a bit like car
magazines in that we read them to keep up
with the latest because we love this stuff.
We like to know whats on the horizon for
a minor upgrade, and when planning a full
build or purchase we want to be sure the
equipment were buying is up to the task,
makes economic sense and is stuff well be
proud to own.
But of course you would never build
a car. Thats crazy talk. Over here in PCland, though, many of us do build from
scratch and thats a mighty satisfying
accomplishment. Now, lets be honest, not
everyone builds full PCs. Even readers
and PC lovers Ive known for 20 years,
who are desperately attached to PCs and
love everything about them are reticent
to actually take the big plunge. I totally
understand this. Its an imposing task if
youve never done it before.
Perhaps its time! With that in mind the
big and I do mean huge group test in this
issue tackles every single component in
the box. It was an arduous task, let me tell
LENOVO
YOGA 260
32
you, but well worth it. The objective was to

provide you with a total guide to the best
PC components available today so you can
have in one valuable resource all you need
to select the bits for a build.
Now this isnt all about building from
scratch. Far from it. Most of us who do
build only do so once every few years, and
then upgrade new bits every year or so.
Perhaps some additional storage, certainly
a graphics card upgrade beckons every
couple of years, and heck, all those sexy
new next-gen SSDs do look mighty fine...
So here it all is. Weve gone to town with
CPUs being by far the most important
single component. There are 46 CPUs
here, all tested and ranked, from Intel and
AMD. With this guide you should be able
to identify exactly the right processor
for your needs and budget. Just bear in
mind please that pricing on CPUs changes
frequently and what you end up paying
will undoubtedly be different to what
weve quoted. Most likely theyll be less, so
thats a good thing.
For some components we resisted

the temptation to review everything
on the market. RAM and PSUs are fairly
straightforward and make little if any
overall difference to system performance
(and in that I include reliability), so what
weve chosen for those is a good reliable
overview of what to consider.
We would need another hundred pages
to include all the cases out there, and its
such a highly personal choice that we
went slim in that department.
As we like to do sometimes, weve
deliberately made this group test quite
basic in the level of assumed technical
knowledge you might have. While not a
beginners guide, I think its right that
weve taken the time to really break down
the how things work aspects, because
we all have to start somewhere and it also
doesnt hurt to have a refresher even for
regular readers.
I hope you learn something new,
perhaps buy something new, or go all-out
and build something beautiful!
THERMALTAKE RGB AIO AND

THERMALTAKE RGB PSU
45
ASUS PA329
4K MONITOR
35
EDITORlAL & PRODUCT SUBMISSION: PC & Tech Authority welcomes all information on new and upgraded products and services for possible coverage within the news or reviews pages. However, we respectfully point out that the magazine is not
obliged to either review or return unsolicited products. Products not picked up within six months of submission will be used or donated to charity. The Editor is always pleased to receive ideas for articles, preferably sent in outline form, with details of authors
background, and where available samples of previously published work. We cannot, however, accept responsibility for unsolicited copy and would like to stress that it may take time for a reply to be sent out.
WHAT OUR A-LIST MEANS
WHAT OUR AWARDS MEAN
Our A-List award is

reserved for the best
products in each category
we review. With a winner
and an alternative pick in
each, thats 92 products
you know are first class.
PC & Tech Authoritys

comprehensive Real World
testing sorts out the best
products from the pack. Any
product recommended by PC
& Tech Authority is well above
average for features, value for
money and performance.
WHAT OUR RATINGS MEAN

VERY POOR
POOR
ORDINARY
VERY GOOD
OUTSTANDING
0
INTRO REVIEWS
HOW WE TEST
REVIEWS
Our benchmarking tests are the best in the

business. Read on to find how they work
2D TESTS
Desktop PCs and laptops are tested using our own custom
bench testing suite, which has been carefully designed to
test all aspects of a system and rate them in a way thats
useful to you.
Our benchtesting cover three main tests: a typical video
editing test, a demanding 4K video editing test and a
multitasking test that stresses all aspects of the system.
We look at the time it takes for each test to run, which
is then compared to our reference PC to produce a
normalised result. This score is shown on a graph, and to
help you understand just where the PC were reviewing
sits in the grand scheme of things, we will often include
other systems scores.
The median score of 100 is based on our reference
system:
PC & TA REFERENCE PC. SCORE: 100
COMPONENT MEGA TEST 48
Intel Core i5-4670K CPU; 8GB of DDR3 RAM;

AMD Radeon R7 260X graphics card
Asus RT-AC68U ............................44
On occasion we will run publically available bench testing

software, predominantly PCMark 8 from Futuremark.
This is run in the Home setting, in Accelerated mode. You
can get PCMark 8 as well as 3DMark (below) from www.
futuremark.com
MSI Interceptor DS300 ...............46
3D TESTS
For video cards, as well as Integrated Graphics Processing
Units, we use:
3DMark Firestrike
Shadow of Mordor
GRID Autosport
Rapoo Wireless Touch Mouse ..46
Roccat Ryos MK FX ......................46

TT esports Challenger ................. 47
Q PCS & LAPTOPS
Q COMPONENTS
Lenovo Yoga 260 ..........................32
Kingston KC400 1TB SSD ..........36
Asus Eebook E402 .......................34
OCZ Trion 150 SSD.......................36

Thermaltake RGB AIO .................45
Thermaltake RGB PSU ...............45
Q HANDHELDS
Microsoft Lumia 650 ...................42
3DMark is designed specically to test video cards, and

you can download and run the same tool as us to help you
gauge where your own GPU ranks compared to what we
are reviewing.
The two games were selected because they are
relatively well balanced in performance between AMD
and Nvidia, favouring neither. Both feature a wide range of
DirectX 11 shaders. GRID Autosport is fairly easy on GPUs,
while Shadow of Mordor is quite demanding, so each
provides a helpful gauge for you showing what to expect
from a GPU in your favourite games. We will update these
to cover DX12 once that API gains traction.
Tests are run using three resolution ranges, depending
on where the GPU sits in the market:
Q GAMES
Total War: Warhammer ............. 84
The Division .................................... 86
Q WEARABLES
Runtastic Moment ........................ 47
Marley Zion In-Ear......................... 47
Q CAMERAS
Panasonic DMC-TZ80 ................ 47
Q PERIPHERALS
Asus PG328 monitor....................35
Entry level: 1920 x 1080

Mid-range: 1920 x 1080 2560 x 1440
High-end: 2560 x 4K
BATTERY TESTS
Screen brightness is set to 120cd/m2, playing a 720p video
on loop until the device runs out of power.
Asus PA329 4K monitor..............35

Billion 8900AX-2400.................. 37
Synology DS216+ NAS ............... 40
Qnap TS251 media NAS..............41
Brother Pocket Jet PJ773.............44
Lenovo
ThinkPad
Yoga 260
LENOVO BLENDS THE BEST OF
THINKPAD AND YOGA, AND THE
RESULT IS AN ALMOST PERFECT
BUSINESS HYBRID
heres something reassuring about

a ThinkPad. In some ways, little
has changed for decades: the
staunchly unfashionable design and retro
logos hark back to the devices of IBM
days, and even the name has its origins
in the IBM of the 1920s it was born from
the companys early slogan, Think.
Now, in 2016, the ThinkPad Yoga
260 marries that past with the
technological cutting-edge.
DESIGN
certied hard nut, though. While theres

a little ex in the Yoga 260s body, the
MIL-STD-810G certication suggests this
is a device that will bounce more often
than it breaks.
The ThinkPad Yoga 260 boasts a
now-familiar party trick. Its exible hinge
allows it to contort itself from a standard
The staunchly unfashionable design harks back to

the devices of the IBM era
device destined for the office.

The presence of two USB 3 ports,
HDMI, mini-DisplayPort, and a microSD
slot isnt especially remarkable,
but the proprietary OneLink+
port is. An adapter in the box
uses it to add Ethernet and a
VGA output, but its also possible
to hook up one of Lenovos
docking stations, which add up
to six more USB ports, Gigabit
Ethernet, extra DisplayPort and
DVI video outputs, as well as charging the
internal battery.
Wireless networking is well catered
for, with the choice of a Broadcom or
an Intel 802.11ac chipset (the latter of
which comes in both standard and vPro
avours), and you get Bluetooth 4.1 and
support for NFC regardless.
Curiously, although theres a SIM
slot, our review unit wasnt equipped
with a 4G adapter, and there was no
sign of it being an optional extra on
Lenovos website. I chased Lenovo for an
answer to this puzzle, and it claims that
4G-enabled versions of the Yoga 260 are
coming in March 2016.
Last but not least, security options are
on the money. A ngerprint reader and
TPM 2 are equipped as standard, and
you can also add a full-sized smart card
reader. So far, so very good.
Lenovo has done a great job of

cramming in all of the connectivity
and security youd expect from a
device destined for the office
Following in the footsteps of

HPs rather lovely EliteBook Folio
1020, the ThinkPad Yoga 260
delivers its compact business
thrills in a 12.5in-screen package. That in
itself gives it a slight edge over the myriad
13.3in devices on the market. Its just that
tiny bit smaller and easier to wield in one
hand, even if its no lighter than most,
weighing an unremarkable 1.33kg. It is a
laptop and pirouette through tent,

stand and tablet modes. Where the 260
deviates from the usual Yoga formula,
however, is that it also squeezes in a
powered stylus that slots into its righthand edge. Neatly, the stylus charges its
internal battery while its slotted home
and, in a further sleight of hand, the
keyboards keys automatically recede
as you fold the screen back past the
halfway mark, which neatly avoids that
weird feeling of pressing keys when the
device is used in tablet mode.
CONNECTIVITY
Its business as usual elsewhere.
While youd reasonably expect some
compromises, given the Yoga 260s
size, Lenovo has done a great job of
cramming in all the connectivity and
security options youd expect from a
The Yoga 260 can be contorted into tent, stand
or tablet mode without fuss
PERFORMANCE
Inside, the Yoga 260 blends the usual
LAPTOPS & PCS REVIEWS
BENCHMARKS
OVERALL
0
MACBOOK
PRO 13IN (2015)
INTEL CORE
I5-4670K PC
47
25
Breakdown scores
50
75
IMAGE EDITING
75
100
VIDEO EDITING
31
125
150
MULTITASKING
high-end concoction of Skylake CPUs,

DDR4 RAM and M.2 SSDs. Buy the $1,699
entry-level model and youll get a Core
i3-6100U with a 192GB SSD. Bump your
budget up to $1,799 for a Core i5 with
a 256GB drive, and the range-topping
$2,899 model is equipped with a Core
i7 and 512GB of speedy storage. All the
models are highly congurable, though,
and its worth noting the various upgrade
prices are very reasonable. For instance,
going from 8GB to 16GB of RAM costs
only $205.
Lenovo sent us a Core i7 model with
a 256GB SSD and 8GB of RAM, which
costs 1,165. The only disappointment
is that our Yoga 260 was equipped with
a standard SATA M.2 SSD the model
I saw last year at IFA had a super-quick
NVMe SSD. With sequential read speeds
of around 450MB/s, the Lite-On drive
is around half the speed of its NVMe
cousins.
I had hoped upgrading to the 512GB
drive on Lenovos website would yield
an NVMe drive, but no. Lenovo says
certainmodels will come with NVMe
but I couldnt nd any when searching
online retailers. If youre ordering in bulk,
though, try asking for NVMe SSDs as part
of your specication.
Minor qualms aside, the Yoga 260 is
more than capable of hammering its
way through most multitasking tasks. In
fact, it nudged ever so slightly ahead of
the Dell XPS 13 (which did have an NVMe
SSD) in our benchmarks, scoring 47 to
the Dells 46. Subjectively, it doesnt feel
quite as quick due to the slower SSD,
but apart from a slightly longer boot
Theres almost as much movement to each
keystroke as on a full-sized keyboard
from cold, its not going to have a huge

performance impact.
Lenovo claims up to ten hours
of battery life, which seems a tad
optimistic. In our video-rundown test
it lasted a respectable 5hrs 59mins,
but bear in mind that our battery tests
have the screen calibrated to a rather
bright 170cd/m. Thats far brighter than
youd need under most office lighting
conditions, so depending on your usage
and settings you can expect somewhere
between six and nine hours of life.
DISPLAY AND TOUCHSCREEN

While the cheapest Yoga 260 slums
it with a 1,366 x 768 touchscreen, the
pricier models come with a 1,920 x
1,080 IPS panel. And, in a move that
will doubtless please many business
customers, Lenovo has opted for a matte
anti-glare nish, so overhead lights
cause no annoying reections at all. The
downside is that images look a touch
grainy.
Coming after the luscious
high-DPI screen on the Dell XPS 13,
the Yoga 260s image quality is a tad
lacking in other areas too. Colours arent
anywhere near as saturated as most
rivals at the price, and this is borne out
in our display tests: the sRGB coverage
of 61.8% is poor. Brightness hits a
respectable 380cd/m, and a contrast
ratio of 1,255:1 is similarly competent,
but its a shame Lenovo couldnt have
squeezed a more vibrant palette out of
the Yoga 260s panel.
The Yoga 260 does make amends with
its stylus support, and this is arguably
more important to its target audience
than vibrant photos. The ThinkPad Pen
Pro trumps many of its rivals solely
because it docks into the laptop
itself (take that, Microsoft Surface
Book), but its also technically sound,
delivering 2,048 levels of pressure
sensitivity. I found that it wasnt as
comfy as Microsofts Surface Pen to use,
purely because its thinner and shorter,
but for the brief bursts of note-taking
that styluses are routinely used for,
its absolutely ne, providing smooth,
sensitive inking action.
KEYBOARD AND TOUCHPAD

The keyboard and touchpad are routinely
the high point of ThinkPad devices and
The ThinkPad Yoga 260 is a tough nut its MILSTD-810 suggests it will bounce rather than break
the Yoga 260 is no exception. The backlit

keys have had to shrink a little to squeeze
into the compact chassis, but the wide
channels and slightly concave, matte key
caps feel lovely to type on. This might
be a small laptop, but theres almost as
much movement to each keystroke as on
a full-sized desktop keyboard.
Fans of the ThinkPad touchpoint and
touchpad combination will be happy to
see them on show here. The buttonless
touchpad may not be to everyones taste,
but you can always reach upwards to
use the touchpoints discrete buttons
if it bothers you at all. I had no qualms
with either, however. The touchpad
presses down with a crisp click, and the
touchpoint provides accurate, reliable
cursor control.
The ThinkPad Yoga 260 tugs at my
purse strings in a way that few other
business laptops do. Its a great size
and weight for carrying around every
day; it doesnt compromise with a
rubbish keyboard or touchpad; and
the combination of the ingenious Yoga
design, ThinkPad build quality and a
decent stylus make for a fantastically
versatile machine.
Theres only one major aw with the
Yoga 260 and thats its display. The
limited colour palette means it simply
isnt good enough for photo editing
or design work, which may be a dealbreaker for some people. If that doesnt
bother you in the slightest, though, then
break out the company credit card with
condence. The ThinkPad Yoga 260 is
a tough, versatile and compact hybrid
thats worth every cent.
Sasha Muller
BATTERY LIFE
Video playback
5hrs 59min
KEY SPECS
$2.399 www.lenovo.com/au
Dual-core 2.5GHz Intel Core i7-6500U 8GB RAM 256GB
SSD 12.5in 1,920 x 1,080 IPS display 802.11ac Wi-Fi 2 x
USB 3 l mini-DisplayPort HDMI OneLink+ l microSD slot
44Wh Li-Poly battery Windows 10 Pro 1yr RTB or carry-in
warranty 310 x 220 x 18mm (WDH) 1.33kg
OVERALL
0
REVIEWS LAPTOPS & PCS
Asus EeeBook
E402M Elegant White
YES, LESS THAN FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS
ts rather hard to believe that its

now possible to pick up a laptop for
less than $500. Sure, its only a buck
less, but this is still a rather remarkable
price point considering what these
ultraportable machines cost just a few
years ago. Obviously there are going to
have to be some compromises made to
hit such an affordable price point, but is
this machine stll useable?
Despite measuring a mere 14-inch
across thanks to the screen, the E402M
is surprisingly heavy, weighing in at 1.6kg.
When youre paying bottom dollar, buying
expensive lightweight components
obviously isnt feasible, but even at
this weight its still no back-breaker. As
expected, the entire external chassis is
made from plastic, and Asus offers it in
a range of colourful options obviously
ours was the all-white version. It doesnt
look cheap though, as the glossy nish
of the plastic hides its low cost. We were
very surprised to see how rigid it feels
as well, with almost zero keyboard ex,
though the screen isnt quite so rigid.
Speaking of which, the 1366 x 768
resolution isnt good enough to hide pixel
structure, which works out at 112 pixels
per inch. This makes the pixels obvious
in everything from word processing to
viewing videos and text in particular
looks rather soft. The display is based

on the more affordable TN technology,
which makes viewing angles an issue
unless you sit front and centre. Colour and
contrast arent as bad as wed expected
at this price point, but motion blur can be
problematic when viewing video. Sitting
on the top edge of the display bezel is
the VGA video camera, which displayed a
relatively crude image compared to some
more expensive laptops.
The full-sized chiclet keyboard is one
of the highlights of the E402M, with just
the right amount of travel and force
necessary. If only we could say the same
of the touchpad; while accuracy is ne,
clicking each of the two buttons requires
just a little bit too much nger-strength.
Wed highly suggest using an external
mouse as a result.
During our hands-on with the
machine, we noticed the biggest issue
performance. Simply opening a web
page or right clicking on the desktop
resulted in a noticeable delay between
input and result. This is likely due to the
rather anaemic Intel Baytrail-M N2840
processor, a twin-cored critter that has a
base frequency of just 2.16GHz. 4GB DDR3
1333MHz of memory probably doesnt
help either even the mere act of opening
the Windows Control Panel took upwards
of ve seconds, an aeon compared to

other laptops.
At least our version of the
E402M came with a decent
amount of storage, in the form
of a 500GB mechanical disk drive. The
Shadow Blue model, priced at $369, ships
with a mere 32GB MMC drive, making
cloud storage an absolute must. Yet either
way, uploading online isnt going to be the
briskest of tasks, as the included Wi-Fi
chipset is rather quaint. Forget support for
the latest 802.11ac standard youre going
to have to make do with b/g or n. Even the
number of inputs and outputs has had
to be trimmed back to hit this price point,
with a single USB 3.0 port, alongside
another USB 2.0 port. At least it has a fullsized HDMI out for presentation uses.
Given our lacklustre experience when
playing around with the EeeBook, we
knew its benchmark results werent going
to be mind-blowing. However, its score of
1308 in the PCMark 8 Home Accelerated
benchmark isnt that bad when compared
to similarly priced laptops. For example,
Toshibas Click 10 posted an even slower
score, despite costing $200 more, and
that model only ships with a meagre 64B
memory. Battery life was also decent,
coming in at 259 minutes in the PCMark 8
Home Accelerated battery test.
Its easy to criticise the EeeBook
E402MA when comparing it to $1000+
laptops, but when measured against
others in the same price range its actually
not such a bad deal. Our biggest concern
is the screen quality, which really should
have been at least 1080p at this size. Yet
for a mere $500, this machine does the
job, provided youre in no hurry to get that
job done.
Bennett Ring
KEY SPECS
$499 www.asus.com.au
14 inch 1366 x 768 display Intel Baytrail-M N2840 CPU
4GB DDR3 1333MHz 500GB HDD
OVERALL
0
PERIPHERALS REVIEWS
Asus PG348Q 34-inch

Gaming Display
FIT FOR A GAMING KING
ver the last few years, a new market

in high-end gaming displays has
sprung into existence, and Asus has
been at the forefront of this new way to
spend ever more of your gaming bucks.
Its latest example is one of the most
extravagant displays weve seen, literally
outdoing anything we can recall. It might
cost more than most decent gaming
desktops, but when youre after the
ultimate gaming experience, whats a little
more dosh?
At 34 inches across, this ts into the
Ultra-Wide category, with the usual 21:9
aspect ratio. Its claimed to be curved, but
it has to have one of the lowest amounts
of curve weve seen such displays. Not
that this is an issue though, as the use of
an IPS panel clears up any concerns about
colour, contrast or brightness issues on the
extreme edges when sitting up close and
personal.
The design and

build quality is
simply breathtaking,
right down to the stand that
wouldnt look out of place in the MONA
museum in Hobart. The edge-less bezel
makes it appear even larger than its
already huge dimensions, while the 3440
x 1440 resolution makes it look even more
impressive when switched on.
Despite using an IPS panel, with its
huge 178 degree viewing angle, Asus has
once again delivered such a panel with a
ridiculously fast refresh rate of 100Hz, and
its hard to go back to 60Hz after this.
Throw in Nvidia G-Sync technology
and youve got a panel that deserves to
be matched with a $5,000 SLI-equipped
gaming beast. In fact, Asus states that this
display requires a GeForce GTX 980Ti
and above to overclock the refresh rate up
to 100Hz. Itll happily run at 60Hz as well,
with a physical switch that overclocks the

panel to the 100Hz rate.
Given the agship pricing, and the
fact that this is the top of the Republic of
Gamers display stack, the image quality is
as expected phenomenal. We challenge
you to nd a better display for gaming or
a more expensive one.
Bennett Ring
KEY SPECS
$1,999 www.asus.com.au
34-inch Ultra-Wide IPS Panel 21:9 aspect ratio
G-Sync 100-percent sRGB color gamut
OVERALL
0
Asus PA329Q
A SUMPTUOUS SCREEEN FOR ARTISTS, PROFESSIONALS AND
ANYONE WHO DEMANDS THE TRULY EXCEPTIONAL
long with the Asus PG348Q

gaming screen that Bennett has
reviewed, above, weve been running the latest professional-series monitor in Asus range, the ProArt PA329Q.
Its the agship monitor in Asus line-up,
and is pitched more at professional users
thanks largely to its 100% RGB coverage.
At 32-inches its a giant, and with
a native 4k resolution of 3840 x 2160
resolution its ideal for anyone who needs
to work in meticulous detail. I did have
to up the mouse DPI settings simply
because at that size and res the mouse
cursor has a lot of travelling to do.
The ProArt PA329 is pre-calibrated
at the factory, and it also ships with a
dedicated hardware calibration app
that uses the monitors hardware to
calibrate, and save calibrations onboard
thus leaving Windows out of the process
completely and ensuring theres no need
to re-make your proles if you ever switch
it to a new computer. Also included is a
6-axis controller to create a colour pallet
that matches your own.
The IPS panel is just stunning. It is by

a large margin the most impressive
display Ive ever used. Unlike most
consumer monitors you may notice it
seems a little dim compared to what
youre used to, but thats just the correct
colour and brightness calibration at work
and of course you can make your own
brightness adjustments.
The stand offers particularly generous
adjustments, able to move through 60
to 200mm in height and tilt at -5 to +20
degrees. It can also rotate fully through
90 degrees for a portrait view.
A maximum refresh of 60Hz isnt an
impediment to good gaming, and I would
personally choose this over a wide-screen
(like the screen above) for greater overall
viewing area and well, just the sheer
immersive size of it all. Youll need Mini/
DisplayPort 1.2 or HDMI 2.0 for 60Hz.
Its response time of 5ms is well above
average for a screen of these specs,
another gaming plus. The screen also
includes four USB 3.0 ports as well as
basic speakers and a super-useful 9-in-1
card reader. It can also handle four 1080

HDMI inputs for quad-split screening.
The cost is very reasonable for these
specs and sitting in front of it, whether
working or playing, is a wonderful PC
experience. This is the sort of product
you stick with for a decade and upgrade
everything else around it when needed.
Ben Mansill
KEY SPECS
$2,199 www.asus.com.au
32-inch IPS panel 10-bit colour, 100% RGB coverage 1x
DP 1.2, 1x MiniDP 1.2, 2x HDMI 1.4, 1x HDMI 2, 4x USB 3
OVERALL
0
REVIEWS COMPONENTS
Kingston SSDNow KC400 KC 1TB SSD

SOLID PERFORMANCE AT AN UNREASONABLE COST
hen we think about SSDs here at

PCTAs testing lab, we inevitably
think about Samsungs worlddominating models. But it seems its
lead is slowly but surely being eroded
by other companies that have plenty of
their own experience when it comes to
ash-memory, and one such organisation
is Kingston. It turns out that these guys
are the largest independent maker of
DRAM memory modules in the world,
yet we havent been blown away by their
SSD efforts over the last year or so. The
new KC400 aims to change all that,
targeting business users with its unique
data protection abilities, not to mention a
relatively attractive price point. Lets see if

it can deliver on Kingstons promises.
This is a standard 2.5-inch SATA 3
SSD, foregoing the latest PCIe/NVMe
connection technologies that are taking
over the super-speed segment of SSDs.
As such, dont expect speeds to blast
through the current 550MB/s that seems
to limit most SATA 3 drives. Kingston has
used the Phison
PS3110-S10 8-channel controller.
By having 8-channels, it can handle a
whopping 2TB of storage, but the KC400
range maxes out at 1TB.
Before we look at the benchmarks, lets
examine the data-protecting technologies
included. SmartECC and SmartRefresh
both promise to protect data in the
reading and writing phases, even in the
case of an unexpected power loss. The
ve year warranty backs up those claims,
and Kingston claims the 1TB model can
handle a total of 1600TB of total bytes
written over its lifespan. This equates to
the entire drive being overwritten 0.89
times per day, every day, for ve years.
To test the speed of the drive, we rst
red up CrystalDiskMarks Random 512K
test, and the drive pegged 486MB/sec

write, with read at an rather average
393MB/sec. Thats a big drop from the
Samsung 850 Pros read score of 476MB/
sec. Thankfully random 4K performance
was much improved, hitting 119MB/sec
write, 25MB/sec read, comparing well to
the PROs 144MB/sec write and 30MB/
sec read.
While the speeds arent quite up to
snuff with the Samsung competition,
Kingstons pricing simply isnt in the
same league its possible to grab a 1TB
850 Pro now for less than $650. Given
the huge price disparity, once again we
have to recommend Samsung over all
else. Fingers crossed Kingston can do
something about the KC400s pricing to
make it more competitive.
Bennett Ring
KEY SPECS
$910 www.kingston.com
1TB total storage; SATA 3 interface; Phison PS3110 controller
OVERALL
0
OCZ Trion 150

ONE OF THOSE RARE PRODUCTS THAT SHAKES THE
WHOLE MARKET UP AND DELIVERS THE GOODS FOR YOU
ith the Trion 150, OCZ has

(nally) fully leveraged the
benets of being owned by
Toshiba. The new SSD uses, for the
rst time, a Toshiba controller, as well
as (also a rst) Toshiba-produced
NAND ash memory. The NAND is 15nm
TLC memory, which is still the budget
technology, but by virtue of the controller
or perhaps the shrunken 15nm process,
its as quick as MLC SSDs in most
usage scenarios. Read performance is
quoted by OCZ at 550MB/s and write
at 520MB/s, and our benchtesting
produced numbers right on target.
The only potential downside to TLC is
some slowing during particular kinds of
write operations, but these are mainly
constant-use writing scenarios, so in a
home PC the Trion 150 will shine and is
equally adept as the main system SSD or
as added extra storage.
But look above at the pricing. This is
the cheapest SSD you can buy today.
Its well under HALF the price of

Crucials budget BX200 SSD, yet
offers performance on-par with
premium SATA 3 SSDs. This
drive represents a big leap in
SSD value in the market, and
its worth mentioning the ShieldPlus
warranty which is, hands down, the very
best consumer tech warranty covering
SSDs. OCZ will send you a replacement
drive simply on notication. No receipt
needed, or proof of a defect. Your
replacement drive arrives with a prepaid return bag for the old unit. No time
wasted, no cost incurred, no questions
asked.
That all makes the OCZ Trion 150 the
best value SSD weve ever tested, and
best of all theres no compromising the
performance. Compared to the marketleading Samsung 850 Evo, the Trion
150 is 26% cheaper yet offers virtually
identical performance.
OCZ SSDs have offered decent
performance and value over the last

two years, but the Trion 150 is its best
product yet and stands tall in the overall
SSD market as a compelling purchase
offering excellent performance and
outstanding value.
Ben Mansill
KEY SPECS
$72 (120GB); $87 (240GB); $160 (480GB);
$379 (960GB) www.ocz.com
SATA 3 interface Toshiba TLC NAND controller
OVERALL
0
PERIPHERALS REVIEWS
Billion BiPac
8900AX-2400
A NETWORK TOOL FOR ADVANCED USERS
he word Billion conjures up images

of private jets, island retreats and
idiotic presidential candidates with
ugly orange mops of hair. However, in
the IT world its got an entirely different
meaning Billion is known for its range
of affordable yet capable routers.
Theyre also not the most user-friendly,
which is probably why theyre generally
more popular amongst more technical
users. The BiPac 8900AX-2400 is the
companys rst foray into 2400Mbps
territory, making it the fastest SOHO
router theyve released yet. Can it deliver
on the strong reputation of earlier
models, and has the company managed
to make it usable by the average home
PC user?
This is a dual-band router, delivering
The UI remains essentially unchanged
networks on both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz

range. Despite Billion claiming it delivers
a combined throughput of 2400Mbps
on most of its marketing material, it
actually is only capable of 2350Mbps
which is still nothing to sneeze about.
600Mbps comes from the 2.4GHz
channel using a 3x3 transmitter/receiver
conguration, while another 1750Mbps
is delivered via the 5GHz channel, using
a 4x4 transmitter/receiver conguration.
As weve mentioned in the past, your
speeds will be limited by the weakest link
in your Wi-Fi network, and most tablets,
phones and laptops still dont include
4x4 antennae. On the ipside, it means
this router can handle more devices
simultaneously on each channel, and
speeds will improve as more 3x3 and 4x4
devices hit the market.
Unlike the exotically designed exteriors
used on other high-end routers, Billion
has gone for a boring, simple rectangular
chassis, no doubt saving a wad of cash in
the process. Four antennae surround the
outside, and each is moveable to hone in
on certain areas of your home. A built in
ADSL2+ modem means you wont need
to bring your own, which is a very nice
inclusion at this price point, especially
when compared to the likes of D-Links
recent Taipan, which offers an almost
identical feature set at $580, though it
does have dual 5GHz networks instead of
the singular network found on the Billion.
Four Gigabit Ethernet ports

adorn the rear, and three of these
can be used as WAN ports, a
unique selling point that allows
multiple broadband connections. A
single USB 2.0 port is also included;
itd be nice to see USB 3.0 to improve
this units capabilities as a basic NAS/
File Server. Its possible to connect a
3G/4G LTE USB modem via this port,
allowing the user to set up a network
wherever they may be, provided theyve
got the relevant dongle. If any of the WAN
connections fail, the router automatically
switches to the USB modem, a handy
feature when reliability is a must.
Heading into the interface reveals
what wed feared Billion has stuck with
basically the same interface it has been
using for several years now. Network
novices will be bewildered by the sheer
volume of options, though at least the
setup wizard is easy enough to gure
out. However tasks as simple as setting
up the various Wi-Fi networks will prove
to be confounding, with options such as
Disable WMM Advertise and Country
RegRev likely to mean nothing to most.
On the other hand, network savvy users
will lap up these extra options, especially
the plethora of tweaks that can help
improve wireless speeds.
Billion has included Quality of Service
functionality, allowing the user to assign
priority to various devices on their
network provided they can gure out the
once-again confounding array of options.
We tested this unit using a 3x3
network card supplied by Asus, and
found our results slightly lower than
expected. Hitting 678Mbps at a range
of approximately ten metres is around
90Mbps slower than our best results.
Having said that, we stuck with the
default options were sure advanced
users will be able to extract even better
results than us.
If you know what youre doing, the
8900AX-2400 is a very capable unit that
delivers excellent performance and a
huge range of features for a rock-bottom
price. Unfortunately you really do need to
be quite network savvy to make the most
of this router.
Bennett Ring
KEY SPECS
$399 www.rstint.com.au
802.11a/b/g/n/ac dual-band VDSL2+ compatible builtin ADSL2+ modem 4 x Ethernet
OVERALL
0
FSP
Hydro G
P
ower supplies may seem

mundane, but they can make or
break the stability of your gaming
rig. Modern gaming rigs have intense
power requirements, as well as looking
good all lit up through the window of
your case. That 400W grey tin box just
wont cut it in 2016. Luckily, FSP Group
has you covered, both in reliability and in
aesthetics.
FSP GROUP
You may not have heard of the FSP
Group, but theyve been around since
1993, developing power supplies for
dozens of OEMs around the world. They
worked together with Intel to develop
the rst ATX power supply - theyve
been in the game that long.
Around 2003, FSP began developing
their own brand of power supplies,
whilst still maintaining a high level of
OEM and 3rd party development. Such
is the quality of FSP development that
other companies have contracted
FSP to manufacture power supplies
for them, cementing their place in
the industry. By 2014, the Taiwanese
company managed to be the 5th
largest supplier of computer power
supplies in the world and pull in over
US$600m in revenue.
THE INTELLIGENT FAN

CONTROLLER ONLY SWITCHES ON
WHEN THERE IS ENOUGH LOAD TO
GENERATE HEAT
Currently, FSP hold ISO 9001 and 14001 certication,

including in-house labs that can certify products for UL, CTDP,
CSA, TUV and NEMKO global safety standards. This ensures
not only as FSP Groups products reliable, they are also the
safest on the market. FSP Groups lab in Taiwan extensively
tests their range of products, putting them through a
plethora of tests to ensure the highest quality.
TESTING
Environmental tests are one of the rst undertaken, to
ensure a PSU works in ice cold or desert heat temperatures.
Theres also a temperature shock test which makes sure a
PSU can tolerate the transition from a cold to hot, or hot to
cold environment.
A signicant part of FSPs testing process is a Highly
Accelerated Life Test (HALT). The HALT test puts a PSU
through extreme load testing and other component tests as
to replicate a long lifetime of use. This helps ensure all FSP
products operate reliably for many years.
Electrostatic Discharge (ESD), Electro-Fast-Transient (EST)
and surge tests are a vital to make sure FSPs products are
safe. The power supplies are put through a series of high
discharge scenarios and tested with
special equipment by engineers. Errors
picked up during this phase of testing
can literally save your life.
Nobody likes a noisy PSU, be it
fan noise or dreaded high pitched
coil whine. FSP has a semi-anechoic
chamber where it can test all its
products for noise output. A PSU
is tested at varying load levels and
A significant part of
FSPs testing process
is a Highly Accelerated
Life Test (HALT)
FSP ADVERTORIAL
THE HYDRO G RANGE IS FULLY

MODULAR AND 80 PLUS GOLD
CERTIFIED
SWAP OUT PLATES TO MATCH

YOUR RIGS AESTHETIC
recorded in this dead silent chamber

so even the slightest odd noise can be
picked up and rectied if necessary.
FSP Groups latest product is the

Hydro-G range of power supplies.
Coming in at 850W, 750W and 650W,
theres a model to satisfy most users.
QUALITY CONTROL
The Hydro-G range is a fully modular,
FSPs quality control doesnt end
80 PLUS Gold certied and has a large
in the lab, it also extends to the
135mm fan with an intelligent
manufacturing process. Their production speed controller that only
facility in Shenzhen, China, implements
switches on when theres
many strict quality controls.
enough load to generate
When producing circuit boards for
heat. This approach avoids
power supplies, FSP employ automatic
unnecessary noise, something
surface mount soldering (SMT) machines we can all appreciate.
and back up the automated circuit
As a nice touch, the usual
board checks with human inspection
sticker on the side containing
along the way. After the circuit boards
the brand name and model,
are done, non-SMT components are
is actually a removable
also automatically picked and placed,
plate. Included with the PSU
ensuring a high quality nish.
are three different designs
Each assembled power supply
to match your overall rigs
is checked by FSP, rst via a visual
aesthetic. To top it all off, the
inspection by an engineer who can
Hydro-G includes the full range
remedy any simple problems, then
of safety protections: OCP, OVP,
again with a full load test to check
SCP, OPP, UVP and OTP - unlike
operation. After this step, the PSUs are
many cheaper PSUs on the market
put through a burn-in test, replicating
today and a hallmark of FSP Groups
real-world use.
overall dedication to quality.
The nal step before packaging the
PSUs is to run a series of tests on the
FSP RETAIL PRODUCT WEBSITE: www.FSPLifestyle.com
PSU to check each wire, fans, switches
FSP BLOG: blog.fsp-group.com
and ports. Only after all this testing
FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/FSP.global
occurs is an FSP Group PSU packaged
LINKEDIN: www.linkedin.com/company/fsp-technology-inc.
and shipped to customers.
Synology DS216+
SYNOLOGY ONE-UPPED, FOR ONCE
f youre running a couple of PCs,

laptops, tablets and smartphones
at home, now is the time for a NAS
(Network Attached Storage) device. Once
the sole domain of network engineers
who had the know-how to congure their
confusing interfaces, these boxes of data
storage are now easy enough for the
average Joe to setup. And with their ability
to stream music, movies and images to
multiple devices simultaneously, not to
mention back up that valuable data in
one central repository, makes them a
must-have device in todays connected
home. Synology is one of the best brands
when it comes to easy-to-use home NAS
devices, so lets see what its new SOHO
box can do.
This is a twin-bay device, which means
itll handle two drives, neither of which is
included. The largest drive size supported
is 8TB, giving you a rather hefty 16GB of
storage if you choose not to use one of
the RAID arrays that use duplication to

ensure double back-ups of your data.
Either drive bay is hot-swappable, so you
neednt power down the unit if one goes
kaput. Installation couldnt be easier, with
each drive mounted to a screw-less cage.
A single Celeron N3050 CPU handles
the heavy lifting, but its only a twin-core
chip, along with 1GB of DDR3 memory.
Twin USB 2.0 ports, one USB 3.0 and one
eSATA port allow for the speedy copying
of les directly to the DS216+ via external
drives, which can also be used to increase
the overall storage capacity. A single
RJ-45 port delivers Gigabit Ethernet, but
theres also an optional wireless dongle
if you hate blue cables. Wed recommend
sticking with Ethernet though, as Wi-Fi
will struggle with the speeds required to
stream to multiple devices. A single fan is
included to keep the entire unit cool, and
its basically silent, with a total overall
noise level of just 19dB.
Several RAID modes are supported

Synologys own Hybrid RAID, Basic, JBOD,
RAID 0 and RAID 1. Hybrid RAID is a great
option for those unfamiliar with the other
modes, as its incredibly easy to set up
tailored to your needs be it speedy performance or data redundancy. The NAS
also now includes support for Btrfs, or
B-tree le system, which promises better
performance and reliability than the EXT4
le system that used to be the only option
at this price point.
Weve long been fans of Synologys
brilliant DiskStation Manager operating
system, which uses a GUI-based interface
that any Windows user should soon nd
easy to use. Thanks to a simply massive
range of free plug-ins, the DS216+ can be
congured to do a heck of a lot more than
simply save and serve les. The Photo
Station and Audio Station make sorting
and organising thousands of image and
audio les an absolute breeze, and you
can even stream from these to Synology
apps available on both Android and iOS.
In fact, you can stream basically anything
from the NAS to any computer around the
world, including video les.
Sadly, PLEX support is still not officially
supported, but Synology has delivered
the next best thing Video Station. Its
not quite as elegant as PLEX, but it can
transcode 4K videos, a marvel considering the low-end CPU in use here. Unlike
earlier versions of Video Station, you can
now transcode videos before you plan to
watch them, whereas earlier versions all
had to be in real time. This will be a real
time saver for those who are planning to
travel and want their videos in the right
format before they leave. The Cloud Station utility allows users to set up their own
cloud server much simpler than ever before, making the arduous task of creating
an FTP server obsolete for most users.
Performance is extremely snappy
we used twin Western Digital 4TB Red
WD40EFRX for benching, and hit a brilliant le download speed of 109MB/sec
in RAID1 mode with BTRFS. This sounds
great until you see the results of the
similarly priced QNAP NAS also reviewed
this issue.
While we still prefer Synologys interface over every other brand, unfortunately
the DS216+ comes a distant second
to QNAPs new TS-251+ thanks to the
QNAPs much broader range of hardware
KEY SPECS
$459 www.synology.com
Twin 3.5 inch bays hot-swappable Intel Celeron N3050
CPU 8TB max disk size (16TB total)
OVERALL
0
PERIPHERALS REVIEWS
QNAP
TS-251+
2-bay NAS
THE BEST TWIN-BAY NAS AROUND?
t rst glance, the TS-251+ looks

a heck of a lot like the Synology
DS-216+ reviewed on the
opposite page. Theyre both dual-bay
NAS devices, both specialise in video
transcoding, and both are aimed at
the SOHO market. Setting up the two
devices is almost identical simply
slot a drive into each of the two bays,
power it up and away you go. However,
the QNAP isnt tool-less, as each drive
must rst be screwed into its tray its
no biggie, but worth mentioning. Once
thats done, power up the TS-251+ and
then point your browser to start.qnap.
com, and from here youll be prompted
to download the QNAP Qnder Pro
software, which is basically identical
to Synologys Assistant. Its basically a
small app that will search your network
for the NAS, and then initialise the drives
if necessary.
Once youve logged in, the interface is
remarkably similar to the Synology, right
down to the name of the various media
servers, Photo Station, Music Station
and Video Station. While the layout of
each of these isnt quite as intuitive as
Synologys, their response in cataloguing
content is noticeably faster. This is likely
due to the more powerful hardware used
within the TS-251+. Rather than the twincore CPU used in the Synology, QNAP
has gone for a quad core Celeron with
a maximum speed of 2.42GHz, and this
makes a real difference when sorting and
transcoding content. It also comes with
a minimum of 2GB of memory, which can
be upgraded to 8GB for even faster performance. However, it doesnt support
the BTFRS le system, though when you
see our performance gures youll see

why thats not such an issue.
Theres an extra USB 3.0 port as well,
delivering two in total, while another two
USB 2.0 ports round out the external
storage options. But where this thing
really differs is in the inclusion of a HDMI
output. Combine this with a mouse and
keyboard, and its possible to run this box
offline as a PC, running Windows, Linux,
Unix and Android-based VMs. Theres
even a remote control included so you
can hook this directly up to your TV and
use it as a streaming media PC.
As expected, theres no PLEX support
(according to Synology, PLEX doesnt
work on any NAS, which seems rather
strange to us). However, the powerful
hardware within makes transcoding
super smooth, even more so than the
Synology. Like the Synology, transcoding
can be done either in real-time or offline,
allowing you to ready your movie collection for remote streaming whenever
youre about to leave the house.
The other huge difference here is
the inclusion of twin Gigabit Ethernet
ports, which effectively doubles the
maximum read and write speed when
multiple devices are accessing the NAS,
whereas the Synology unit only has one.
We measured a whopping 221MB/sec
read speed on the TS-251+ while using

twin Western Digital 4TB Red WD40EFRX drives in RAID 1 mode, more than
double that of the Synology. This makes
it especially suitable for larger environments where many more devices will be
accessing the NAS. Having said that, we
think this is probably overkill for the average home, unless that home happens to
be four housemates all working in IT.
So in terms of hardware and performance, the TS-251+ obviously has
the advantage. Were still not quite as
impressed in the interface even though
it appears to basically mirror Synologys,
its not quite as polished. However, when
it comes to sheer performance and extra
hardware features, the QNAP leads by a
long way.
Bennett Ring
KEY SPECS
$489 www.qnap.com
Twin 3.5 inch bays hot-swappable Intel Celeron quad
core CPU HDMI out; IR remote included
OVERALL
0
Microsoft
Lumia 650
LOVELY DESIGN, GREAT DISPLAY
QUALITY AND A DECENT CAMERA
UNDERMINED BY A HORRIBLY
UNDERPOWERED PROCESSOR
icrosoft took its time over

Windows 10 Mobile, but now,
only a few weeks after it rst
appeared on the screens of the Lumias
950 and 950 XL, we already have the next
instalment in the series: the Microsoft
Lumia 650. Its a very different phone,
though, to the rst pair. While those two
targeted consumers looking to spend
high-end money, the Microsoft Lumia 650
is a budget device for the masses.
Not that youd know this by looking at
it, because Microsoft has done a standup job on the design. In fact, you could
argue the Lumia 650 is a better-looking
device than both the 950 and the 950
XL, although that says as much about the
cheap design of those devices as it does
about the good looks of the 650.
Still, the 650 is an uncommonly
handsome device for one so cheap. Its
gunmetal-grey aluminium frame and
exposed chamfered edges (which have
been machined at an angle of 38.5
degrees to maximise the gleam) cut a
business-class dash, and its slim lines
and understated detailing break with
budget phone conventions.
If you dont like the colours and plastic
feel of the third-generation Motorola
Moto G, this phone is the perfect antidote.
Even though the back is made from thin,
matte-black plastic, theres a bonus:
it can be removed to give access to a
removable battery and microSD slot.
SKIN-DEEP BEAUTY
A close look around the edges of the
Lumia 650 reveals more than just pretty
machining. Along the bottom edge, you
wont nd a next-generation USB Type-C
socket as on the rst two Windows 10
Mobile handsets, but a bog-standard
micro-USB socket instead.
Why is this important? It means that
the Lumia 650 doesnt support Windows
10 Mobiles marquee feature, Continuum.
You cant plug it into the Microsoft Display
Dock and use it as a desktop PC as you
can with the 950 and 950 XL.
Theres also no iris recognition or
ngerprint reader, but these arent
the biggest of the disappointments.
The major letdown is that the Lumia
650 is powered by a lowly Qualcomm

Snapdragon 212 a quad-core SoC
running at 1.3GHz and it has a meagre
1GB of RAM. Those are the sorts of specs
Id expect to see on a budget smartphone
costing less than $200, not one expecting
to compete with the Motorola Moto G
and Honor 5X.
At rst, you probably wont notice.
Menus scroll up and down smoothly
enough, even moderately data-heavy
web pages do the same, but as soon as
you load something more demanding
a game or the Maps app, for example
the Lumia 650 starts to stutter and
splutter. In the benchmarks, its scores lag
signicantly behind the majority of rival
phones at a similar price.
Its not helped by Windows 10 Mobiles
many bugs, which the Lumia 650s
slowness throws into stark relief. Zoom
into a photo in the Photos app and
youll see glitching as you pinch in and
out. Moreover, re up navigation in the
Maps app and it disappears from the
multitasking menu, seemingly at random.
The voice-memo app wont run in the
background it pauses when you switch
to another app meaning that you cant
take notes while recording audio. I could
go on.
Battery life is better, outlasting the
Moto G 3rd generation in our video
rundown test by a handful of minutes. It
lasted 11hrs 36mins to the Moto Gs

11hrs 12mins, which translates to around a
day of moderate use. It still isnt anything
special, though.
CONTINUUM
Its a shame because I admire what
Microsoft is trying to do with Windows
10 Mobile. The idea of having the same
codebase and apps across laptops,
tablets and phones is a sound one, and I
like the unied look and feel.
There arent as many holes in the app
catalogue as there used to be, either.
Most of the major social networks are
covered, including Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram and Vine. BBC iPlayer, iPlayer
Radio, Spotify and Netix are also
available. Even Slack gets a look in,
although the app is in beta. However,
there still arent nearly as many smarthome devices and wearables that
support Windows 10 Mobile as Android
or iOS.
For more details, read my review
of Windows 10 Mobile. Aside from
Continuum, the Lumia 650 offers all
the same features, but its low-power
processor means that it doesnt show the
new OS at its best.
CAMERA AND DISPLAY

Normally, if the rest of a phone is
disappointing, you can be pretty certain
HANDHELDS REVIEWS
the camera will be equally rubbish. That

isnt the case with the Lumia 650. Youre
not getting cutting-edge camera tech
here: the camera is an 8-megapixel
offering, with a single LED ash, and
theres a 5-megapixel shooter at the
front. Furthermore, the Lumia 650 has
neither phase detect autofocus nor
optical image stabilisation.
However, the quality is pretty decent.
Photos were crisp rather than smeary
and, as long as you hold the phone
steady, you can get acceptable snaps out
of it. I like the Windows camera app, too,
which lets you switch quickly between
auto and pro modes at the ick of a
nger, even if the lack of any kind of HDR
mode is a bit irritating.
Video quality is limited by the speed of
the processor, topping out at 720p and
30fps, when most other phones, even
below 200, are capable of capturing
1080p, but I was largely pleased with the
cameras results.
DISPLAY
The display is another positive feature.
Once again, its hardly cutting-edge, with
a resolution of 720 x 1,280, but contrast is
perfect, courtesy of AMOLED technology.
It performed well under the scrutiny of
the office X-Rite i1 Display Pro colorimeter,

posting maximum brightness and sRGB
gamut coverage gures of 357cd/m2 and
100% respectively.
To the eye, its more than respectable.
White and light grey tones have a slight
yellow tinge to them, but youll need to
Microsofts Lumia 650

is an uncommonly
handsome device for one
so cheap: its exposed
chamfered edges cut a
business-class dash
squint hard to spot the pixels, and the
deep black and super-saturated colours
typical of AMOLED screens mean images
and video look great. Its certainly much
nicer than the dull screen tted to the
third-generation Moto G.
It also includes Microsofts ClearBlack
polarising layer, meaning that its
readable in bright sunlight. Thanks to
Gorilla Glass 3, its less prone to cracking,
scratching or shattering than phones that
use unbranded toughened glass.
In conclusion, after rst setting eyes

on its slim form and understated design,
I wanted to like the Microsoft Lumia 650.
Its screen is great, as is the camera for the
price, and there are plenty of elements of
Windows 10 Mobile that I like.
However, the Lumia 650 is completely
spoiled by Microsofts decision to
shoehorn in a processor that is so low on
power that not even Windows 10 Mobile
can make it look good. Its an odd and
disappointing move.
That, ultimately, is what turns this
Lumia from a potentially great phone into
a disappointing one and thats a shame
because Windows 10 Mobile needs every
bit of help it can get.
Jonathan Bray
KEY SPECS
$TBA www.microsoft.com
Quad-core 1.3GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 212 CPU Adreno
304 GPU 1GB RAM 16GB storage 5in 720 x 1,280
AMOLED display microSD slot 8MP/5MP rear/front
cameras 802.11n Wi-Fi 4G Bluetooth 4.1 removable
2,000mAh battery Windows 10 Mobile 1yr RTB warranty
71 x 6.9 x 142mm (WDH) 122g
OVERALL
0
REVIEWS PERIPHERALS
Brother PocketJet PJ-773

THERMAL PRINTING ON THE GO
hile were all still awaiting the

paper-less future promised
decades ago, the reality of life
is that we still need to print forms and
documents on paper on a regular basis.
This isnt so hard when youre doing it
from an office, but mobile printing is a
whole other ballgame. Brothers new
PJ-773 is unique in that it uses thermal
printing, giving it a distinct advantage
over other mobile printers.
Considering its small size, this
thing is surprisingly weighty were
guessing around 750 grams or so.
The inclusion of Wi-Fi means
itll connect to basically
any mobile device you
can think of, which is
especially helpful
now that so many
road-warriors
are using their
smartphones
instead of
laptops. Theres
also USB if youre
feeling old-fashioned, and its happy

to work with Windows, OSX, IOS and
Android, regardless of which connection
type you use.
Printing speeds arent exactly recordbreaking, hitting eight pages per minute,
but thats to be expected from a mobile
printer. Print quality is excellent, with a
300 dpi print
resolution, but
its biggest
benefit is the
fact that it
uses thermal
printing.
Mobile inkjet
printers can be fickle
beasts given Australias
warm climate, while
thermal printing will work
no matter how scorching the
day may be. On the flipside,
the cost of paper is higher,
with the cheapest option
costing $19 for 100 A4 sheets.
Theres also the aspect of
cost thermal printing adds much to

the price of this printer, with entry-level
inkjet printers less than half the price.
Yet they require ink cartridges, so over
time its challenging to see how the
price differential will work out.
If reliability is an absolute priority, not
to mention a wide range of support for
different devices, the added cost of the
PJ-773 will make it a compelling option
for getting your paperwork done on the
road.
Bennett Ring
KEY SPECS
$930 www.brother.com.au
Direct Thermal Printer A4 size Wi-Fi and USB 2.0
connectivity 8ppm 300 dpi
OVERALL
0
Asus RP-AC68U
EXTEND YOUR HIGH-SPEED REACH
f you live in anything larger than

a shoebox, firstly you probably
dont live in inner-city Sydney.
Secondly, youll probably find that
a single router struggles to deliver a
decent signal strength throughout your
entire property. This is where Wi-Fi
repeaters come in handy,
and the new RPAC68U is one of the
first to offer a 3x4
transmitter/receiver
configuration.
Setting this thing
up is relatively
simple. Place it
around the midrange point between
your router and the
end of the house,
and hit the power
button. From there
you can log-in via
any Wi-Fi enabled
device by heading
to repeater.asus.
com to access the
setup wizard we used a HTC M9 to do

so. However, once it had identified our
networks, and supposedly set them up,
they disappeared from our detectable
network list. It was only after a minute
or so that they returned.
Asus has equipped this repeater
with four receivers and
three transmitters,
which should help
it make the most of
the newest range of
tri-band routers, and
which might also
explain its rather
large dimensions. The
generous inclusion
of five Gigabit
Ethernet ports allow
the connection of
plenty of devices via
Ethernet, along with
a single USB 3.0 port.
Unfortunately our
speed tests were very
variable, depending
on where the device was
placed. When using the 5GHz network

at a range of 15 metres and through two
concrete walls, the measured speed
maxed out at 57Mbps, while moving it
two metres further away saw the speed
drop to just 12Mbps. Yet moving it into
the next room behind just a single wall
saw speeds zip up to 452Mbps.
The potent hardware within,
combined with Asus excellent
reputation, suggests our strange results
are likely a result of early firmware. As
such, were confident that Asus will
iron the kinks out over time, eventually
making this one of the best devices for
making the most of the new breed of
3x3 and 4x4 routers.
Bennett Ring
KEY SPECS
$TBA www.asus.com.au
Dual-band Wi-Fi extender 802.11a/b/g/n/ac 5 x Ethernet
1 x USB 3.0
OVERALL
0
COMPONENTS REVIEWS
Thermaltake Toughpower
DPS G RGB 1250W Titanium
A COLOURFUL POWER PLANT FOR YOUR BEASTLY PC, SO LONG AS YOU RUN WINDOWS
fter overclocking a Haswell-E

rig sporting an R9 295X2 and
simultaneously running OCCT and
Furmark, as you do, and having its 850W
PSU cut out thanks to the overcurrent
protection, we took out Thermaltakes
latest PSU to see if it could do better.
The rst thing we noticed was that all
the high amperage cabling, such as the
ATX 24-pin, all the PCI-E and ATX12V/EPS
cables had individual fabric-sheathed
wiring (plastic wiring looms are included
to keep them neat and tidy) with a red,
black and beigey yellow colour scheme.
Which looks great, so long as it matches
your colour scheme. The rest of the
cables, for Molex and SATA connectors,
are your typical plastic at black cabling
fair.
The second thing we noticed was
that it came with proper 8-pin PCI-E
connectors (four of them) not just the
6+2 pin connectors you might typically

see on power supplies (four of these are
also included, for eight PCI-E connectors
total!). So we plugged everything in and
ran the stress test again.
Thanks to the USB port on the PSU
and Thermaltakes DPSapp software,
we could see exactly how much power
we were drawing. 960W was the peak,
not a bad effort for a single graphics
card system, and best of all the system
stayed on! It was at this peak we also saw
via the software our highest efficiency
reading of 94.1% no doubt thanks to its
80 Plus Titanium (the highest) efficiency
certication.
Its via the software you also turn on
and control the 256 colour RGB LED
lighting. You can set any colour you like or
have it slowly cycle through the colours of
the rainbow. As much functionality and
data as the DPSapp software provides,
its also the problem with this product.

The software needs to be running to
drive the RGB lighting, and being based
on ash and the .NET framework it only
works with Windows. It also means from
a cold boot the PSU LEDs remain off until
youre booted into Windows and the
software has started up. Its a minor gripe,
but for the main feature of this product to
be hamstrung in this way it takes some of
the sheen off an otherwise perfect power
supply.
Mark Williams
KEY SPECS
$549 www.thermaltake.com
10-year warranty 104A 12V rail 550-600mm cable lengths
PSU is 200mm long can run with fan off below 60% load.
OVERALL
0
Thermaltake Water
3.0 Riing RGB 240
THERMALTAKES RIING SMITES THE MIGHTY
KRAKEN SILENTLY AND IN COLOURFUL STYLE
GB lighting isnt new to all-in-one

liquid coolers. Nzxts Kraken series
has been sporting an adjustable
RGB light on top of its pump for a while.
Thermaltakes latest Riing series of
coolers makes the Krakens RGB light look
like an old torch with a dying battery. This
cooler has the RGB lighting going around
the circumference of each of the two
fans, using a clear plastic ring to direct
the light around, a bit like a fat bre optic
cable might.
The LED colours are adjusted via a fan
control unit which allows you to set the
colour to anything you like, have them on
a rainbow coloured loop, or simply off, any
of which is remembered the next time
you boot up. The unit also allows you to
set two fan speed ranges, normal (8001500rpm) and low noise (400-1000rpm)
modes. Both of which are pretty much
inaudible even with you ear right next to
them. We also found that

in rainbow mode and with
normal fan speed set, the
refresh rate of the RGB LEDs and
the fan blades created a strobing effect
that was a little hypnotising.
Installation was a breeze. Just snap
some clamping rings into place in any
orientation (in 30 increments) around
the pump for your socket type, click in
some plastic screw hole guides, attach
the back plate and screw it all into place.
Testing this on an i7-5930K versus the
Nzxt Kraken X61 280mm cooler at a room
temperature of 27C, at idle the Riing was
1C cooler at 32C than the Kraken. At
stock CPU speeds under OCCT loading
the Kraken held at 62C while the Riing in
performance mode saw 64C and 72C in
low noise mode. Ramping the testing up
to 11, we overclocked the CPU to 4.4GHz,
dumping a further 151 watts into the
system. The Kraken peaked at 92C while

the Riing in quite mode just kissed 100C,
while performance mode saw it peak at
just 90C.
A 240mm AIO running near silent
matching or beating a screaming Kraken
280mm is quite an achievement and
worthy of top marks.
Mark Williams
KEY SPECS
$189 www.thermaltake.com
Copper base !2V, 175 mA 120 x 120 x 25mm speed 800 1500 RPM performance mode, 400 - 1000 RPM quiet mode
OVERALL
0
Labs Briefs
MSI Interceptor DS300
Runtastic Moment
$79 www.au.msi.com
$209 - $279 www.runtastic.com
anity prevails with

this design, which
is sturdy, seemingly
solid and reliable, and very
comfortable. MSI has checked
all the important boxes and
left over the top out of the
equation. The laser sensor feels
great, with no undue acceleration
and it ranges from 800 to 6400
DPI and polling rates from 125 to 1000Hz.
Omron switches are used, but thats no longer a
big deal, suffice that the clicks are clear and decisive. The buttons
are large and easy to hit, the roller big and chunky with a nice
rubber coating and the surface of the mouse is a grippy matte
plastic, so its nice to look at and great to hold.
I liked it better with the three removable weights taken out as
they made it a bit tail-heavy.
For general use as well as gaming the DS3000 is by the
numbers perfect, free of aws and delightfully unspectacular
and clearly well made and designed.
Ben Mansill
OVERALL
OVERALL
Rapoo Wireless
Laser Touch Mouse
$69 www.rapoo.com
his mouse is a bit of a hit and a

bit of a miss. I quite enjoyed the
smooth matte texture on the top
of the mouse which made scrolling and
swiping gestures much nicer to use than
the gloss textures many other touch
devices opt for. The tiny 5GHz dongle
ts nicely in the USB port and barely
protrudes making it hardly noticeable.
There is a number of different gestures
which are assignable. Inputs like forward
and backward on a web page are as
simple as two ngered swipe in a certain
direction.
The only downside is that the click seems
to be a bit on the sensitive side. Its a little too easy to click the
mouse while using the touch gestures and unfortunately theres
no way to change the sensitivity. Besides that minor issue, its
easy to use and a good wireless touch mouse for the price.
Lewis Vaughan
OVERALL
0
eres a fresh and welcome take

on the tness tracking watch
scene. Its a standard analogue
BATTERY POWERED watch, so it
will run for about A YEAR, but it
has tness tracking, albeit very
basic. It simply measures steps
taken and then translates that into
active minutes, calories (no kJ...) and
distance. That data can be used to
create personal goals, and the watch
has a small dial that shows you how far
through that youve managed to go during
the day.
It all hooks up via an app for more granular info,
though its not particularly sophisticated. If all you want is a
basic activity tracker and blessed battery life, all in a decent
looking watch then the Runtastic is a winner. Ive been using
it for a month and the little tracker dial is my new best friend.
The different models are functionally identical, but with
varying style and materials.
Ben Mansill
Roccat Ryos MK FX
$319 www.roccat.org
occat Ryos
keyboards
arent what
wed call minimalist.
These extremely chunky boards
are large, tough (no ex, quite heavy)
and come with an abundance of extra
controls including ve macro keys plus three overall
mode keys which results in a massive 94 programmable keys
on the board. Mic and headphone inputs are there which feed
via a cable to your PC. So theyve very popular with MMO
players. Now it gets the dreaded RGB treatment, and a bump
up to a whopping $320 pricetag.
But its big, and we think, ugly. No-one in the office thought
it was attractive... keyboard design and style has moved on
since this look was cool, but it certainly is a hefty brute, if
thats what you like. Part of this is thanks to the integrated
wrist-rest something becoming increasingly rare, and to be
fair this accounts for much of its overall bulk.
So it gets a decent mark for functionality, but its going to
need a lot of desk space and a particular kind of taste.
Ben Mansill
OVERALL
2
BRIEFS REVIEWS
Tt esports challenger
Keyboard and Mouse Combo
Marley Zion in-ear

headphones
$89 www.au.ttesports.com
$129 www.thehouseofmarley.com.au
he keyboard in this
combo pack is
very decent.
While just a
standard membrane
keyboard, its festooned
with more macro keys than
the $320 Ryos on this page, three game
prole mode keys, media keys lighting and effects keys to
handle the full RGB lighting.
While the stylised looks arent going to be to everyones taste,
it is comfortable to use and the keys have a sweet and soft feel,
which, funnily enough, is a nice change from all the mechanical
clacking weve become accustomed to. The mouse is a cheapy,
though, with hard plastic all over and no soft bits, and worse
its scratchy on the mouse pad as it slides. Just not nice at
all. We cant recommend it even at a bargain price so instead
consider buying the keyboard separately, as it can be had for
less that $50 now and is worth skipping the mouse for.
Ben Mansill
hese classy little numbers

have been hewn from wee blocks
of wood, which dangle from a
rasta-style red, green and yellow woven
cord. Its saple wood, if that means
anything to wood-fanciers, but it looks
alright to me. Designed for iPod and
Android theres an in-line control plus
microphone.
We dont usually review regular
earbuds here, but its been a long
time since I was this impressed with
such a product and its not because of how terric
they look though props right now for the also fabulous
packaging where things are hand-tied together by thick bits
of string.
No, its because for $129 the sound quality is through the
roof. Far better than ultra premium ear buds costing more.
Unadulterated, clear and powerful, these are little audio gems.
Ben Mansill
OVERALL
OVERALL
Cooler Master
Masterkeys Pro S & L
www.coolermaster.com $159 (tenkeyless S);
$199 (standard with numpad)
Vivid SSD
250GB $199; 500GB $349; 1TB $599
www.vividstorage.com.au
his elegant slab of

keys looks great, has
Cherry switches and
thus is a joy to type and
game on. Its well made,
the materials are high quality and I
have no hesitation recommending it to anyone
with one critical caveat.
This is RGB gone mad, perhaps beautifully so, depending on
your inclination. Im not talking about the multitude of various
effects you can set, including ripple, wave, star and raindrop
effects plus a whole lot more disco dazzle via the software,
and of course as-good-as innite colour choices. No, its the
deliberate light spill that lls the void between keys creating
a sea of glow that can outshine the actual key illumination.
I personally found it too distracting in a dark room, though
brightness levels are adjustable. If you want all the RGB you can
eat this is the top choice for a keyboard that can light up a room.
Ben Mansill
he product of an
Aussie Kickstarter
project, this
portable SSD has decent
performance and a couple
of nice touches. We
benched it at 439MB/s
sequential read and 451
MB/s sequential write which
is on par with the more
expensive Samsung T1 as
well as other portable SSDs. It uses an ASMedia controller
and Synchronous MLC ash and connects via a USB 3.0
interface. There are no plans at this stage for other interface
types.
So far, so average, but the matchbox-sized Vivid comes in
a brutally solid machined aluminium case so its hell-tough.
Cool thing #1: you can specify from any of 64 colours and mix
and match the main case and cover colours. Cool thing #2: it
can be engraved at no extra cost. Pretty cool!
Ben Mansill
OVERALL
OVERALL
BUILDING BLOCKS
Components
IF YOU WANT TO BUILD YOUR OWN COMPUTER, THERES NEVER
BEEN A BETTER TIME. WE TAKE YOU THROUGH THE ULTIMATE
COMPONENTS TO HELP YOU MAKE THE BEST CHOICES
ne of the best things about the

humble desktop PC is its modular
structure, giving you the exibility
to build a computer that matches your
needs. Make the right choices and youll
have a brilliant PC that will last for years,
plus the ability to upgrade it in future to
make it last even longer. With Windows 10
impressing, nows the perfect time to get
a new computer to go with the new OS.
Making the right choice isnt always
easy, though, with hundreds of products
to choose from. In this issue, were here
to help with our in-depth guide to all
of the best components. By the time
youve nished reading, youll be able to
put together a perfect shopping list that
matches your needs and budget.
Were doing things a little differently

this year. A lot of product categories
(graphics cards, cases, hard disks and
so on) have an overwhelming number
of products to choose from. So this year
weve tested hundreds of products, but
to make the choices simple in many
categories, were only presenting you with
the best products to choose from, and
were not giving over pages to products
that we cant recommend. This means
that we can recommend more top
products to suit all budgets, rather than
devoting pages to poor products. Were
still bringing you comparison tables and,
where appropriate, performance graphs,
so you can easily choose the product that
you want, condent in the knowledge that
were recommending the best.

We hope the results are clearer and
easier to follow, making it quicker for you
to nd the right components. Dont forget
to come back next month, as well have
our complete guide to building your PC
from scratch.
CONTENTS
Processors
RAM
Cases
Motherboards
Graphics Cards
Hard disks & SSDs
Power Supplies
49
50
60
64
70
74
78
COMPONENTS GROUP TEST
CHIPPING IN Processors
A GREAT PROCESSOR IS ABOUT MORE THAN THE SPECS YOU SEE ON PAPER. WEVE TESTED
EVERY MAJOR CPU FROM AMD AND INTEL TO FIND THE BEST ONES TO MATCH YOUR NEEDS
he processor is arguably the most

important part of your computer.
It dictates how fast it is today and,
as a result, how long it will last. This is
one section where were presenting the
results of all of our testing, too. The simple
reason is that processor prices uctuate
a lot and similar models tend to have very
close prices. As a result, a processor we
recommend today can rise in price, while
the model below, which may only be a
little slower, may dramatically drop in
price, making it the better buy. Our main
advice is to check the prices of the models
surrounding our recommended choices to
see if you can get a better deal.
NEW MODEL ARMY

There are a lot of different processors out
there, with older ranges still on sale years
after they rst came out. However, a lot of
older models arent good value and dont
perform as well as their newer siblings. As
a result, weve only reviewed ranges that
are still currently available and that we
think are worth buying.
Each manufacturer and product range
has its own individual CPU architecture
(our reviews explain more), but all models
share certain features. Understanding
these will help you make the right decision
and choose the model that best ts your
personal needs.
First, theres the processors clock
speed, which is often set as an indicator
of the CPUs speed. However, this can
be misleading, as clock speed is only a
useful gauge when comparing processors
in the same range, particularly as many
chips have a low starting clock speed,
but can boost higher when they need to
perform a demanding task. Instead, its the
processors efficiency and number of cores
that dictate how quick it will be.
A core is a processor in its own right,
so the more cores there are, the more
power your computer has at its ngertips.
To use multiple cores you either have
to run multiple applications at once, or
use applications that take advantage of
the multiple cores. The latter are called
multithreaded applications, and are
typically used for processor-intensive
tasks such as video editing.
Multithreaded support has become
better in recent years, with applications
able to use eight cores easily. Even if
you dont run a lot of these types of
application, multiple cores are useful:
you can run a virus scan using one core,

for example, while the others are used
for web browsing and other tasks. All the
processors weve reviewed here have at
least two cores, but quad-core, six-core
and eight-core models are also here.
Some Intel processors use HyperThreading technology, which doubles
the number of cores available by adding
one logical core per real core. Virtual
cores help speed up applications and let
the processor do more, making it more
efficient, but theyre not as good as real
physical cores.
Some processors (our tables on pages
54 and 59 conrm which ones) can
automatically overclock themselves when
theyre cool enough, giving you a free
speed boost. Intel calls its technology
Turbo Boost; AMD calls its version of
overclocking Turbo Core.
CACHE MACHINE
All computers have system memory,
which is used to store open applications
and data. However, it tends to be relatively
slow; that is, too slow for a CPU. This is
why processors have cache. Level 1 (L1)
cache is the fastest and smallest, and
each core has its own. L2 cache is available in larger sizes and isnt as quick as L1.
Each core generally has its own L2 cache,
although some models share this between
multiple cores. Finally, L3 is the slowest
type of cache, but is available in much
bigger sizes. Its shared between all cores.
When a core needs to access something
from memory, it rst checks the L1 cache,
then the L2 cache and then the L3 cache,
only going to system memory if it cant nd

what it wants.
The amount of cache, therefore, has
a signicant impact on performance, as
it reduces the time that a processor has
to wait for system memory. The more L3
cache you have the better, as cores often
have to access the same bit of memory, so
having shared cache helps speed up all of
the cores.
SKYLAKES THE LIMIT

Intel usually releases a new architecture
a year, but last year it was so late with the
updated Broadwell that these chips arent
worth bothering with. Instead, the current
range uses the new Skylake architecture,
which require a motherboard with the
B150, H170 or Z170 chipset which are built
using the LGA1151 socket.
The previous-generation Haswell
processors t into the LGA1150 socket and
will work with any of our recommended
LGA1150 motherboards this month; note
that some older boards dont support
Haswell, so check specs carefully if youre
buying something we havent listed.
Weve also listed the Devils Canyon
processors, which are an update to
Haswell with faster speeds. Theyre very
quick, which is why weve listed them here.
These processors use the LGA1150 socket,
but require the Z97 or H97 motherboard
chips for use.
Haswell-E is also available, but we
havent reviewed these chips as theyre
poor value and require expensive
motherboards with the LGA2011 socket.
Simply put, Haswell-E is for high-end
enthusiasts, but theyre a little too niche

for us to recommend now.
Intels chips all share some common
features based on the product name:
Pentium, Core i3, Core i5 or Core i7.
Pentium chips are dual-core models; Core
i3 are dual-core with Hyper-Threading;
Core i5 are quad-core and have Turbo
Boost; and Core i7 are quad-core with
Hyper-Threading and Turbo Boost. In all
cases look out for chips with a K in the
name, as these have unlocked multipliers,
so you can overclock them easily.
Finally, all Intel chips weve reviewed
have integrated graphics. The graph on the
opposite page shows you how well each
graphics chipset performs.
SPECIAL FX
AMD hasnt revamped its product range as
much as Intel, but there are still a number
of good-value options to choose from.
AMDs processors are available roughly as

two types: those with graphics and those
without. The latter are all FX chips and
are designed for AM3+ motherboards.
Cheaper FX chips are quad-core, but the
more powerful chips have six or eight
cores. The current FX generation is known
as Piledriver and uses Vishera cores. Look
out for these, as theyre superior to the
earlier Bulldozer chips with their Zambezi
cores, which we havent reviewed.
FX chips cant match the fastest Intel
processors for raw power, but theyre a
lot cheaper and, per pound, outshine their
rivals. The six- and eight-core models are
great chips for serious computing tasks.
FX processors have unlocked multipliers,
so you can overclock them easily.
All the other AMD processors weve
tested are called Application Processing
Units (APUs), which means they combine
graphics with a processor. There are
three generations of A-series (processors

starting with an A) APU on the market.
Trinity and Richland can be used in Socket
FM2 motherboards, while the newer Kaveri
processors need an FM2+ board.
A-series chips arent as powerful as
Intel chips or the FX range, but their
integrated graphics are very good. All but
the cheapest processor managed our Dirt
Showdown test, playing it smoothly at a
720p resolution. This means that you can
play some decent games without having
to buy a graphics card, making A-series
processors brilliant all-rounders. These
chips are either dual- or quad-core.
Finally, there are the newer FM1 chips,
which are AMDs budget offering. These
require an FM1 motherboard. These chips
are very slow and the graphics are only
really good enough for playing video.
However, for a small computer for light
computing tasks, theyre a good option.
RAM RAID MEMORY

In previous years weve reviewed RAM
kits, but we found that performance
was so similar across the board that the
only real differences came down to price
and capacity. We therefore dont see the
point in reviewing RAM kits so we dont
generally do that. Instead, well guide you
through choosing the right RAM for your
system.
PAST MEMORIES
DDR3 is by far the most common type
of RAM available. Its used by all AMD
processors as well as Intel Haswell and
Devils Canyon. However, if youre building
a Skylake system, youll need to use
DDR4 RAM. Before you buy, check your
motherboards specs to nd out which
memory it requires, as the two standards
arent compatible with each other. Our
motherboard guide on page 100 clearly
lists which type of RAM is needed.
RAM can run at different speeds, which
is usually quoted in megahertz, such as
1,333MHz. However, RAM can also be sold
using a different numbering system, which
is eight times higher than the MHz speed.
For example, 1,333MHz DDR3 is also sold
as PC3-10600. The faster the MHz rating,
the faster the RAM, but it may make your
PC only a tiny fraction faster overall: dont
expect huge speed improvements from
buying the fastest RAM you can nd.
Your motherboard supports a
maximum RAM speed; install any faster
RAM and it will simply run at the slower
speed. Finally, your motherboard may not
run your memory at the correct speed
when you rst plug it in, so you should
enable the Intel Extreme Memory Prole
(XMP) or AMD Memory Prole (AMP)

in your motherboards BIOS or UEFI to
unlock the faster speeds.
At current prices, DDR3 1,866MHz
is the best value and suits everything
from entry-level to high-end computers,
running at 1,600MHz on lower-spec PC.
For DDR4, 2,400MHz is the best value,
while 3,200MHz is the best choice for
performance.
AFTER EIGHT
You need to know how much RAM you
want. Generally speaking, 8GB is ideal for
a budget system. Mid-range or high-end
users should opt for 16GB; 32GB will be
overkill for most people. More RAM wont
speed up your PC, but it means you can
run more applications and open bigger
les without any slow-down. If you play
lots of games, edit videos or run loads of
applications, you should go for 16GB.
Most motherboards support dualchannel memory, which means you

insert memory in pairs. You can buy kits
that contain two or four sticks of RAM to
get you to 8GB, 16GB or higher. For the
memory sizes we currently recommend,
2x 4GB (8GB) and 2x 8GB (16GB) are
generally the best options. Check prices
carefully, though, as weve seen instances
where buying two 8GB kits (four sticks of
RAM) was cheaper than one 16GB kit.
Finally, check the maximum amount of
RAM your motherboard supports (see the
tables on pages 66-69) and dont go over
this limit.
RECOMMENDATIONS
From long experience, its best to
buy branded RAM from recognised
manufacturers. Corsair, Crucial and
Kingston all make high-quality products.
Below are a few to start with.
DDR3
PART CODE
SPEED
CAPACITY
PRICE
HyperX 8GB 1,866MHz

DDR3
PRODUCT NAME
HX318C10FRK2/8
1,866MHz
8GB (2x 4GB)
$65
HyperX Blue Fury Series

16GB 1866MHz
HX318C10FK2/16
1,866MHz
16GB (2x 8GB)
$125
DDR4
PART CODE
SPEED
CAPACITY
PRICE
Corsair Vengeance LPX

8GB 3,200MHz
PRODUCT NAME
CMK8GX4M2B3200C16R
3,200MHz
8GB (2x 4GB)
$120

8GB 3,200MHz x2
CMK8GX4M2B3200C16R
3,200MHz
16GB (2x 8GB kits

as above)
$170

8GB 2,400MHz
CMK8GX4M2A2400C14R
2,400MHz
8GB (2x 4GB)
$90

16GB 2,400MHz
CMK16GX4M2A2400C14R
2,400MHz
16GB (2x 8GB)
$150
Intel
Haswell
H
aswell is a couple of years old, but

there are still quick processors
available and the range is
compatible with DDR3 memory and older
motherboards; by contrast, newer Skylake
chips require DDR4 memory and new
motherboards. As a result, Haswell can be
a good choice for anyone that has some
old kit they want to use in a new build.
All Haswell processors use the LGA1150
processor socket, so youll need to buy a
matching motherboard. Haswell is a tweak
of the previous-generation Ivy Bridge
architecture, and uses the same 22nm
fabrication process. Intel has pushed for
speed in this range, although that means it
requires slightly more power. Both the Core
i5 and Core i7 ranges have a power rating
of 84W TDP, while the Core i3 and Pentium
Dual Core ranges consume less power,
with 54W and 53W TDPs respectively.
HASWELL
FREQUENCY
(TURBO)
CORES
Pentium G3420
3.2GHz
Two
$90
41
Pentium G3430
3.3GHz
Two
$120
43
Pentium G3450
3.4GHz
Two
$100
44
Pentium G3460
3.5GHz
Two
$110
45
Core i3-4330
3.5GHz
Two plus two logical

(Hyper-Threading)
$140
57
Core i3-4370
3.8GHz

(Hyper-Threading)
$140
61
Core i5-4440
3.1GHz (3.3GHz)
Four
$270
91
Core i5-4460
3.2GHz (3.4GHz)
Four
$270
94
Core i5-4570
3.2GHz (3.6GHz)
Four
$275
94
Core i5-4590
3.3GHz (3.7GHz)
Four
$270
97
Core i5-4670
3.4GHz (3.8GHz)
Four
$285
100
Core i7-4770
3.5GHz (3.9GHz)
Four plus four logical

(Hyper-Threading)
$320
125
MODEL
ARCHITECTURE AND
PERFORMANCE
of cores and whether theres HyperThreading or not. Hyper-Threading is Intels

technology for doubling the number of real
cores that a processor has with additional
virtual cores. For example, a quad-core
processor appears to Windows as an
eight-core CPU. These virtual cores help
make the CPU more efficient.
In the Haswell range the Pentium chips
are dual-core, the Core i3 models are dualcore with Hyper-Threading, the Core i5
CPUs are quad-core and the Core i7 chips
are quad-core with Hyper-Threading.
Core i5 and Core i7 chips also have Intels
Turbo Boost technology. This lets them
automatically overclock themselves when
theres enough thermal headroom (which
is a good reason to t a decent cooler),
improving performance.
Processors with a K in the model
name are unlocked, so you can manually
adjust the multiplier to speed up the CPU.
There are ve types of Haswell processor,

denoted by a model range name. At the
low end is the Celeron range, which we
havent reviewed here, as the chips arent
good value. That leaves us with the budget
Pentium, low-end Core i3, mid-range Core
i5 and high-end Core i7 chips.
All share the same basic architecture,
with 64KB of L1 cache and 256KB of L2
cache per core. The amount of L3 cache,
which all cores share, varies between
3MB and 8MB depending on the number
of cores and processor type (our table on
page 92 shows you the full details).
With more cache, a processor spends
less time accessing slow system memory,
speeding up processing. As multiple
cores often have to access the same bit
of memory, more L3 cache is a great way
to speed up a PC. The big differences
in processors come from the number
DIRT SHOWDOWN 1,280X720, HIGH DETAIL, 4X AA

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RATING
PRICE
BENCHMARK
SCORE
This is the only safe way to overclock, as

adjusting the external bus speed also
affects the graphics and RAM.
ONBOARD GRAPHICS
Intel boosted the quality of its onboard
graphics for Haswell, although the
company still lags behind AMD in this
regard. Most of the chips in the range use
the Intel HD Graphics 4600 GPU, which is
good enough to play some older games
at a resolution of 1,280x720. The Intel HD
Graphics 4400 is only a little slower, but
anything below this isnt going to be good
enough to play games. All graphics chips
can cope with decoding HD video, and
they all support the HDMI 1.4a standard.
VERDICT
Skylake is the fastest architecture and its
chips arent that much more expensive,
so its the best choice for most people.
However, as we said, if you have some
older kit you want to reuse, such as DDR3
memory, Haswell is a good choice. We
think the Core i7 range is a little expensive
and doesnt give enough of a performance
boost over the i5 range.
The Core i5-4590 offers the best
performance for the price, and wins
a Value award. The Core i3-4370 is
great value and still quick. For a budget
computer with decent power the Pentium
G3420 is a good choice. Both the Core
i3-4370 and the Pentium G3420 win
Recommended awards.
Intel Devils
Canyon
O
ne issue with Intels Haswell
processors was that they werent
that much faster than the previous
generation. Intel looked to x that with its
Devils Canyon line of CPUs.
ARCHITECTURE AND
PERFORMANCE
Although the internal architecture of
Devils Canyon CPUs is the same as
Haswell processors, Intel used a new
thermal interface material. This reduces
the heat of the CPU, increasing how far
the clock speed can be pushed. This is
particularly important for the K variety
of the chips: when we tested the 4GHz
Core i7-4790K, we managed to push it to
4.7GHz using the stock Intel cooler.
Turbo Boost technology lets the
processor overclock itself when theres
Intel
Skylake
A
fter Broadwell was late, Intel

jumped straight to Skylake, its
brand-new architecture. As it
stands, Skylake is the range that most
people should buy, offering the best range
and the fastest processors.
Skylake uses a 14nm fabrication
process, which means chips run relatively
cool and use less power than the Haswell
equivalents: just 47W TDP for the low-end
Pentium processors, rising to 65W for
the locked Core i5 and i7 processors. The
unlocked and overclockable K models
have a high 91W TDP, as theyre designed
to deliver the best performance.
ARCHITECTURE AND
PERFORMANCE
Skylake comes in four versions. At the
bottom are the Pentium dual-core
models; next comes the low-cost Core
i3, which is dual-core but has HyperThreading; next are Core i5 chips,
which have four cores and Turbo Boost;
nally, the Core i7 has four cores, HyperThreading and Turbo Boost. Intel has
tweaked the way Turbo Boost works, with
the maximum boost changing based on
the number of cores being used: a single
DEVILS CANYON
MODEL
FREQUENCY
(TURBO)
CORES
Core i5-4690
3.5GHz (3.9GHz)
Four
Core i5-4690K
RATING
PRICE
BENCHMARK
SCORE
$330
103
3.5GHz (3.9GHz)
Four
$360
103
Core i7-4790
3.6GHz (4GHz)
Four plus four logical (Hyper-Threading)
$460
129
Core i7-4790K
4GHz (4.4GHz)
Four plus four logical (Hyper-Threading)
$525
143
dedicated graphics card to play the latest

demanding titles.
enough thermal headroom; with Devils

Canyon, the chips can boost higher for
much longer.
Using Devils Canyon requires a
motherboard with an Intel Z97 or H97
chipset, although the chips will work on
some 8-series motherboards provided
they have a BIOS update. Check your
motherboard manufacturers website for
more details.
VERDICT
ONBOARD GRAPHICS
Devils Canyon doesnt change the
onboard graphics, with all the chips using
Intel HD Graphics 4600 chips. This is fast
enough for some light gaming and video
playback, but youll want to upgrade to a
Skylake has a slight edge, but Devils

Canyon chips are fast and dont require
DDR4 RAM, making them a good choice
for anyone with old DDR3 RAM they want
to reuse.
There are only four models of Devils
Canyon chips at the moment, with
the Core i7 range incredibly fast but
extremely expensive. The Core i54690K hits the sweet spot between
performance and price, and its unlocked
so you can safely overclock it. It wins a
Value award.
SKYLAKE
FREQUENCY
(TURBO)
CORES
Pentium G4500
3.5GHz
Two
$132
49
Pentium G4520
3.6GHz
Two
$140
50
Core i3-6100
3.7GHz
Two
$175
65
Core i3-6300
3.8GHz
Two
$220
67
Core i3-6320
3.9GHz
Two
$250
69
MODEL
RATING
PRICE
BENCHMARK
SCORE
Core i5-6400
2.7GHz (3.3GHz)
Four
$270
87
Core i5-6500
3.2GHz (3.6GHz)
Four
$300
103
Core i5-6600
3.3GHz (3.9GHz)
Four
$335
107
Core i5-6600K
113
3.5GHz (3.9GHz)
Four
$460
Core i7-6700
3.4GHz (4GHz)
Four
$520
131
Core i7-6700K
4GHz (4.2GHz)
Four
319
155
core can be pushed higher than four cores

together, for example.
Other than that, the basics are the same
as Haswell, with 64KB of L1 and 256KB
of L2 cache per core, and between 3MB
and 8MB of L3 shared cache, depending
on the model. Its the other parts of the
processor where things change. The
on-chip memory controller now supports
DDR4 memory, although theres a DDR3
controller for the few motherboards
that support it; most people will need
to upgrade to DDR4. The full integrated
voltage regulator (FIVR) introduced
with Haswell has been removed, so
overlcockers now have full voltage control
through their motherboard. To use Skylake
either a LGA1151 socket and either a Z170 or
H170 chipset is required
ONBOARD GRAPHICS
Most of the range has Intel HD Graphics
530 chips, which is an improvement over
Haswells integrated chips. The result is
that light gaming is denitely a possibility
without having to buy an additional
graphics card.
VERDICT
If you want the best performance, the
unlocked Core i7-6700K cant be beaten,
although it is quite expensive. For most
people, the Core i5-6600K will do the
job. Both win a Value award. If youre not
interested in overclocking, the Core i56500 is great value and very quick. For a
quick, lower-cost chip, the Core i3-6320
is great, while those on a tighter budget
should go for the Pentium G4500.
Intel benchmarks
Haswell-E
Haswell
Devils Canyon
2D Performance
Multitasking
Video
1]`SW%$%9
150
1]`SW%"%'9
137
1]`SW%$%
127
Overall
1]`SW%$%9
166
1]`SW%"%'9
149
1]`SW%$%
141
1]`SW%$%9
155
1]`SW%"%'9
143
1]`SW%$%
131
1]`SW%"%'
123
1]`SW%"%'
134
1]`SW%"%'
129
1]`SW%"%%
120
1]`SW%"%%
130
1]`SW%"%%
125
1]`SW#$$9
112
1]`SW#$$9
113
1]`SW#$$9
113
1]`SW#$$
106
1]`SW#$$
107
1]`SW#$$
107
1]`SW#"$'9
103
1]`SW#$#
103
1]`SW#$#
103
1]`SW#"$'
103
1]`SW#"$'9
103
1]`SW#"$'9
103
1]`SW#$#
102
1]`SW#"$'
103
1]`SW#"$'
103
1]`SW#"$%
100
1]`SW#"$%
100
1]`SW#"$%
100
1]`SW#"#'
97
1]`SW#"#'
97
1]`SW#"#'
97
1]`SW#"#%
94
1]`SW#"#%
94
1]`SW#"#%
94
1]`SW#""$
94
1]`SW#""$
94
1]`SW#""$
94
1]`SW#"""
91
1]`SW#"""
91
1]`SW#$"
87
1]`SW#$"
87
1]`SW#"""
91
86
1]`SW#$"
1]`SW!$!
71
1]`SW!$!
56
1]`SW!$!
69
1]`SW!$!
69
1]`SW!$!
54
1]`SW!$!
67
1]`SW!$
67
1]`SW!$
53
1]`SW!$
65
1]`SW!"!%
49
1]`SW!"!%
61
45
1]`SW!"!!
57
63
1]`SW!"!%
>S\bWc[5"#
58
1]`SW!"!!
1]`SW!"!!
58
>S\bWc[5"#
37
>S\bWc[5"#
50
>S\bWc[5"#
56
>S\bWc[5"#
36
>S\bWc[5"#
49
>S\bWc[5!"$
51
>S\bWc[5!"$ 32
>S\bWc[5!"$
45
>S\bWc[5!"#
50
>S\bWc[5!"# 31
>S\bWc[5!"#
44
>S\bWc[5!"!
49
>S\bWc[5!"! 30
>S\bWc[5!"!
43
>S\bWc[5!"
47
>S\bWc[5!" 29
>S\bWc[5!"
41
"
$
& " $
" $ & " $ &
" $ & " $ &
HASWELL
RECOMMENDED
RECOMMENDED
INTEL
INTEL
INTEL
INTEL
INTEL
INTEL
INTEL
INTEL
INTEL
Pentium G3420
Pentium G3430
Pentium G3450
Pentium G3460
Core i3-4330
Core i3-4370
Core i5-4440
Core i5-4460
Core i5-4570
LGA1150
LGA1150
LGA1150
LGA1150
LGA1150
LGA1150
LGA1150
LGA1150
LGA1150
Two
Two
Two
Two

(Hyper-Threading)

(Hyper-Threading)
Four
Four
Four
Rating
Socket
Cores
Frequency (Turbo)
3.2GHz (N/A)
3.3GHz (N/A)
3.4GHz (N/A)
3.5GHz (N/A)
3.5GHz (N/A)
3.8GHz (N/A)
3.1GHz (3.3GHz)
3.2GHz (3.4GHz)
3.2GHz (3.6GHz)
X32
X33
X34
X35
X35
X38
X31
X32
X32
100MHz
100MHz
100MHz
100MHz
100MHz
100MHz
100MHz
100MHz
100MHz
22nm
22nm
22nm
22nm
22nm
22nm
22nm
22nm
22nm
Level 1 cache
2x 64KB
2x 64KB
2x 64KB
2x 64KB
2x 64KB
2x 64KB
4x 64KB
4x 64KB
4x 64KB
Level 2 cache
2x 256KB
2x 256KB
2x 256KB
2x 256KB
2x 256KB
2x 256KB
4x 256KB
4x 256KB
4x 256KB
Level 3 cache
3MB
3MB
3MB
3MB
3MB
3MB
6MB
6MB
6MB
Supported
memory type
DDR3
DDR3
DDR3
DDR3
DDR3
DDR3
DDR3
DDR3
DDR3
Power rating
(TDP)
53W
53W
53W
53W
54W
54W
84W
84W
84W
HD Graphics
HD Graphics
HD Graphics
HD Graphics
HD Graphics 4600
HD Graphics 4600
HD Graphics 4600
HD Graphics 4600
HD Graphics 4600
$90
$120
$100
$110
$140
$140
$270
$270
$275
www.intel.com
www.intel.com
www.intel.com
www.intel.com
www.intel.com
www.intel.com
www.intel.com
www.intel.com
www.intel.com
Multiplier
External bus
Process
Integrated
graphics
Price
Details
DEVILS CANYON
VALUE
SKYLAKE
VALUE
RECOMMENDED
INTEL
INTEL
INTEL
INTEL
INTEL
INTEL
INTEL
INTEL
INTEL
Core i5-4590
Core i5-4670
Core i7-4770
Core i5-4690
Core i5-4690K
Core i7-4790
Core i7-4790K
Pentium G4500
Pentium G4520
LGA1150
LGA1150
LGA1150
LGA1150
LGA1150
LGA1150
LGA1150
LGA1151
LGA1151
Four
Four

(Hyper-Threading)
Four
Four

(Hyper-Threading)

(Hyper-Threading)
Two
Two
Rating
Socket
Cores
Frequency (Turbo)
3.3GHz (3.7GHz)
3.4GHz (3.8GHz)
3.5GHz (3.9GHz)
3.5GHz (3.9GHz)
3.5GHz (3.9GHz)
3.6GHz (4GHz)
4GHz (4.4GHz)
3.5GHz (N/A)
3.6GHz (N/A)
X33
X34
X35
X35
X35
X36
X40
X35
X36
100MHz
100MHz
100MHz
100MHz
100MHz
100MHz
100MHz
100MHz
100MHz
22nm
22nm
22nm
22nm
22nm
22nm
22nm
22nm
22nm
Level 1 cache
4x 64KB
4x 64KB
4x 64KB
4x 64KB
4x 64KB
4x 64KB
4x 64KB
2x 64KB
2x 64KB
Level 2 cache
4x 256KB
4x 256KB
4x 256KB
4x 256KB
4x 256KB
4x 256KB
4x 256KB
2x 256KB
2x 256KB
Level 3 cache
6MB
6MB
8MB
6MB
6MB
8MB
8MB
3MB
3MB
Supported
memory type
DDR3
DDR3
DDR3
DDR3
DDR3
DDR3
DDR3
DDR4
DDR4
Power rating
(TDP)
84W
84W
84W
84W
88W
84W
88W
47W
47W
HD Graphics 4600
HD Graphics 4600
HD Graphics 4600
HD Graphics 4600
HD Graphics 4600
HD Graphics 4600
HD Graphics 4600
HD Graphics 530
HD Graphics 530
$270
$285
$320
$330
$360
$460
$525
$132
$140
www.intel.com
www.intel.com
www.intel.com
www.intel.com
www.intel.com
www.intel.com
www.intel.com
www.intel.com
www.intel.com
INTEL
INTEL
INTEL
INTEL
INTEL
INTEL
INTEL
INTEL
INTEL
Core i3-6100
Core i3-6300
Core i3-6320
Core i5-6400
Core i5-6500
Core i5-6600
Core i5-6600K
Core i7-6700
Core i7-6700K
LGA1151
LGA1151
LGA1151
LGA1151
LGA1151
LGA1151
LGA1151
LGA1151
LGA1151
Two
Two
Two
Four
Four
Four
Four
Four
Four
3.7GHz (N/A)
3.8GHz (N/A)
3.9GHz (N/A)
2.7GHz (3.3GHz)
3.2GHz (3.6GHz)
3.3GHz (3.9GHz)
3.5GHz (3.9GHz)
3.4GHz (4GHz)
4GHz (4.2GHz)
X37
X38
X39
X27
X32
x33
x35
x34
x40
100MHz
100MHz
100MHz
100MHz
100MHz
100MHz
100MHz
100MHz
100MHz
Multiplier
External bus
Process
Integrated
graphics
Price
Details
RECOMMENDED
RECOMMENDED
VALUE
VALUE
Rating
Socket
Cores
Frequency (Turbo)
Multiplier
External bus
Process
22nm
22nm
22nm
22nm
22nm
22nm
22nm
22nm
22nm
Level 1 cache
2x 64KB
2x 64KB
2x 64KB
4x 64KB
4x 64KB
4x 64KB
4x 64KB
4x 64KB
4x 64KB
Level 2 cache
2x 256KB
2x 256KB
2x 256KB
4x 256KB
4x 256KB
4x 256KB
4x 256KB
4x 256KB
4x 256KB
Level 3 cache
3MB
4MB
4MB
6MB
6MB
6MB
6MB
8MB
8MB
Supported
memory type
DDR4
DDR4
DDR4
DDR4
DDR4
DDR4
DDR4
DDR4
DDR4
51W
51W
51W
65W
65W
65W
91W
65W
91W
HD Graphics 530
HD Graphics 530
HD Graphics 530
HD Graphics 530
HD Graphics 530
HD Graphics 530
HD Graphics 530
HD Graphics 530
HD Graphics 530
$175
$220
$250
$270
$300
$335
$355
$460
$520
www.intel.com
www.intel.com
www.intel.com
www.intel.com
www.intel.com
www.intel.com
www.intel.com
www.intel.com
www.intel.com
Power rating
(TDP)
Integrated
graphics
Price
Details
AM1
AMC
Socket AM1
A
MDs AM1 processors are designed
for low-cost computers capable
of simple tasks. Prices are low:
the top-end Athlon 5350 costs less than
$75, making it an enticing choice for those
looking to build an everyday desktop PC.
All the chips are incredibly frugal, rated at
just 25W TDP a fraction of the power
required by the high-end AM3+ chip.
AMD has abandoned its usual cooler
mount, creating a new one specically for
AM1. This is largely because the tiny chips
dont need as much cooling, and the new
design means its possible to make smaller
motherboards for smaller computers.
ARCHITECTURE AND
PERFORMANCE
Currently only four processors use the
AM1 socket. All four are part of AMDs
Kabini family and use its Jaguar 28nm
microarchitecture, and all have four cores
apart from the cheapest Sempron 2650,
AMC Socket
AM3+
W
hile most of AMDs range has
built-in graphics chips, the
AM3+ range doesnt have this
capability. Thats no bad thing if youre
willing to buy a graphics card, as you get a
lot of power here for decent money.
ARCHITECTURE AND
PERFORMANCE
AMDs FX-series use one or more modules,
each of which has two cores and 2MB of
level 2 cache. All the FX chips we tested
have 8MB of L3 cache apart from the
FX-4300, which has 4MB. The modular
approach is intended to share cache more
efficiently, providing a larger pool of L2
cache for each pair of cores.
Power requirements vary wildly across
the FX series, from 95W to a staggering
220W for the latest FX-9000 series. In
contrast, FM2+ processors currently topout at 100W TDP.
All FX chips have unlocked multipliers,
so a quick performance upgrade is
potentially just a visit to the BIOS away.
This is not without its risks, though; we
MODEL
FREQUENCY
CORES
RATING
PRICE
BENCHMARK
SCORE
Sempron 2650
1.45GHz
Two
$40
Sempron 3850
1.3GHz
Four
$55
10
Athlon 5150
1.6GHz
Four
$65
14
Athlon 5350
2.05GHz
Four
$75
17
cores. The two Athlon processors

graphics are clocked at 600MHz, while it
runs at 450MHz on the Sempron 3850 and
400MHz on the 2650.
Youll need to keep your expectations
in check. Both Sempron processors failed
even to load Dirt Showdown, while the
Athlon chips were too slow to play it at
our usual 1,280x720 resolution with 4x AA
and High quality settings. The chips also
proved to be a bottleneck with our discrete
graphics card. The integrated graphics
on all chips are good enough for Full HD
video, so these processors can be useful in
a low-power media centre PC.
which has two. Its common with modern

processors for each core to have its own L1
and L2 cache, helping boost performance
by reducing the number of times a CPU
has to access slow system RAM. Shared
L3 cache sits on top of this, for when
different cores have to access the same bit
of memory. With the AM1 chips, theres no
L3 cache and L2 cache is shared.
AMD uses comparatively low clock
speeds for its chips: the fastest model,
the Athlon 5350, has a clock speed of just
2.05GHz. This has a knock-on effect on
performance, and the AM1 range is the
slowest weve ever tested, particularly in
our multitasking benchmarks. The chips
cope well with simple, everyday tasks,
but you wouldnt want to try anything too
complicated with them.
VERDICT
Its hard to recommend any of the
processors here. They may be cheap,
but theyre very slow and feel like a false
economy. Unless you want to build a very
low-powered and quiet computer, the
FM2+ range is a much better choice.
ONBOARD GRAPHICS
AMD has integrated Radeon R3 graphics
into the chips, which has 128 graphics
AM3+
FREQUENCY
(TURBO)
CORES
FX-6300
3.5GHz (4.1GHz)
Six
$160
73
FX-6350
3.9GHz (4.2GHz)
Six
$210
75
FX-8320
3.5GHz (4GHz)
Eight
$220
85
FX-8320E
3.2GHz (4GHz)
Eight
$195
83
FX-8350
4GHz (4.2GHz)
Eight
$260
98
MODEL
RATING
PRICE
BENCHMARK
SCORE
FX-8370
4GHz (4.3GHz)
Eight
$300
100
FX-9370
4.4GHz (4.7GHz)
Eight
$335
109
FX-9590
4.7GHz (5GHz)
Eight
$360
117
recommend boosting the speed in small

increments to ensure stability.
The FX series goes up to eight cores.
You can identify how many cores an AM3+
chip has by the number in its name: the
FX-4300 is quad-core, FX-6350 is sixcore and FX-8350 is eight-core. The only
outliers are the newly released eight-core
FX-9370 and FX-9590.
Windows applications increasingly
take advantage of more than four cores,
and our tough 4K benchmarks tax every
core to its limit. If youre most interested
in application performance, AM3+
processors provide far better performance
than FM2/FM2+ CPUs.
Even the cheapest FX-6300 managed a
score of 73 in our benchmarks, faster than
even the quickest FM2+ socket processor.
The number of cores makes a difference,

with the eight-core processors achieving
by far the highest scores. Finally, models
that have an E in the name are low-power
models, although they still have a 95W
TDP rating, so arent that efficient.
VERDICT
If youre prepared to add a graphics
card, the AM3+ range gives you great
performance for the money. The FX-9370
and FX-9590, unsurprisingly, provide the
best performance. The eight-core FX9590 gives you the best balance between
performance and price. Further down the
scale, the FX-8350 is only a little slower,
but this eight-core model is still quick and
excellent value. If you want a CPU for less
than $160, its hard to beat the FX-6300.
GROUP TEST COMPONENTS
FM2+
AMC
Socket
FM2+
A
MDs A-series processors are

designed to offer all-round
performance, with a high-quality
CPU and GPU bundled together in one
package. These processors consist of
FM2+ models, with the older FM2 line
discontinued. Theyre not as quick as the
FX range in 2D tasks, but with high-quality
graphics, theyre brilliant all-rounders
if you dont want to buy a dedicated
graphics card. These chips are also
competitively priced, letting you build a
powerful system on a tight budget.
ARCHITECTURE AND
PERFORMANCE
The latest generation of FM2+ processors,
codenamed Kaveri, use AMDs
Steamroller modules for the CPU and
GCN 1.0 (Graphics Core Next) for the GPU.
The most recent Kaveri processors weve
MODEL
FREQUENCY
(TURBO)
CORES
GRAPHICS
SPEED
GRAPHICS
CORES
A6-7400K
3.5GHz (3.9GHz)
Two
756MHz
A8-7600
3.1GHz (3.8GHz)
Four
A8-7670K
3.6GHz (3.9GHz)
Four
A10-7700K
3.4GHz (3.8GHz)
A10-7800
3.5GHz (3.9GHz)
A10-7850K
3.7GHz (4GHz)
Four
720MHz
512
$180
57
A10-7870K
3.9GHz (4.1GHz)
Four
866MHz
512
$200
60
PRICE
BENCHMARK
SCORE
256
$95
27
720MHz
384
$120
50
757MHz
384
$165
51
Four
720MHz
384
$175
54
Four
720MHz
512
$175
54
reviewed here only work with an FM2+

motherboard.
Kaveri was preceded by Richland
and Trinity-generation processors,
both of which will work with either FM2
or FM2+ motherboards thanks to the
backwards-compatible nature of FM2+
motherboards. However, these models
arent easily available and should be
avoided. Weve listed only full FM2+
processors in our table.
AMD has managed to shrink down its
manufacturing process for the latest
generation Kaveri processors to 28nm,
down from 32nm in previous generations.
This has helped keep the Thermal Design
Power (TDP) rating to just 95W even on
the quickest processors, meaning that
they use less power and run cooler.
You cant tell from the model name
how many cores a processor has, so youll
DIRT SHOWDOWN 1,280X720, HIGH DETAIL, 4X AA
A10-7870K
54.5
A10-7850K
52
A8-7700K
51.2
A10-7800
50.3
A10-7700K
49
A8-7600
48.7
A6-7400K
18
Athlon 5150
17
Sempron 3850
0Fail
Sempron 2650
0Fail
10
20
30
need to check our table on page 96 for

the full details. AMDs FM2+ chips are all
either dual- or quad-core models, though.
Pairs of cores are installed as modules,
sharing level 2 cache to speed up access
to slow system memory, although the
chips have no level 3 cache shared
between all cores.
As well as the standard clock speed,
all these chips use AMDs Turbo Core
technology to increase the clock speed
automatically when theres enough
thermal overhead. This helps boost
performance. Finally, look out for the
models with a K suffix, as these have
unlocked multipliers, so you can easily
overclock them.
ONBOARD GRAPHICS
A-series processors include AMDs
integrated graphics. On these chips, the
onboard graphics are often fast enough
to play modern games without the need
for a discrete graphics card. The quality
of the graphics chip depends on the
processor.
With FX chips AMDs naming
convention tells you how many cores
a chip has; with FM2+, theres no such
luxury and the model name refers to
how many graphics cores there are. For
example, the A6 range has 256 cores.
Within each model range, the graphics
core can run at different speeds, so its
important to check the specs before you
buy. Our graph on the left shows how
well each chip performed in our graphics
benchmarks.
VERDICT
37.3
Athlon 5350
RATING
40
50
60
While not as quick as FX processors in 2D

tasks, the integrated graphics of FM2+
processors let you build a powerful allin-one computer that can cope will with
light gaming.
If you want to build a cheap yet capable
PC, the A6-7400K is an excellent choice
and wins a Value award. For a great
balance between desktop and graphics
performance, the A10-7700K is a brilliant
all-rounder, and also wins a Value award.
AMD benchmarks
AM3+
FM2+
AM1
2D Performance
Video
Multitasking
4F'#'
133
4F'!%
Overall
4F'#'
126
4F'!%
4F&!%
116
4F&!#
4F&!#
114
4F&!
4F&!
90
4F&! 3
4F&! 3
88
4F$!#
4F$!#
82
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SOCKET AM1
SOCKET AM3+
AMD
AMD
AMD
AMD
AMD
AMD
Sempron 2650
Sempron 3850
Athlon 5150
Athlon 5350
FX-6300
FX-6350
Rating
+++
+++
+++
+++
+++++
+++
Socket
AM1
AM1
AM1
AM1
AM3+
AM3+
Cores
Frequency (Turbo)
Multiplier
External bus
Process
Level 1 cache
Two
Four
Four
Four
Six
Six
1.45GHz (N/A)
1.3GHz (N/A)
1.6GHz (N/A)
2.05GHz (N/A)
3.5GHz (4.1GHz)
3.9GHz (4.2GHz)
x14.5
x13
x16
x20.5
17.5x
x19.5
100MHz
100MHz
100MHz
100MHz
200MHz
200MHz
28nm
28nm
28nm
28nm
32nm
32nm
4x 32KB
4x 32KB
4x 32KB
4x 32KB
3x 64KB
3x 64KB
Level 2 cache
2MB
2MB
2MB
2MB
3x 2MB
3x 2MB
Level 3 cache
None
None
None
None
8MB
8MB
Supported memory
type
DDR3
DDR3
DDR3
DDR3
DDR3
DDR3
Power rating (TDP)
25W
25W
25W
25W
95W
125W
Integrated graphics
AMD Radeon R3
AMD Radeon R3
AMD Radeon R3
AMD Radeon R3
None
None
Price
Details
$40
$55
$65
$75
$160
$210
www.amd.com
www.amd.com
www.amd.com
www.amd.com
www.amd.com
www.amd.com
AMD
AMD
AMD
AMD
AMD
AMD
FX-9590
BEST BUY
BEST BUY
FX-8320
FX-8320E
FX-8350
FX-8370
FX-9370
Rating
++++
++++
+++++
+++
++++
+++++
Socket
AM3+
AM3+
AM3+
AM3+
AM3+
AM3+
Cores
Frequency (Turbo)
Multiplier
External bus
Process
Level 1 cache
Eight
Eight
Eight
Eight
Eight
Eight
3.5GHz (4GHz)
3.2GHz (4GHz)
4GHz (4.2GHz)
4GHz (4.3GHz)
4.4GHz (4.7GHz)
4.7GHz (5GHz)
x17.5
x16
x20
x20
x22
x23.5
200MHz
200MHz
200MHz
200MHz
200MHz
200MHz
32nm
32nm
32nm
32nm
32nm
32nm
4x 64KB
4x 64KB
4x 64KB
4x 64KB
4x 64KB
4x 64KB
Level 2 cache
4x 2MB
4x 2MB
4x 2MB
4x 2MB
4x 2MB
4x 2MB
Level 3 cache
8MB
8MB
8MB
8MB
8MB
8MB
DDR3
DDR3
DDR3
DDR3
DDR3
DDR3
Supported memory
type
Power rating (TDP)
125W
95W
125W
95W
220W
220W
Integrated graphics
None
None
None
None
None
None
Price
Details
$220
$195
$260
$300
$335
$360
www.amd.com
www.amd.com
www.amd.com
www.amd.com
www.amd.com
www.amd.com
SOCKET FM2+
BEST BUY
BEST BUY
AMD
AMD
AMD
AMD
AMD
AMD
A6-7400K
A8-7600
A8-7670K
A10-7700K
A10-7800
A10-7850K
A10-7870K
Rating
+++++
++++
++++
+++++
+++
+++
+++
Socket
FM2+
FM2+
FM2+
FM2+
FM2+
FM2+
FM2+
Cores
Two
Four
Four
Four
Four
Four
Four
3.5GHz (3.9GHz)
3.1GHz (3.8GHz)
3.6GHz (3.9GHz)
3.4GHz (3.8GHz)
3.5GHz (3.9GHz)
3.7GHz (4GHz)
3.9GHz (4.1GHz)
x35
x31
x36
x34
x35
x37
x37
100MHz
100MHz
100MHz
100MHz
100MHz
100MHz
100MHz
Process
28nm
28nm
28nm
28nm
28nm
28nm
28nm
Level 1 cache
128KB
256KB
256KB
256KB
256KB
256KB
256KB
Level 2 cache
2x 512KB
2x 2MB
2x 2MB
2x 2MB
2x 2MB
2x 2MB
2x 2MB
Level 3 cache
None
None
None
None
None
None
None
Supported memory
type
DDR3
DDR3
DDR3
DDR3
DDR3
DDR3
DDR3
Power rating (TDP)
65W
65W
95W
95W
65W
95W
95W
Integrated graphics
AMD Radeon R5
AMD Radeon R7
AMD Radeon R7
AMD Radeon R7
AMD Radeon R7
AMD Radeon R7
AMD Radeon R7
$95
$120
$165
$175
$175
$180
$200
www.amd.com
www.amd.com
www.amd.com
www.amd.com
www.amd.com
www.amd.com
www.amd.com
Frequency (Turbo)
Multiplier
External bus
Price
Details
AMD
GROUP TEST COMPONENTS
CASE STUDIES PC cases

THERES NO POINT GOING TO ALL THE EFFORT OF BUILDING YOUR OWN PC IF YOU DONT
MAKE IT LOOK NICE, TOO. THESE CASES WILL GIVE YOU LOOKS AND PERFORMANCE
our PCs case is something youre

going to see all the time, so its
important to make the right
decision. The case also denes the
type of motherboard you can t, how
big a graphics card you can buy and the
number of peripherals you can connect.
Build quality is also extremely important,
as a well-made case will be quieter and
keep your PC cooler.
This month weve looked at lots of
cases, but rather than bring you reviews
of the poor ones, weve ditched them.
Whats left are cases that are well made
and durable, even the budget ones. With
our help, youll be able to select a case
that matches your needs and budget.
LOOKING GOOD
Youre going to be looking at your pc case
every day, so youll want to choose one
thats easy on the eye and to your own
taste. Cases can come in all manner of

shapes and sizes, which can mean the
difference between the nished PC tting
inside a living room AV cabinet, on top of
your desk or being so big it will need to sit
on the oor.
Cases come in a variety of colours
and materials as well as designs, and
sometimes a particular model will have
numerous colour options, making it easier
to nd one to your liking.
A PC is a big item, so it makes
sense to have one you like the look
of. Build materials and nish are also
important. Some cheaper cases arent
always well nished inside, meaning
edges arent rounded off and are
potentially sharp, making working inside
them uncomfortable. A good-quality PC
case will be well nished, easy to work in,
use quality materials such as steel rather
than plastic, and also look great.
SIZE MATTERS
The actual physical size of a case
isnt only important in terms of where
you can put it, but it also affects
what components you can t inside.
Motherboards come in different sizes and
weve reviewed cases that support the
standard ATX and the smaller microATX
motherboard sizes, as well as more
specialist sizes such as Mini-ITX. All
ATX cases will also take microATX and
Mini-ITX boards, but microATX cases
can only t microATX motherboards or
smaller. All cases have multiple mounting
points for all kinds of different sizes of
motherboard, but you should always
check the specications before you buy.
The internal size of a case will also
limit what graphics card or processor
cooler you can install. In our reviews we
note how much clearance you have for
a graphics card, as well as how much
CASE STUDIES PC cases

THERES NO POINT GOING TO ALL THE EFFORT OF BUILDING YOUR OWN PC IF YOU DONT
MAKE IT LOOK NICE, TOO. THESE CASES WILL GIVE YOU LOOKS AND PERFORMANCE
our PCs case is something youre

going to see all the time, so its
important to make the right
decision. The case also denes the
type of motherboard you can t, how
big a graphics card you can buy and the
number of peripherals you can connect.
Build quality is also extremely important,
as a well-made case will be quieter and
keep your PC cooler.
This month weve looked at lots of
cases, but rather than bring you reviews
of the poor ones, weve ditched them.
Whats left are cases that are well made
and durable, even the budget ones. With
our help, youll be able to select a case
that matches your needs and budget.
LOOKING GOOD
Youre going to be looking at your pc case
every day, so youll want to choose one
thats easy on the eye and to your own
taste. Cases can come in all manner of

shapes and sizes, which can mean the
difference between the nished PC tting
inside a living room AV cabinet, on top of
your desk or being so big it will need to sit
on the oor.
Cases come in a variety of colours
and materials as well as designs, and
sometimes a particular model will have
numerous colour options, making it easier
to nd one to your liking.
A PC is a big item, so it makes
sense to have one you like the look
of. Build materials and nish are also
important. Some cheaper cases arent
always well nished inside, meaning
edges arent rounded off and are
potentially sharp, making working inside
them uncomfortable. A good-quality PC
case will be well nished, easy to work in,
use quality materials such as steel rather
than plastic, and also look great.
SIZE MATTERS
The actual physical size of a case
isnt only important in terms of where
you can put it, but it also affects
what components you can t inside.
Motherboards come in different sizes and
weve reviewed cases that support the
standard ATX and the smaller microATX
motherboard sizes, as well as more
specialist sizes such as Mini-ITX. All
ATX cases will also take microATX and
Mini-ITX boards, but microATX cases
can only t microATX motherboards or
smaller. All cases have multiple mounting
points for all kinds of different sizes of
motherboard, but you should always
check the specications before you buy.
The internal size of a case will also
limit what graphics card or processor
cooler you can install. In our reviews we
note how much clearance you have for
a graphics card, as well as how much
VALUE
COOLER MASTER
CORSAIR
CORSAIR
Cosmos SE
Graphite 380T
Carbide Series Air 240
++++
++++
+++++
USB2 ports
USB3 ports
ATX
Mini-ITX
MicroATX
ATX, microATX, Mini-ITX
Mini-ITX
MicroATX, Mini-ITX
3x 120/140mm, 4x 120mm
2x 120mm, 1x 140/200mm
2x 80mm, 7x120mm
1x 140mm, 3x 120mm
1x 140mm, 1x 120mm
3x120mm
HARDWARE
Case type
Motherboard
compatibility
Fan mounts
Supplied fans
Max 2in drive bays
18
Max 3in drive bays
Max 5in drive bays
276mm with HDD bracket, 395mm without
290mm
290mm
569x264x524mm
356x292x393mm
320x260x397mm
10.8kg
5.5kg
5.6kg
Max graphics card length

Dimensions
Weight
BUYING INFORMATION
Price
Warranty
Details
Verdict
$170
$160
$128
Two years RTB
Two years RTB
Two years RTB
www.coolermaster.com
www.corsair.com
www.corsair.com
If youre building a beast of a computer, this

is the case for you. Its huge, but that means
theres plenty of room inside for everything
that you could ever possibly want to t.
This mini and portable case is perfect if

youre planning on building a Mini-ITX PC.
Theres not a lot of room inside, but the PC
will look fantastic when youve nished
building it.
This microATX case is extremely well made.

Its compact, but its cuboid design means
theres plenty of room inside for all your
components. Its a great mid-range case
and wins a Value award.
space is left above the processor for a

cooler. Some graphics cards are over
300mm long and some coolers are more
than 160mm high, so if youre planning to
t some seriously high-specication kit,
make sure your case will be big enough.
A large, spacious interior will also be
better for airow, helping to keep your
components cool and running efficiently.
USB drive. We mention how many

external drive bays each case has and
how they are congured in the reviews
and in the table above.
Some drive bays can also be removed
if you dont need them, freeing up space
for bigger graphics cards and improving
airow. Again, the table above explains
it all.
DRIVING FORCE
COOL BREEZE
Optical disc drives are increasingly less

important in computing, so many PC
cases no longer have external 5in drive
bays. If youre planning on installing
software from disc or watching DVDs or
Blu-rays on your system, make sure you
buy a case with external drive bays so
you dont have to rely on a messy external
All the components you t inside your

system will generate heat, whether its
the processor, motherboard, graphics
card or hard disks. Its dangerous for
the internal temperature in your case to
reach high levels, as this can damage the
sensitive components inside or cause
them to throttle performance in order to
keep temperatures under control. This is

why its important to consider how well a
case is designed for cooling.
Typically a case comes with at least
two fans: one installed in the front of the
case as an air intake, and another in the
rear as an exhaust. This way fresh air is
drawn into the system and across your
components, removing the built-up heat
and expelling it away through the back of
the case.
Most cases have mounting points for
additional fans if you need extra cooling,
and many also support radiators for veryhigh-performance liquid cooling systems.
The size of fan is also important. A
large 200mm fan will be able to move
more air while spinning more slowly than
a small 80mm fan. This means it can do
RECOMMENDED
RECOMMENDED
NZXT
NZXT
SILVERSTONE
Source 340
Phantom 530
Quiet Precision PS11
++++
++++
+++++
ATX
ATX
ATX
ATX, microATX
3x 120/140mm, 1x 120mm
1x 200mm, 2x 140mm, 2x 120mm, 2x 200/140mm
2x 120mm, 2x 120/140mm
2x 120mm
1x 140mm, 1x 140mm
1x 120mm
334mm
310mm with HDD bracket, 444mm without
400mm
445x200x432mm
572x235x543
482x215x427mm
7.1kg
10.5kg
4.8kg
$100
$180
$65
Two years RTB
Two years RTB
One year RTB
www.nzxt.com
www.nzxt.com
www.silverstonetek.com
This case is a great all-rounder: its well made, it has a

decent amount of room inside and it looks neat, too. Its
problem is that you can get cases that are just as well
made for less, or better-looking ones for a little more.
If you want a case to show off your powerful new

computer, the Phantom 530 strikes the right
balance. Its neat, is available in white, black or red,
and the side window lets you look in at your tidy
build. Its a great mid- to high-end option.
Building a budget computer? This is the perfect case for

you. Although its cheap, its surprisingly well made and
theres plenty of room inside for all your components.
The only real downside is that it looks a little plain.
the same cooling job while making much

less noise.
ROUTE MASTER
The fans alone cant deal with all the
build-up of heat if your systems airow
is poor. This is why proper cable routing
is an important part of a system build.
Without adequate routing, airow can
be blocked by the various cables strewn
around your case, meaning the hot air
cant be moved efficiently out of the
system. This also means fans have to
work harder and spin faster, creating yet
more noise.
Many cases come with large viewing
windows, so you can see the components
inside. However, theres nothing worse
than a large window showing off a rats
nest of cabling. A good case will often

route the cables out of the way behind
the motherboard and provide cable ties
and ready-cut holes to help you create a
neat and attractive build. All the models
weve featured this month have efficient
cable routing.
PORT AUTHORITY
Having front- or top-mounted ports for
connecting your peripherals, such as USB
ash drives, is far more convenient than
having to reach round and fumble behind
your system. Most cases have front USB
ports, and all the cases in this months
issue have faster USB3 sockets. These
have to be connected to the relevant
headers on your motherboard, so youll
need to make sure your board has the
necessary headers available. Every case

here also has a front- or top-mounted
headphone and microphone jack for
connecting audio peripherals.
POWER PLAY
None of the cases weve reviewed
comes with a power supply unit (PSU).
This is arguably a good thing, as in our
experience many cheap bundled PSUs
have poor efficiency and cant deliver
their rated wattage.
Its important to pick a PSU with
adequate power for your components;
a modular PSU, where unneeded cables
can be detached, is also a good idea for
efficient airow and general neatness,
plus is nicer to build with. For our
recommended PSUs, see page 78.
ABOVE BOARD
Motherboards
CHOOSING THE RIGHT MOTHERBOARD CAN BE HARD, BUTOUR COMPLETE
GUIDE WILL HELP YOU MAKE THERIGHT CHOICE FOR ANY TYPE OF SYSTEM
nce youve chosen the type

of processor you want, the
next big choice to make is the
motherboard in which to install it. Get the
choice right and youll be able to connect
all the devices you want for years
to come; get it wrong and youll have a
sub-standard build. Fortunately, were
here to help with our complete buying
guide and our top recommendations.
Again, were doing things a bit
differently this year. The range of
processors available, and the different
types of boards they require, makes
it hard to t all the reviews into this
magazine. Instead, weve tested new
models and been through our archive of
previously reviewed products to nd the
top choices at a range of different price
points. This year, were not printing any of
the benchmark scores: all motherboards
of a set type use the same chipsets, so
performance only varies by a percentage
point or two: in other words, its the
processor that makes the difference, not
the motherboard.
Whats really important is making
sure that your chosen model has all the

features youll need. Our tables on pages
66-67 list everything, so you can make
the right decision. Heres what else to
look out for.
MEMORY TEST
DDR3 has been the standard type of
memory used by all processors for some
time, and thats still largely true today.
However, if youre planning on using one
of the latest Intel Skylake processors in
your system, youll need to install DDR4
memory instead.
In all cases, its important to check that
your motherboard has support for the
maximum amount of RAM that you want
to install. A board with four RAM slots
will give you more exibility in terms of
RAM conguration and capacity than a
board with just two slots. In addition, if
you opt for a four-slot board now, youll
most likely have room for expansion in
the future, too.
Most motherboards support dualchannel memory, where you eke a little
more speed out of your RAM when you
use two or four sticks of memory. Youll

need to consult your motherboards
manual to ensure that youre using the
right slots.
Finally, check the maximum speed of
RAM that your motherboard supports.
By default, your RAM will run at a lower
speed until you go into the BIOS and
enable either XMP (eXtreme Memory
Prole, for Intel boards) or AMP (AMD
Memory Prole).
CLOCKING ON
Most motherboards let you adjust
the clock speeds and voltages of the
CPU and RAM to push them further.
This should be done with caution, as
pushing components too far can cause
damage. While we havent gone into
overclocking in detail here, our tables
state if overclocking is possible with a
motherboard.
SIZE MATTERS
All the boards here t into two form
factors: ATX and microATX. ATX boards
are larger, giving you more expansion
NEED TO KNOW INTEL PROCESSORS

SOCKETS
CHIPSETS
Intels current sockets are LGA1150 (for

Haswell and Devils Canyon chips) and
LGA1151 (Skylake). You need to match
the processor you buy with the type of
motherboard you buy, as the two sockets
arent compatible with each other.
To make things more complicated, Intels
product ranges are all called Celeron, Pentium,
Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7, regardless of
the socket used. If in doubt, you can use ark.
intel.com to look up the exact specications
of your processor to make sure that youre
buying the right type of motherboard.
There are other caveats with Intel CPUs.

Skylake requires any current LGA1151
motherboard using the Z170 chipset, with
H170 motherboards coming soon. LGA1150
processors are a little more complicated. For
Devils Canyon, you generally need a board
with an H97 or Z97 chipset; older LGA1150
boards may not work, so check the specs
carefully. With Haswell chips you can use
H97 and Z97, but can also buy older Z87 and
H81 motherboards as well. These can be a
bit cheaper. All the LGA1150 motherboards
weve listed here support all the processors
on pages 54-55.
NEED TO KNOW AMD PROCESSORS
slots and a bit more room to work

on; microATX boards are smaller and
generally a little cheaper. Make sure you
buy a board that matches your case: an
ATX motherboard needs an ATX case,
as it will not t in a microATX case; a
microATX motherboard will t into both
case sizes.
STORAGE
All your storage, from hard disks and
SSDs to optical drives, needs to be
connected to the motherboard via SATA
cables. Look for SATA3 ports (sometimes
called SATA 6GB/s), as these let you get
the most from an SSD.
Some motherboards have an M.2 port,
which lets you plug a small M.2 SSD
directly into the motherboard. As well
as saving space, M.2 is often faster than
SATA. Some boards have SATA Express
ports for new PCI-Express-based SSDs.
All these may be useful if youre building a
super-fast top-of-the-range system, but
the performance of SATA3 with a regular
SSD is good enough for most people.
Mechanical hard disks and optical
SOCKETS
CHIPSETS
Of the AMD processors that we reviewed,

there are three types of socket, each
incompatible with the others. They are AM3+,
FM2+ and AM1. Fortunately, compatibility is
easy to work out.
With an FM2+ motherboard, you can t any
existing FM2+ processor, but you can also t
older FM2 processors if you have one of those.
In a similar way, AM3+ motherboards will
take AM3+ FX processors, but you can also t
an older AM3 processor, should you have one
you want to use.
Finally, AM1 is very simple as theres just
the one set of processors to choose from. Its
advantage is that the motherboards and
processors are extremely cheap.
FM2+ has a range of chipsets available for it,

starting with the cheapest A58 boards (AMD
recommends A4 and A6 processors are used
with this); moving up, theres the A68H (A4
and A6 recommended); above this sits the
A78 (A6 and A8) and the A88X (A8 and A10).
The top-end A88X isnt that expensive, so
check prices before you buy.
AM3+ chips have four 9-series chipsets
available: 970, 980G, 990X and 990FX. We
think 970 boards strike the best balance
between value and performance.
drives dont benet from the faster SATA

standard, so you can connect them to
older SATA2 ports, if available (they will
also work with SATA3 if thats all thats
available).
outputs youll need. Its common to nd a

motherboard that has HDMI, DVI and VGA
outputs; HDMI can be converted to DVI
(and vice versa) using cheap adaptors if
you want to run multiple monitors.
EXPRESS YOURSELF
SOUNDING OFF
PCI Express slots are the most common

for expansion. The larger x16 slots are
for graphics cards. Confusingly, not all
x16 slots run at x16 speeds; its common
for one to run at x4 or x8 speed. Always
use the fastest-rated slot for your main
graphics card; the slower slots are for
running multiple graphics cards via Nvidia
SLI or AMD CrossFire.
Youll also nd x1 slots and, potentially,
some x4 slots for other expansion cards,
such as a Wi-Fi card. Smaller cards can
be plugged into bigger slots if youre
struggling for room. Finally, if you want
to run some legacy cards, look out for
included PCI slots.
All motherboards have audio outputs

through 3.5mm jacks, optical audio (S/
PDIF) or HDMI. If your board has only
three 3.5mm jacks, you can output to 5.1
surround sound systems, but you cant
connect an input, such as a microphone,
at the same time. The alternative is a
motherboard with six 3.5mm jacks, or you
can use a digital S/PDIF or HDMI output.
GRAPHICS OUTPUTS
If your CPU has integrated graphics, look
for a motherboard that has the graphics
PLUG AND PLAY

All motherboards have USB connectors
on the back and have headers to connect
the extra ports on your case. USB3 ports
are faster, but USB2 ports are ne for
simple devices, such as keyboards and
mice. We prefer having lots of USB3
headers, as it makes it easier to connect
up USB3 ports at the front of your case
for fast external storage.
INTEL MOTHERBOARDS
LGA1151
VALUE
RECOMMENDED
ASROCK
ASUS
MSI
Fatal1ty Z170 Gaming K4
Z170-A
Z170A Gaming M5
++++
+++++
++++
LGA1151
LGA1151
LGA1151
Form factor
ATX
ATX
ATX
Chipset
Z170
Z170
Z170
DDR4 (3,866MHz)
DDR4 (3,400MHz)
DDR4 (3,600MHz)
64GB
64GB
64GB
1x 24-pin ATX, 1x 8-pin 12V
2x PCI-E x16 (one at x16 speed, one at x4

speed), 3x PCI-E x1
2x PCI-E x16 (x16 speed or dual x8), 1x PCI-E

x16 (x4 speed), 3x PCI-E x1, 1x PCI
2x PCI-E x16 (x16 speed or dual x8), 1x

PCI-E x16 (x4 speed), 4x PCI-E x1
HARDWARE
Processor socket
Supported memory type

Memory slots
Maximum memory
Motherboard power
connectors
PCI-E slots
Motherboard fan
headers
SATA ports
6x SATA3, 2x SATA Express, 1x M.2
Wired network ports
1x Gigabit
1x Gigabit
1x Gigabit
Motherboard sound
(ports)
Realtek HD Audio (5x 3.5mm analogue,

optical S/PDIF)

optical S/PDIF)

optical S/PDIF)
2x USB2, 5x USB3, 1x USB3 Type-C
2x USB2, 4x USB3
2x USB2, 6x USB3
2x USB2, 1x USB3
2x USB2, 2x USB3
2x USB2, 1x USB3
DVI, HDMI
DVI, VGA, HDMI, DisplayPort
DVI, HDMI
1x PS/2
1x PS/2
1x PS/2
$240
$217
$299
One year RTB
One year RTB
One year RTB
www.asrock.com
www.asus.com
www.msi.com
There arent really any budget Skylake

motherboards, but this one is as close
as you can get. Plenty of expansion
options and loads of USB ports are
great, but the second PCI-E x16 slot runs
at only x4 speed.
This motherboard has practically

everything, including lots of
expansion options, a legacy PCI slot
(which is a rarity) and a total of six
USB3 ports. For most people building
a Skylake PC, this is the board to buy.
This motherboard is a great choice

for anyone who wants to use the
latest technology: two M.2 slots and
two SATA Express slots are great for
future storage needs. However, you
pay a chunk more for the privilege
and you can get a similar range of
features for less.
USB ports
USB headers
Video outputs
Other ports
BUYING INFORMATION
Price
Warranty
Details
VERDICT
LGA1150
RECOMMENDED
VALUE
ASROCK
ASROCK
MSI
Z97 Extreme6
H97M Pro4
H81M-E34
+++++
+++++
++++
LGA1150
LGA1150
LGA1150
ATX
MicroATX
MicroATX
Z97
H97
H81 Express
DDR3 (3,200MHz OC)
DDR3 (1,600MHz)
DDR3 (1,600MHz)
32GB
32GB
16GB
2x PCI-E x16, 1x PCI-E x16 (x4 speed), 2x PCI-E x1
2x PCI-E x16 (one runs at x4 speed), 2x PCI
1x PCI-E x16, 2x PCI-E x1
10x SATA3 (two operate as SATA Express), 1x M.2
6x SATA3
2x SATA3, 2x SATA2
2x Gigabit
1x Gigabit
1x Gigabit
Realtek HD Audio (6x 3.5mm analogue, optical

S/PDIF)
Realtek HD Audio (5x 3.5mm analogue)
6x USB3
2x USB2, 4x USB3
2x USB2, 4x USB3
4x USB2, 4x USB3
2x USB2, 1x USB3
1x USB2, 2x USB3
DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort
DVI, VGA, HDMI
DVI, VGA, HDMI
1x PS/2
1x PS/2
None
$240
$97
$85
One year RTB
One year RTB
One year RTB
www.asrock.com
www.asrock.com
www.msi.com
If you want to build a powerful LGA1150 system,

this is the motherboard for you. Its got lots
of expansion options and an M.2 interface for
super-fast SSD storage. The downside is that
you pay a hefty premium for these features; if
you dont need them, you can save around 60
on a cheaper board.
For a mid-range LGA1150 build, this

motherboard is hard to beat. Its got all the
sockets and ports you could need and supports
the full range of Haswell and Devils Canyon
processors. The second PCI-E x16 slot runs at
only x4 speed, but is useful for other expansion
cards, rather than a second graphics card.
This motherboard is a little light on expansion

and features, but it supports all LGA1150
processors, including Devils Canyon models. If
you want a small and cheap motherboard for a
new PC, then its a great buy.
AMD MOTHERBOARDS
AM1
FM2+
RECOMMENDED
RECOMMENDED
MSI
GIGABYTE
GIGABYTE
AM1M
GA-F2A68HM-HD2
GA-F2A88XN-WIFI
++++
++++
++++
AM1
FM2+
FM2+
MicroATX
MicroATX
Mini-ITX
Hardware
Processor socket
Form factor
Chipset
Supported memory type
Memory slots
Maximum memory
Motherboard power
AM1
A68H
A88X
DDR3 (1,600MHz)
DDR3 (2,133MHz)
DDR3 (2,133MHz)
32GB
64GB
64GB
1x PCI-E x16, 1x PCI-E x1
1x PCI-E x16, 1x PCI-E x1, 1x PCI
1x PCI-E x16
connectors
PCI-E slots
Motherboard fan headers
SATA ports
2x SATA3
4x SATA3
4x SATA3
Wired network ports
1x Gigabit
1x Gigabit
1x Gigabit
Motherboard sound
(ports)

optical S/PDIF)
USB ports
4x USB2, 2x USB3
USB headers
4x USB2, 2x USB3
4x USB2
2x USB2, 2x USB3
DVI, VGA, HDMI
DVI, VGA, HDMI
DVI, 2x HDMI
2x PS/2
1x PS/2
Mini PCI-E (801.11ac Wi-Fi)
Video outputs
Other ports
4x USB2, 2x USB3
4x USB2, 2x USB3
Buying information
Price including VAT
$65
$80
$155
Warranty
One year RTB
One year RTB
One year RTB
Details
www.msi.com
www.gigabyte.com
www.gigabyte.com
AM1 hasnt taken over the world and

there arent a lot of motherboards, but
this MSI model is comparatively cheap
and has all the expansion options you
need for a good budget computer.
If youre looking to build a budget

FM2+ computer, this is the
motherboard to buy. Its excellent
value and has lots of expansion
options. The downside is that theres
no USB3 header.
If you want to build a very small PC,

this Mini-ITX board could be just
what youre looking for. Its rather
compact, but there are plenty of
USB ports and headers, and you get
built-in Wi-Fi, too.
Verdict
AM3+
VALUE
VALUE
ASUS
MSI
GIGABYTE
A88XM-Plus
970A-G43
GA-990FXA-UD3
+++++
+++++
++++
FM2+
AM3+
AM3+
MicroATX
ATX
ATX
A88X
970
990FX
DDR3 (2,133MHz)
DDR3 (2,133MHz)
DDR3 (2,133MHz)
64GB
32GB
32GB
2x PCI-E x16 (one runs at x4), 1x PCI- x1, 1x PCI
2x PCI-E x16 (one runs at x4), 2x PCI-E x1, 2x PCI
4x PCI-E x16 (two at x16, two at x4), 2x PCI-E x1, 1x PCI
8x SATA3
6x SATA3
6x SATA3
1x Gigabit
1x Gigabit
1x Gigabit
Realtek HD Audio (6x 3.5mm analogue, optical
Realtek HD Audio (6x 3.5mm analogue, optical S/PDIF)
S/PDIF)
4x USB2, 2x USB3
8x USB2, 2x USB3
8x USB2, 2x USB3
6x USB2, 2x USB3
6x USB2, 2x USB3
6x USB2, 2x USB3
DVI, VGA, HDMI
None
None
2x PS/2
1x PS/2
1x PS/2
$110
$120
$215
One year RTB
One year RTB
One year RTB
www.asus.com
www.msi.com
www.gigabyte.com
For most people building with FM2+, this is the

motherboard to buy. Its well-specied, has
plenty of expansion options and is excellent
value. A slower second PCI-E x16 slot may put off
gamers.
If youre looking for value in your AM3+ build,

look no further. With lots of expansion options
and plenty of USB ports, this motherboard
ticks all of the right boxes. Look out for the
second PCI-E x16 slot, which runs at only x4
speed, though.
If you want a powerful AM3+ system, this

is the right motherboard for you. Its got lots of
expansion slots, including two full-speed PCI-E
x16 slots. The big downside is the price, with nongamers able to buy a motherboard for a lot less.
CONTAINS GRAPHIC
SCENES Graphics cards
IF YOU WANT TO TURN YOUR NEW COMPUTER INTO A POWERFUL GAMES
MACHINE, YOULL NEED A GRAPHICS CARD THATS CAPABLE OF DISPLAYING
THE LATEST TITLES IN THEIR FULL GLORY. HERES WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR
lthough most processors now

have graphic chips built in,
the simple fact is that theyre
not good enough to cope with todays
graphically intense games: theyre
designed for light gaming and for powering
video and 2D displays. If you want more
graphical prowess from your PC, youll
need a dedicated graphics card.
The big issue is that there are lots of
different models to choose from, with
manufacturers seemingly lling in every
price point gap. It really isnt helpful and
makes choosing the right model very
difficult. This month, weve benchmarked
every major graphics chip to work out the
best high-end, mid-range and entry-level
cards. Over the page, you can see our
test results and our in-depth table with
recommendations, so you know which
card to buy for your budget and needs.

Before we dive into that, though, heres
everything that you need to know.
CARDS ON THE TABLE

Although graphics cards are
manufactured by third-party vendors,
such as Sapphire and Asus, the actual
graphics chips are made by Nvidia and
AMD. Each third-party manufacturer is
free to make some adjustments to the
card, such as overclocking it, but it rarely
makes a big difference. Instead, youre
best off choosing the type and model
of the graphics chip, such as an AMD
Radeon R8 370, and then nding the best
deal on that card.
This means that the real choice in
the rst instance comes down to one
between Nvidia and AMD.
TEAM GREEN
Nvidia typically aims its cards at the high
end, with few mid-range or entry-level
cards available. If you demand the peak
of performance from the most efficient
cards, then Nvidia is your friend.
All Nvidia cards support the PhysX
hardware-accelerated physics
technology, although few games
actually support it, as AMD cant use
the technology. As a result, games
developers wont implement an exclusive
technology.
Multi-Frame Sampled Anti-Aliasing
(MFAA) uses an Nvidia cards hardware
to provide high-quality anti-aliasing,
smoothing off jagged edges in games
without a big performance hit (see box,
right). Dynamic Super-Resolution (DSR)
renders games at a higher resolution than
your monitor can support, before scaling

the graphics down, in effect adding
support for Super Sampling Anti-Aliasing
(SSAA, see box) in all games. This
improves the look of games.
RED DAWN
AMD has some of the best-value graphics
cards around, though it has recently
dropped the 2xx series of cards, so some
of the biggest bargains are no longer
available. Even so, its 3xx series is rather
good for the mid-range.
As with Nvidia, AMD has its own
range of proprietary technologies that
appear in a wide selection of games.
The Mantle rendering engine is used
to provide a performance boost over
DirectX, while the TressFX hair simulation
in Tomb Raider was optimised for AMD
hardware. Again, proprietary technologies
arent that well supported, as games
manufacturers dont want to alienate
people with different graphics cards.
AMD has its own superscaling
technology, called Virtual Super
Resolution (VSR). This renders games
at a higher resolution than your monitor
supports, downscaling them to t, for
highly accurate anti-aliasing.
POWER UP
You need to make sure that you have
a power supply that can handle your
graphics card. The best way is to use
the power requirements calculator
at outervision.com/power-supplycalculator. This site will tell you the power
rating (in watts) of the PSU youll need for
your particular computer.
PCI-Express slots dont provide enough
power for graphics cards, so you have to
provide additional power from your PSU.
Most of the cards weve tested require
one six-pin PCI-E power connector; highend cards need one eight-pin and one
six-pin, or even two eight-pin connectors.
You can use our table over the page to
make sure that your PSU has the right
connectors. If you need a new PSU, see
pages 78 to 81.
Graphics cards vary greatly in length
CALL THE AA: ANTI-ALIASING EXPLAINED

Aliasing is the unavoidable effect that comes from using square pixels to draw diagonal lines.
As screen resolutions increase, the effect becomes less prominent, but on todays 1,920x1,080
and 2,560x1,440 monitors aliasing (jagged edges) is still a major issue. A range of different
anti-aliasing techniques reduce the effect, but these vary by game and by graphics card
manufacturer. We use three different methods when testing graphics cards: Fast Approximate
AA (FXAA), Multi Sampling AA (MSAA) and Super Sampling AA (SSAA).
FXAA is the least intensive form of anti-aliasing, as it doesnt actually analyse the 3D models
onscreen; instead, it applies a smoothing effect to the entire scene as a post-processing lter.
However, this means it blurs objects and textures that should be left alone,reducing the
sharpness of the image. If your graphics card is powerful enough, its worth opting for one of
the other anti-aliasing modes.
MSAA requires more GPU resources, as it targets just the jagged lines for smoothing
bydetecting the edges of polygons. Its the method you should use if your graphics card cant
cope with more demanding forms of anti-aliasing.
Finally, SSAA uses a brute force approach. At a basic level, the process involves rendering the
scene at a higher resolution than your monitor natively supports, then downscaling it to display
correctly on your screen. Enabling 4x SSAA on a game running at 1,920x1,080 essentially
forces the graphics card to render at 3,840x2,160, effectively quadrupling the workload. Its
the most intense anti-aliasing method out there, but it preserves visual clarity and is worth
turning on if your graphics card can handle it.
and height, depending on how big the

actual GPU is, the size of the cooling
system and the number of ports on the
back of the card. Our PC case reviews
starting on page 60 state how much
room is available inside for graphics
cards. You may need to remove one of the
cases hard disk drive cages in order to
t very long cards. Not every card will t
in every case, particularly if you have
a microATX or Mini-ITX chassis, so its
important to check before buying. Our
specications table shows the length of
each graphics card weve tested.
It can be harder to nd out a graphics
cards width, which can be an issue
in Mini-ITX and home theatre cases.
Youll also need to take the placement
of the power connectors into account,
as shallow home-theatre cases might
physically be able to t the card, but
power connectors on the side of the card
could stop you from putting the cases
top panel back on.
Most mid-range graphics cards take
up two expansion slots, in order to
accommodate a heatsink and cooling fan.
These cards are known as dual-slot, and
will obscure the slot directly beneath the
REALITY BYTES: VR SPECS

Virtual reality looks set to become a big deal
in 2016, with the likes of the Oculus Rift
making a splash. The idea is simple: you strap
on a set of goggles, giving you one screen
per eye, for true 3D. Even better, as you move
your head, the world updates, letting you look
around as naturally as you do in real life. In
this way, games will become fully immersive.
While the idea is simple, powering this kind
of technology is a little harder: you need a
graphics card that can produce double the
number of frames, so each eye gets its own

view. You also need a PC that can handle realtime head movements and tracking.
Nvidia has released its minimum VR specs
for a new PC. These are an Intel Core i5-4590
processor, 8GB of RAM, two USB3 ports and a
GeForce GTX 970 graphics card.
For AMD graphics cards you need a Radeon
R9 290 or higher, with the R380 from the
newer generation proving more than capable
at the moment.
one into which you plug the card (if there

is one).
Finally, half-height or low-prole
graphics cards are designed for ultracompact home theatre PC or desktop
form factor cases. These are typically
less powerful than their full-height
counterparts and can be noisier due
to having smaller fans, so unless you
have very limited space a full-height card
will likely be a better option.
PORTS REPORT
Almost all modern graphics cards have
at least one DVI port, for connecting to a
monitor. If you have an older monitor with
a VGA input, youll need to use a DVI-toVGA adaptor; our table on the following
page tells you if one is included in the box.
HDMI outputs are now fairly common on
graphics cards; youll want at least one of
these if you plan on connecting to a TV.
Be aware that many HDMI connections
limit you to a 30Hz refresh rate at
2,560x1,440 or higher resolutions, which
will make the Windows Desktop feel jerky.
Also, on some cards with two DVI ports,
one port may be a single-link model,
which will only support displays up to
1,920x1,200 pixels; dual-link DVI supports
up to 2,560x1,440 at 60Hz.
If you want to connect to a
3,840x2,160 (4K) monitor or one with
a very high refresh rate, youre best
off using a DisplayPort output, as this
interface standard supports very high
resolutions and refresh rates. Almost
all the cards weve tested have at
least one DisplayPort output. You
may also nd Mini DisplayPort or Mini
HDMI connections, but these arent as
convenient as their full-size counterparts
as youll need adaptors to connect them
to most monitors.
AMD
RECOMMENDED
VALUE
AMD
AMD
AMD
Radeon R7 370
Radeon R9 380
Radeon R9 380X
++++
+++++
++++
1,024
1,792
2,048
HARDWARE
Slots taken up
GPU cores
GPU clock speed
1,000MHz
990MHz
1,030MHzv
GPU clock boost speed
1,050MHz
Not disclosed
Not disclosed
2GB GDDR5
4GB GDDR5
4GB GDDR5
Memory interface
256-bit
256-bit
256-bit
Max memory
bandwidth
179GB/s
176GB/s
185.6GB/s
5,700MHz
5.7GHz
5.8GHz
258mm
234mm
234mm
Memory
Memory speed
Graphics card length
Outputs
2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort
Power leads required
1x 6-pin PCI Express
Accessories
DVI to VGA adaptor
1x 6-pin to 4-pin power cable, 1x 8-pin to 6-pin

power cable
2x Molex to 6-pin PCI Express power adaptors
MSI Radeon R7 370 Gaming 2GB
Gigabyte Radeon R9 380 Windforce
Sapphire R9 380X Nitro
$220
$300
$370
Three years RTB
Three years RTB
Two years RTB
www.msi.com
www.gigabyte.com
www.sapphiretech.com
A decent entry-level gaming graphics card,

although as our more demanding tests show,
you may have to turn down graphical detail to
keep frame rates up.
A spot-on mid-range card. This will cope with

1080p gaming with all modern games and will
be the right choice for most people.
Quicker than its little brother, but only by a

little. If you want a bit more oomph, this is a
great card, but the R9 380 or GTX 960 are
better value.
BUYING INFORMATION
Recommended model
Price
Warranty
Details
VERDICT
Benchmarks
DIRT SHOWDOWN, 1,920X1,080,
4X AA, ULTRA QUALITY (FPS)
GTX 980 Ti
TOMB RAIDER, 1,920X1,080, 2X SSAA,

ULTRA QUALITY (FPS)
GTX 980 Ti
126.8
GTX 970
GTX 970
116.8
Radeon R9 380X
Radeon R9 380
GTX 950
87.7
GTX 960
86.9
Radeon R9 380
Radeon R9 370
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
53.1
Radeon R9 380
49.9
GTX 960
20
30.4
29.5
26.6
Radeon R9 370
28.2
0
44.7
33.6
GTX 950
39.1
Radeon R9 370
65.7
0
64
Radeon R9 380X
61
GTX 950
71.9
GTX 980 Ti
GTX 970
77.8
Radeon R9 380X
97.6
GTX 960
156
METRO: LAST LIGHT REDUX, 1,920X1,080,

SSAA, VERY HIGH QUALITY (FPS)
40
60
80 100 120 140 160
22.6
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
NVIDIA
RECOMMENDED
VALUE
VALUE
NVIDIA
NVIDIA
NVIDIA
NVIDIA
GeForce GTX 950
GeForce GTX 960
GeForce GTX 970
GeForce GTX 980 Ti
++++
+++++
+++++
++++
768
1,024
1,664
2,816v
GPU clock speed
1,190MHz
1,279MHz
1,140MHz
1GHz
GPU clock boost

speed
1,393MHz
1,342MHz
1,279MHz
1,075MHz
2GB GDDR5
4GB GDDR5
4GB GDDR5
6GB GDDR5
128-bit
128-bit
256-bit
384-bit
105.76GB/s
112.16 GB/s
224GB/s
336.5GB/s
HARDWARE
Slots taken up
GPU cores
Memory
Memory interface
Max memory
bandwidth
Memory speed
Graphics card length
Outputs
Power leads required
Accessories
6,610MHz effective
7,010MHz
7,000MHz
7GHz
256.5mm
257mm
264mm
267mm
1x 8-pin PCI Express, 1x 6-pin PCI

Express
1x 8-pin PCI Express, 1x 6-pin PCI

Express
2x Molex to 8-pin PCI-Express, VGA

to DVI adaptors
DVI to VGA adaptor, Molex to 8-pin

PCI-Express adaptor
DVI to VGA adaptor
DVI to VGA adaptor, Molex to 8-pin

PCI-Express adaptor
EVGA GTX 950 SC
Gigabyte GTX 960 OC
MSI GTX 970 Gaming Twin Frozr 5
MSI GTX 980Ti Gaming 6G
$255
$290
$500
$1100
Three years RTB
Three years RTB
Three years RTB
Three years RTB
www.evga.com
www.gigabyte.com
www.msi.com
www.msi.com
Budget graphics cards dont come

much better than this. You might
have to turn down detail settings in
some high-end games, but you get
great performance for the price.
Ideal for mid-range gaming, with

decent frame rates at 1080p in all
our test games. Its a great price,
too, and competes with the Radeon
R9 380.
For most people, this card is the

high-end model to buy.
It will easily cope with
high-resolution, high-detail
gaming, making it a great choice
for enthusiasts.
This card will cope with

everything, even 4K gaming, but
youre going to have to pay a lot
for it. Unless you want and need
the best, a cheaper card will suit
most people.
BUYING INFORMATION
Recommended
model
Price
Warranty
Details
VERDICT
Verdict
HOW WE TEST
We test all our graphics cards on an Intel DZ87KLT-75K motherboard with
an Intel Core i7-4770K processor and 16GB of RAM. This system is powerful
enough to ensure the CPU or memory isnt holding back the graphics card
and articially slowing down frame rates. We then use a range of different
games, which vary in graphical intensity, to measure performance.
Dirt Showdown is our least challenging title, so should play well on
mid-range GPUs without dropping below 60fps; racing games particularly
benet from high frame rates. The game scales well to 2,560x1440 and
4K resolutions when running on more powerful cards. 2013s Tomb Raider
reboot uses very demanding SSAA, which will tax mid-range cards, while
Metro: Last Light Redux makes heavy use of Tessellation to challenge all
but the most powerful cards. Weve printed the results of the graphics
cards at 1,920x1,080, so you can see how they compare to each other.
Dirt Showdown in
all its filthy glory
STORAGE WARS
Hard disks and SSDs
WHETHER YOU WANT A LIGHTNING-FAST SSD TO MAKE YOUR PC BOOT
FASTER OR A REGULAR HARD DISK TO GIVE YOU PLENTY OF SPACE FOR
ALL YOUR FILES, WEVE GOT THE STORAGE SOLUTION FOR YOU
ew things are as vital to a PC

as its internal disk drive. Not
having enough storage is hugely
frustrating, as you have to uninstall
programs to make room for the latest
game, or copy les to external storage to
download a rented lm. Slow hard disks
can also make your computer feel
quite sluggish.
Both these problems can be solved
with a drive upgrade. Mechanical hard
disks are astounding value, providing
thousands of gigabytes of storage
for less than 4 cents a gigabyte.

Meanwhile, solid-state drives (SSDs)
are incredibly fast and can help your
PC boot in seconds, as well as adding
a welcome dose of operating system
responsiveness. Hybrid drives try to bring
you the best of both worlds, combining
the speed of an SSD with the capacity of
a traditional mechanical disk.
Desktop PC builders dont have to
choose between a hard disk and SSD, as
you can have a fast SSD as your system
disk, and store your les and documents
on the slower hard disk. This month well

help you nd your perfect drive, with our
guide to the best storage out there. Over
the page, our full performance graphs
and specs tables will help you pick the
capacity and the drive you need from our
recommended choices.
HARD LABOUR
Hard disk drives have been around for
an eternity in technology terms. They
provide by far the highest storage
capacity and are much cheaper than
SSDs per gigabyte, so if you have lots of

media and documents to store, theyre
your best option. If youre planning to
use a hard disk drive for your operating
system and applications, dont expect
the same fast loading times and snappy
system responsiveness as youll get with
an SSD, however, as even the slowest
SSD is over three times as fast as the
quickest hard disk.
Hard disk drives are often referred
to as mechanical drives due to the
way they operate. A hard disk consists
of a mechanical arm and, depending
on its storage capacity, one or more
platters. The arm holds the read/write
heads that move across the platter at
extremely high speeds, as the
platters themselves rotate at
high speed, anywhere up to
10,000rpm. Data is stored on
the surface of each platter,
and the arm moves the heads
over the surface of the disk to
pick up data.
Its because of the mechanical nature
of hard disk drives that they cant
compete with the speed of ash storage
found in SSDs, which doesnt rely on
delicate moving parts. Its also why hard
disks are more susceptible to impact
damage, making dropping a laptop with
a hard disk likely to result in data loss.
much data each of its cells can contain.

There are the now less common singlelevel cell (SLC) type that can only store
one bit, multi-level cells (MLC) that can
store two bits and triple-level cell (TLC),
which can store three.
Being able to store more than one bit
of data per cell allows manufacturers
to pack more storage capacity into a
smaller physical space, allowing the
SSDs to reach ever-greater capacities
while still tting into existing drive
bays. However, a balance needs to
be struck, as using more bits per cell
can result in compromised speed and
reliability. There have also been some
technological innovations allowing
HYBRID VEHICLE
Hard disk drives may still provide the
best bang for your buck when it comes
to storage capacity, but the read and
write speeds of SSDs simply cant be
beaten. The solution, therefore, would be
to combine the two. Thats what many
manufacturers have done with solidstate hybrid drives (SSHDs).
Although many desktop PC users will
opt for an SSD as a system disk to house
their operating system and software,
with a separate secondary hard disk for
their media, this simply isnt possible in
most laptops, where theres a solitary
drive bay thus limiting any storage
expansion. This is where an SSHD could
be useful.
SSHDs combine both
technologies into a single
physical drive. Most have
a large-capacity hard disk
paired with a smaller SSD
NAND cache, typically
around 8GB in size. Caching
algorithms then decide what data
should reside on the SSD and what
will go on the hard disk. Typically, data
you use most frequently will remain
on the SSD cache for quick access, so
these could be operating system les or
software application data. This means
performance should gradually improve
over time as the caching algorithm
learns your usage patterns. Our tests
have shown that hybrid SSDs make
some difference to le transfers, and can
dramatically reduce operating system
boot times.
Other hybrid drive implementations
include Western Digitals Black2 Dual
Drive. Instead of using an SSD as a
cache, a separate HDD and SSD are
packaged together in a single 2in drive.
This means you can use the smaller,
faster SSD as your system disk, while still
having plenty of mechanical hard disk
space for your les.
Our tests have shown that hybrid SSDs

make some difference to file transfers,
and can dramatically reduce operating
system boot times
SO SOLID CREW
Installing an SSD can be one of the
most effective upgrades you can make
to your desktop or laptop. SSDs are an
excellent choice for a primary system
disk. Thanks to their superior read and
write speeds, they can instantly speed
up your operating system, making it
feel fresh and responsive. Bootup and
shutdown times will be signicantly less
than when using a mechanical disk, and
your applications will typically open
much faster.
SSDs are able to achieve such
blistering le-transfer speeds because of
the lack of any moving parts. Rather than
the disk platters found in HDDs, SSDs
use NAND ash memory. NAND comes
in a number of varieties based on how
SSDs to increase in capacity further,

such as Samsungs 3D V-NAND system,
which stacks cells both vertically and
horizontally. However, SSDs are still
considerably behind HDDs in terms
of storage capacity, and the cost per
gigabyte is also a lot higher.
A separate controller acts as an
interface between the NAND modules
and the operating system, and this can
have a direct impact on performance. For
example, Marvell is a popular controller
manufacturer, and its designs can be
found in many SSDs from different
manufacturers.
While a lot of SSDs connect to a SATA
port (SATA3 is best for speed), some
newer drives can plug into an M.2 port
on your motherboard. This will give you
even more speed if they support X2 or X4
bandwidth and/or the new and speedy
NVMe protocol, in a form factor that
sits snuggly against your motherboard.
There are quite a few M.2 drives available
at the moment thanks largely to the
formats support in laptops, but we list
our favourite models for desktop PCs
over the page.
HOW WE TEST
To test the read and write speeds of each
disk drive, we use a script that copies les to
and from the drive and measures the time
taken. We copy the les to the disk from
memory rather than from another disk drive,
because RAM is faster than any hard disk or
SSD so wont act as the limiting factor in the
tests.
In our large-le tests, we copy a 100MB

le to and from each disk 100 times to see
how fast a drive is when dealing with big
les such as video clips. We repeat this test
using a selection of smaller les totalling
100MB, to see how well a drive copes with
the many smaller les needed when loading
an operating system or application.
SIZE MATTERS
Storage drives typically come in two
form factors: 2in and 3in. All SSDs are
2in, but mechanical HDDs can come in
either size. Most PC cases will be able to
accommodate both sizes, but laptops
only use 2in drives.
Where it gets a little confusing is
that there are different heights for 2in
drives. Most are 7mm high, but some are
available in a thinner 5mm format often
used in Ultrabooks or other slim laptops,
or a thicker 9.5mm format often seen
in large desktop-replacement laptops.
We note how thick each drive is in our
reviews, but if youre building a desktop
PC the thickness doesnt matter.
HARD DISKS
RECOMMENDED
VALUE
SEAGATE
WESTERN DIGITAL
Laptop SSHD
Green
++++
+++++
2in
3in
Capacity
500GB/1TB
500GB/1TB/2TB/3TB/4TB
Cost per
gigabyte
$0.17 (500GB), $0.11 (1TB)
$0.13 (500GB),$0.07 (1TB), $0.05 (2TB), $0.04 (3TB), $0.05 (4TB)
Interface
SATA3
SATA3
5,400rpm
IntelliPower
8GB SSD + 64MB
64MB
8ms
Not stated
HARDWARE
Form factor
Spindle speed
Cache
Quoted seek
time
BUYING INFORMATION
Warranty
Price
Details
Three years RTB
Two years RTB
$88 (500GB), $119 (1TB)
$65 (500GB), $74 (1TB), $105 (2TB), $137 (3TB), $209 (4TB)
www.seagate.com
www.wdc.com
Ignore the word laptop in this product name: this hybrid drive is great value
and its SSD cache can help improve boot speeds, from 50s down to 28s in
our tests. The SSD cache is very small, though.
With excellent prices and great performance, the WD Green series is our
hard disk of choice. The 2TB, 3TB and 4TB models are the best value per
gigabyte, but buy according to budget.
VERDICT
Benchmarks
LARGE WRITE (MB/S)
WD Green 1TB
LARGE READ (MB/S)
WD Green 1TB
201.1
Seagate Laptop
SSHD 1TB
0
50
100
150
200
250
SMALL WRITE (MB/S)
WD Green 1TB
Seagate Laptop
SSHD 1TB
WD Green 1TB
255
Seagate Laptop
SSHD 1TB
132.1
LARGE FILES OVERALL (MB/S)
Seagate Laptop
SSHD 1TB
133.9
0
50
82.7
81.5 82 82.5 83 83.5 84 84.5 85 85.5
Seagate Laptop
SSHD 1TB
Seagate Laptop
SSHD 1TB
65.3
0
20
40
60
50
100
150
200
250
SMALL FILES OVERALL (MB/S)
92.7
WD Green 1TB
133
0
100 150 200 250 300
SMALL READ (MB/S)
85
228.1
WD Green 1TB
80
100
87.7
75.2
68 70 72 74 76 78 80 82 84 86 88 90
SSDs
VALUE
RECOMMENDED
VALUE
RECOMMENDED
SAMSUNG
SAMSUNG
SAMSUNG
SANDISK
850 Evo
850 Evo M.2
950 Pro (NVMe) M.2
Ultra II
+++++
++++
+++++
+++++
120GB/250GB/500GB
256GB/512GB
240GB/480GB/960GB
$1.11 (256GB), $0.93 (512GB)
$0.79 (120GB), $0.50 (240GB),

$0.48 (480GB), $0.45 (960GB)
HARDWARE
Capacity 120GB/250GB/500GB/1TB
$0.78 (120GB), $0.51 (250GB),
Cost per gigabyte
$0.45 (500GB), $0.44 (1TB)
$0.82 (120GB), $0.54 (250GB),

$0.49 (500GB)
Interface SATA3
M.2
M.2 (NVMe)
SATA3
Claimed read 540MB/s
540MB/s
2,200MB/s
550MB/s
Claimed write 520MB/s
500MB/s
900MB/s
500MB/s
Samsung MGX
Samsung UBX
Marvell 88SS9190/88SS9189
Samsung MGX Controller, Samsung

Controller
MEX Controller (1TB)
NAND ash type Samsung 40nm 3D V-NAND
Mounting kit No
Samsung 3D V-NAND
Sasmsung V-NAND
19nm TLC
No
No
No
5 years RTB
BUYING INFORMATION
Warranty Five years RTB
$94 (120GB) $129 (250GB),
Price
$229 (500GB), $459 (1TB)
Details www.samsung.com
5 years RTB
Three years RTB
$99 (120GB), $135 (250GB),

$245 (500GB)
$285 (256GB), $480 (512GB)
$95 (120GB), $120 (240GB), $235

(480GB), $440 (960GB)
www.samsung.com
www.samsung.com
www.sandisk.com
The M.2 version of Samsungs regular

SSD. Its a little more expensive, but
its a little faster, too. If you have a
motherboard with an M.2 slot, this is
the best-value drive for it.
Incredible performance from this

top-end M.2 SSD. Its comparatively
expensive, but youll have a really
quick PC if you buy one. Its best
suited for use with a new Intel
Skylake system.
This range of SSDs is great value

and still comparatively quick.
Its the ideal choice if you value
capacity over raw speed. The
120GB versions not great value,
but the other capacities are.
VERDICT
Samsungs 850 series is now

excellent value. Its still extremely
quick, too, performing well across
all of our tests. The 120GB drive isnt
good value, but the other capacities
are.
Benchmarks
LARGE WRITE (MB/S)
Samsung 950 Pro M.2
1,349
Samsung 850 Evo
SMALL WRITE (MB/S)
Samsung 950 Pro M.2
Samsung 950 Pro M.2
Samsung 850 Evo
99.8
Samsung 850 Evo M.2
SanDisk Ultra II
97.5
Samsung 850 Evo
Samsung 850 Evo M.2
85.4
SanDisk Ultra II
200 400 600 800 1,000 1,200 1,400
2,000
2,500
508
0
400
800
1,200
1,600
2,000
SMALL FILES OVERALL (MB/S)

1,646
108.1
91.2
77
0
536.1
Samsung 850 Evo M.2

1,500
SMALL READ (MB/S)

1,205
1,000
589.1
SanDisk Ultra II
454.4
500
1,760
Samsung 850 Evo
465.3
200 400 600 800 1,0001,200 1,400 1,600
Samsung 950 Pro M.2
579.8
SanDisk Ultra II
436.1
LARGE FILES OVERALL (MB/S)

2,171
Samsung 850 Evo
617.7
Samsung 950 Pro M.2

Samsung 850 Evo M.2
712.9
SanDisk Ultra II
Samsung 850 Evo M.2
LARGE READ (MB/S)
200 400 600 800 10001200 1400 1600
Samsung 950 Pro M.2
1,425.5
Samsung 850 Evo M.2
96.8
Samsung 850 Evo
95.5
SanDisk Ultra II
87.3
0
200 400 600 800 1,000 1,200 1,400
POWER RANGERS
PSUs
A DECENT POWER SUPPLY WILL NOT ONLY GIVE YOU THE RIGHT CONNECTORS
TO POWER ALL YOUR KIT, IT CAN ALSO SAVE YOU MONEY ON YOUR BILLS
he power supply unit (PSU) may

not be the most exciting product
inside a PC, but you shouldnt
overlook it and just buy the cheapest
model you can. An unbranded PSU
may not deliver the wattage printed
on its box and could therefore cause
random instability and crashes. From
experience, weve also found that cheap
power supplies dont last as long as their
branded equivalents.
For this months issue we put several
power supplies through their paces to
see how well they performed under
load. However, weve only included the

top models that you should consider in
this issue, giving recommendations that
will suit all builds and all types of user.
Before you jump into the details, heres
everything you need to know about
choosing a power supply.
UNBRIDLED POWER
For a while the PC industry went mad and
it wasnt unusual to see 1.2kW supplies
for sale. The good news is that everything
has become more power efficient.
Typically speaking a 500-550W PSU
will cope with a regular PC build with a

single low-power graphics card. If youre
going for something a bit more powerful,
a 750-850W PSU will do the job. If you
want a better idea of how much power
youll need to provide, the eXtreme
Power Supply Calculator (outervision.
com/power-supply-calculator) lets you
select your components using a dropdown menu, so you can get an accurate
prediction.
AGAINST THE RAILINGS

A PSU outputs its power on different rails,
HOW WE TEST
You need specialist kit to test power supplies properly. We use
Stratton load generators, which are able to simulate a load of up
to 1,600W on a PSU. The supplies are tested at 200W, 300W, 400W,
500W and, for the 750W and higher supplies, 600W, 700W and
800W. This lets us see if each supply can handle its full load. We also
test for power efciency: the percentage of power drawn from the
mains that is delivered to the PCs components, with the remainder

being lost as heat. We test at the same loads and compile an
average efciency gure. Our results are shown over the page.
Finally, all our supplies are tested for noise in a sound-proof
chamber. We measure noise at 10cm, with each PSU running at a
load of 100W, 300W and 500W.
We use professional
Stratton load
generators to
simulate a load
of up to 800W on
each PSU
Power supply ratings

Fraction of load
20%
50%
100%
80 Plus Bronze
81%
85%
81%
80 Plus Silver
85%
89%
85%
80 Plus Gold
88%
92%
88%
80 Plus Platinum
90%
94%
91%
80 Plus Titanium
94%
96%
91%
which run at various voltages and have

a rating in amps to show the total power
they provide. Different parts of your PC
draw on different rails for their power;
power-hungry components such as the
processor and graphics card, for example,
draw a signicant amount of power from
one of the 12V rails. The rails total rating
gure is the amount of current that can
be drawn by that single rail: multiply that
by the voltage to nd the total power that
the rail can provide.
Branded power supplies will be able
to provide close to their rated maximum
wattage across their 12V rails.
EFFICIENCY DRIVE
Nowadays, efficiency is just about the
most important part of any supply. This
describes how much power is wasted
when converted from input to output.
Any lost power is converted into heat.
For example, a 500W power supply thats
85% efficient would need to draw 294W

from the wall to power a 250W PC. In
contrast, a 94% efficient PSU would draw
266W 28W less to power the same PC.
To help you choose, power supplies
are rated by the 80 Plus certication,
with Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum
and Titanium awards for minimum
efficiencies (see the table, left). The 80
Plus standards set efficiency targets at
20, 50 and 100 per cent load. Our tests
tell you how efficient each supply is,
but be careful in choosing by efficiency
alone. In our example, you might buy a
more expensive PSU to save on running
costs, but it may take years of lower
electricity bills to recoup the higher initial
cost.
connectors are useful for hard disks

and SSDs, but look out for older Molex
connectors for old devices and case fans.
You may also need a Floppy connector
if you have a front-panel device that is
powered this way. Buy a modular PSU
if you can (most are), as you only need
to plug in the cables that youre using,
leaving your PC less cluttered inside.
PLUG IN
Make sure your PSU has
enough plugs for all your
PCs components. If you
want to run two powerful
graphics cards, youll
need four 6+2-pin PCI
Express connectors,
for example.
Plenty
of SATA
550W PSUs
RECOMMENDED
CORSAIR
EVGA
RM550
Supernova GS 550W
++++
++++
FEATURES
Fan 135mm
120mm
Dimensions (WxDxH) 150x160x86mm
150x150x86mm
CLAIMED OUTPUT
3.3V rail 25A
20A
5V rail 25A
20A
12V rails 1 (45.8A)
1 (45A)
12V rails max output 45.8A
45A
Maximum total output 550W
550W
80 Plus certication 80 Plus Gold
80 Plus Gold
CONNECTIONS
Modular Yes
Yes
Molex 4
SATA 6
Floppy 1
Motherboard connector 20/24-pin
20/24-pin
Four-pin 12V processor Yes
Yes
Eight-pin 12V processor Yes
Yes
SOUND
100W load 18dB(A)
23.3dB(A)
200W load 18dB(A)
24.4dB(A)
500W load 28.8dB(A)
28.8dB(A)
BUYING INFORMATION
Price $150
$106
Details www.corsair.com
www.evga.com
VERDICT
Lengthy, at cables and a large, quiet fan are just the start for this top
PSU. With excellent efficiency from 100W updwards, only its price holds
it back.
If youre building a budget computer, this is the PSU for you. Voltage
drops a little at high loads, but remains within the ATX specication.
Benchmarks
EFFICIENCY AT 300W
EFFICIENCY AT 500W
89.47%
Be Quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 850W
91.61%
92.35%
Corsair RM550
90.87%
EVGA Supernova G2 750W
89.86%
EVGA Supernova GS 550W
90.43%
Corsair RM750i
89.74%
Corsair RM750i
89.84%
89.47%
Corsair RM550
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
89.51%
89.09%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
750-850W PSUs
VALUE
BE QUIET!
CORSAIR
EVGA
Dark Power Pro 11 850W
RM750i
Supernova G2 750W
++++
++++
+++++
135mm
135mm
140mm
150x193x86mm
150x180x86mm
150x180x85mm
25A
25A
24A
25A
25A
24A
4 (2x 30A, 2x 35A)
1 (62.5A)
1 (62.4A)
70A
62.5A
62.4A
850W
750W
750W
80 Plus Platinum
80 Plus Gold
80 Plus Gold
Yes
Yes
Yes
20/24-pin
20/24-pin
20/24-pin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
18.2dB(A)
18dB(A)
20.1dB(A)
18.9dB(A)
19.6dB(A)
18.5dB(A)
21.9dB(A)
23.5dB(A)
32.8dB(A)
$269
$189
$129
www.bequiet.com
www.corsair.com
www.evga.com
Its expensive, but this PSU is incredibly well built and

extremely efficient. Integrated fan controllers are a nice
touch, but the price is hard to get over.
At 180mm long this is a big PSU, so make sure you have

room for it. If you do, you get excellent efficiency and
whisper-quiet operation, thanks to the large 135mm fan.
A fully modular design and excellent efficiency above

100W make this a great-value PSU. For most people
building a high-power system, this is the best choice.
550W PSUs
EFFICIENCY AT 700W
AVERAGE EFFICIENCY
92.34%
Corsair RM750i
89.26%
89.19%
0%
20%
40%
750-850W PSUs
60%
80%
100%
91.79%
Corsair RM550
89.94%
89.91%
Corsair RM750i
89.47%
89.41%

0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
UPGRADE TO
CORSAIR INNOVATION
Out of the box thinking
CARBIDE
SPEC-ALPHA
CORSAIR BULLDOG
Bulldog combines the efforts of Corsairs class-leading cooling,
chassis, and PSU technology to produce the ultimate small form
factor barebones kit for 4K gaming. It includes the Hydro Series
H5 SF liquid CPU cooler and the SF600 80 Plus Gold-rated power
supply wrapped in a stylish chassis capable of supporting any
mini-ITX motherboard and an additional 120mm radiator.
With liquid cooling support for the graphics card and the CPU,
Bulldog lets you bring 4K gaming performance into any room in
your home and then overclock, taking users beyond the limits
of out-of-the-box performance all without increasing noise or
overheating.
The Carbide SPEC-ALPHAs

bold, angular looks and direct
airflow path cooling are just
begging for you to build your
next gaming rig. A gorgeous,
oversized window shows off
the roomy interior, and the
three included 120mm fans
can be easily controlled with
the three-speed switch on
the front panel.
The SPEC-ALPHA isnt just
another case, its got a great
internal design that eschews
the legacy 5.25 drive cages
completely for better cooling,
but still has plenty of drive
capacity, with room for up to
three 3.5 drives and four 2.5
drives, as well as front panel
USB 3.0 support.
UPGRADE AUSTRALIA
IS COMING TO MELBOURNE
BUILD. PLAY. CREATE

APRIL 13TH AT MONASH UNIVERSITY, CAULFIELD CAMPUS
BUILD
PLAY
CREATE
Witness the newest PC hardware

in action
Get hands-on with a huge range
of PC gear
Speedbuilding returns!
The hottest new competitive games

Play solo or against Australias hottest
Pro teams... and watch them annihilate
each other
Play better with exclusive tips from
the pros
Learn how to use your PC as a powerful

creative tool
PLUS! WIN COOL PRIZES AND

SCORE SWEET FREEBIES
Note Upgrade Australia is an over-18s event
Images on this page show previous Upgrade Australia events, and are not necessarily indicative of what we have in store for you at the Melbourne Upgrade Australia event.
Visit www.pcauthority.com.au/UpgradeAustralia
for more information, and stay tuned for when registrations opens
POWERED BY INTEL UPGRADE AUSTRALIA
WHY
CHOOSE AN
INTEL XEON
PROCESSOR?
Choosing the right processor for
your workstation is an important
consideration. What advantages do
Intel Xeon processors have over
Desktop CPUs?
Wondering whether a Xeon-based

workstation could be right for your needs?
We spoke with Graham Tucker, the ANZ
Technical Manager at Intel to get his
thoughts.
WHEN SHOULD I CONSIDER
A XEON PROCESSOR?
Xeon processors are targeted at
professional users, particularly people like
architects, graphic artists, photographers
and video editors. Any professional who
depends on applications that require high
reliability and performance will benefit
from a Xeon-based workstation.
If you compare Xeon processors with
desktop Core i7 processors,

the Xeon has more cores and
can address more memory. Some
applications can take advantage of more
cores and memory, others cannot. Some
examples of applications that benefit from
the features of Xeon processors are CAD,
photo and video processing applications.
Even small businesses that operate
with large inventories and data sets can
benefit from using a Xeon processor.
Consider reliability. For example, if
an architect or a graphic designer loses a
days work through a hardware failure,
the cost would be considerable. Whenever
youre using a lot of memory, the chances
of failure are higher. One of the key
features a Xeon processor has over a Core
i7 is ECC (Error-Correcting Code) memory.
ECC memory enables better data integrity
and system reliability through the
correction of memory bit failures.
HOW DO I CHOOSE THE

RIGHT XEON FOR ME?
There is a larger range of Xeon processors
than Core desktop processors. Xeon
processors have up to 18 cores (some with
hyperthreading) and up to 45MB of last
level cache. Not all Xeons are supported
OTE
KEYN
A
VER
DELI
WILL
GRAHAM
IA by specific Xeon workstation board and
SPEECH AT THE UPGRADE AUSTRAL
system designs. If you are building your
T IN MELBOURNE ON APRIL 13TH!
EVEN
own workstation, it is advisable to check

the manufacturers tested and supported
list.
WHEN MIGHT A PC ENTHUSIAST
USE A XEON-BASED SYSTEM?
Putting aside the business uses, any PC
enthusiast who does a lot of multitasking
could benefit from the many cores of
Xeon. For example, if youre multitasking
using many high performance applications
simultaneously, then you may utilise more
cores of the Xeon processor.
Similarly, anyone who makes use of
virtualisation capabilities, such as for
software development or sandboxing, will
also benefit from more memory and cores.
Typically Xeon will support multiple CPUs
better than Core i7 desktop processors.
WILL A XEON-BASED SYSTEM
BE ENERGY EFFICIENT?
The energy efficiency of the Xeon
processor range is comparable to the Core
i7. The difference is a Xeon-based system
may give you the same performance
as two desktop computers if you could
consolidate the additional applications
supported by Xeon.
HAND-ON PREVIEW GAMES
Hands-on Preview:
Total War: Warhammer
WE RULE THE LAND WITH AN UNDEAD FIST.
must admit to some trepidation

when I sat down to play Total War:
Warhammer. Ive been bit of a Total
War tragic since the days of Shogun, but
the recent Rome II really took the shine
off the series for me. I do know its been
patched to within an inch of its life, making
it now a much better game, but those
rst impressions stick. Thankfully, my rst
impressions of Total Warhammer are
much more positive.
The build I got to play was based
around the Vampire Counts army, one of
the games four playable release factions.
As you might surmise, theyre a little bit
evil. Well, actually, a lot evil. Think hordes
of bats, raising the dead, and generally
casting a shadow of doom and corruption
across the land.
Theyre also one of the more
iconic races in the tabletop wargame
the games based on, and Creative
Assembly has done an outstanding job
of bringing the vampires, direwolves,
and masses of skeletons and zombies
alive. Er, so to speak.
The broad brushstrokes of any Total
War game are ever present campaign
map movement, city management, its all
there, so that veterans will feel at home.
But laid over that are unique abilities
drawn from the immense lore that Games
Workshop has amassed over decades
of working on Warhammer. Surprisingly,
these translate perfectly to the Total War
milieu.
Our preview session started at the
beginning of the campaign, with a single
84 April 2016 www.pcandtechauthority.com.au
territory, and a stretch of narrative

missions to get me into the swing of being
Manfred von Carstein, EPIC VAMPIRE
DUDE. His initial aims are to dominate
the area of the Known World known
as Sylvania, which is totally not at all a
rip-off of Draculas Transylvania. Well,
it obviously is, but Games Workshops
always been a master of pastiche.
The only issue with this name is that it
seems very silly to anyone familiar with
Sydneys suburb of the same name. Then
again, if it were revealed that Sylvania
Waters is the home to the blood-feasting
undead, it probably wouldnt surprise
anyone.
So as usual, you need to expand,
and youve got a pretty neat starting
army to do so. Watching skeletons
march in lockstep to war is wonderfully
reminiscent of Jason and the Argonauts,
and its hard to get more iconic than
hordes of shambling, slow moving
zombies. But the Vampire Counts real
punch comes from von Carstein himself,
and the monstrous Varghulf.
As I said, Manfreds an EPIC VAMPIRE
DUDE, and I really mean it. Total
Warhammers generals and heroes

are solo gures. Unlike the generals of
previous games, they stride through the
battleeld alone, and are immeasurably
more powerful. Theyre in fact quite in
line with power levels of characters from
the tabletop game. Von Carstein can cast
spells with sap the strength of enemies,
or that heal and raise from the dead his
allies. And in combat, hes incredible its
like watching Sauron lay waste to the
armies of elves and men in the opening
of Lord of the Rings. Total Warhammers
characters are more than capable of
destroying entire units.
And thats even before you start
messing about with the many skill trees
on offer to the Vampire Counts, which can
really boost your combat ability, or your
spell-casting ability, or your control over
territory. On top of that, there are magic
items to nd on the eld of battle from
lesser magic weapons and armour, to the
more epic named items that are part of
each major characters quest chain.
The Varghulf, on the other hand, is
one of the games monstrous creatures,
a towering undead monster that can
dash across the ground, and decimate
unsuspecting units. Again, its one
creature, but very tough, and very
dangerous.
And really, all the Vampire Counts
units are useful, because they all cause
fear. This doesnt mean much ghting
other Vampire armies, but when you
ght human troops, their morale can be
really fragile. This opens up some truly
unique tactics. You can harass the enemy
with a quick ight of bats, a fragile ying
unit that can nonetheless break up an
advance. Then you bog them down with
skeletons and zombies, using magic to
weaken the enemy, and bolster your own
ranks. If an enemy character wades in,
hit them with your own characters, or tie
them down with a monster.
Then, when the enemy is engaged all
along its line, surprise them with an attack
from the ank by hidden direwolves, or
your fast-charging Varghulf. Thats a
recipe for a shattering win over your foe.
Whats impressive is that while the
tools may be different, the same tactics
are still rewarding and reliable.
Combined with the fantastic effects
that animate the campaign map, to the
true-to-miniature-life recreation of the
units, Total War: Warhammer is starting
to look like the triumph weve all been
hoping for.
David Hollingworth
KEY SPECS
warhammer.totalwar.com
Genre "HigViZg\n9ZkZadeZg"8gZVi^kZ6hhZbWan
EjWa^h]Zg"HZ\VEaVi[dgb"E8dcan
THE
WAR
SPECIAL
ON SALE APRIL 14
The Division
AN AMERICAN GOOD GUY WITH A GUN
here are some very strange quirks

early on in The Division that
highlight a few of the major aws
in the game but still dont detract from
how addictive the overall experience is.
Soon after creating a character players
have to register their agent on an in-game
terminal. There is only a single terminal
and during the rst few weeks of release
trying to register a character was like
playing bumper cars with other players,
jostling for space in front of the terminal
for long enough to activate a character.
The same character introduction phase
also requires the player to have a chat to
an NPC Division agent. She is in a small
room with a single entry that can be
blocked easily by a single player, thanks
to character based collision detection,
making it impossible to progress.
These strange oversights highlight
how The Division is kind of lost between
worlds. A mash up of cover based third
person shooter and MMORPG, The
Division casts players as one of the elite
operatives of a sleeper agency tasked
with going into action when everything
else fails. In this case, Manhattan has
been devastated by a biological attack
that has killed a huge number of people

and rendered the island uninhabitable
for the most part. Of course, all those
bad people who have been looking for
an excuse to riot and loot have come out
of the woodwork. There are basic rioters
and looters faceless, interchangeable
mooks that have no real agenda aside
from chaos. There are the Cleaners,
crazed heroes who believe they can save
the city and the world by burning out the
infection with amethrowers and napalm.
Other factions, such as Wall St private
security mercenaries betrayed by their
employers and escaped prisoners also
want a piece of the post-apocalyptic pie.
GOOD GUY WITH GUN
Playing into the current American fever
dream, players are the good guy with a
gun, the only force capable of stopping
the bad guys with guns (and napalm)
and bringing some stability back to the
city whilst simultaneously uncovering
the truth behind the biological attack
variously known as the Green Poison or
the Dollar Flu (the virus was impregnated
in currency distributed during the Black
Friday sales). This lone saviour idea leads
to one of the most jarring points of The

Division. The story takes the players
through a series of district based quest
hubs, safe houses that are unlocked when
discovered and give the player access to
vendors and supplies. In these hubs the
agents learn of the active quests in the
area, each of which appears on the map.
From there its little more than a matter of
heading to a map specied location, killing
some baddies and then on to the next.
QUEST QUESTING
The open world of The Division is detailed
but empty. This is by design Manhattan
has been devastated by a biological
weapon after all but that design
does not detract from the fact that the
emptiness makes for something of a slog.
Aside from the occasional encounter with
GAMES REVIEW
based skills that are unlocked by having

the requisite statistics. Its quite an
elegant system for equipment upgrading,
but also one that shows why there arent
too many loot based games set in the
modern day as opposed to science ction
or fantasy worlds.
space next to any form of cover will make

the agent hug that cover. From cover
players can target any other cover in range
and charge into that cover by holding
down the space bar. Its a fairly simple
system but it works in context. The enemy
AI will focus re on where they saw the
player last, so being able to move unseen
from cover to cover makes for some fun
anking and blindsiding.
groups of interchangeable villains and
some resource or collectable pickups,
there is little to actually do in the city.
Its a long, bleak slog from one quest to
another, punctuated by the occasional
reght and once you get to said quest
it will inevitably involve another reght.
Despite the action RPG style levelling
and item drops, guns are the solution to
every problem in The Division. There are
no puzzles or conversations, just gunghts
and the occasional icked switch.
WINS WITH FINESSE
This is all sounding very negative, but
the gunplay in The Division, whilst
unspectacular, is denitely enjoyable
thanks to some nice little details that
can turn the basic cover shooting into
something far more. Each agent can carry
three weapons, a sidearm with innite
ammo, making it a fall-back piece, and
two others drawn from a pool of sniper
ries, assault ries, shotguns, SMGs and
light machine guns. The guns all feature
some nice physics modelling, giving them
realistic lift and pull when red, forcing
players to compensate and be judicious
with their shots. The cover system takes
a little getting used to but reveals itself
to be an intuitive and accessible way to
shielding a character from damage as well
as moving around the battleeld. Hitting
COMBAT MECHANICS
Rather oddly for a game about covert
agents, Players in The Division can
neither jump nor enter any kind of stealth
outside of cover. Instead of being able
to jump, agents are instead procient in
parkour, enabling them to mantle over
most obstacles or climb things that give
adequate handholds. For the most part
this system is solid, but for reasons that
can only be put down to funnelling, there
are some areas that resort to limiting
climbable/mantleable areas to those that
are clearly signposted a wall may be
of uniform height for its entire length but
players can only get over the portion that
has a green tarp on it. These areas feel
incongruous to the rest of the game world.
Like any good action RPG, The Division
features items colour coded in order
of rarity. White items are common and
have no abilities outside of their basic
function. Green items have a stat boost
for one of the three core statistics;
Firearms, Stamina and Electronics
(damage, hitpoints and skill/grenade
power respectively), whilst higher tiered
equipment can have more than one stat
boost, primary and secondary abilities,
such as extra damage with a certain
category of gun or more ammunition
capacity, and even special unique weapon
AR UI HUD
Aside from depicting a stunning post viral
apocalypse Manhattan, the integration of
the gamier elements of the interface are
beautifully realised. Rather than having
a standard HUD at the bottom or top of
the screen, The Division instead takes
a kind of augmented reality approach
with health, ammunition and currently
equipped skills oating in space next to
the character and other elements, such
as GPS or location names seamlessly
overlayed over the top of action. Not only
does it look fantastic, the use of the AR
style HUD ensures that players are always
focussing on the centre of the screen
rather than having to look away to check
any vital facts or statistics.
The Division is a game that is hampered
by its own ambition. Combining a
narrative open world action RPG with an
MMO style multiplayer element and third
person shooter aesthetics sounds like a
great idea on paper, but in execution the
separate elements seem to dissociated
from each other to be fully satisfying. The
narrative single player shooter elements
are fun but outlive their welcome.
The PVP free-for-all of the Dark Zone
makes for a fun and thrilling multiplayer
experience but is alienating for solo
players even though it is a necessity for
anyone who wants the best loot for their
characters. The RPG style levelling is
too tied in with questing to have any real
impact and the range of skills is not really
wide enough to give much variation in
builds. Its a strange beast, equal parts
moreish character progression and
frustration. With a few more patches and
content updates, The Division could be
great but right now its less than the sum
of its parts.
Daniel Wilks
KEY SPECS
www.tomclancy-thedivision.ubi.com
Genre - Third Person Shooter/MMO Developer - Ubisoft
Massive, Red Storm Entertainment Publisher - Ubisoft
Platform - PC, PS4, Xbox One
OVERALL
0
The A-List
THE VERY BEST GEAR YOU CAN BUY
PC DESKTOP
ALL-IN-ONE
Apple iMac 27in with Retina 5k display
+++++
PRICE $2,299
SUPPLIER www.apple.com/au
The Apple 27in iMac with Retina 5K display is great. The best all-in-one
computer around, and by a furlong.
SPECIFICATIONS Quad-core 3.2GHz Intel Core i5 processor; AMD Radeon R9 M390 graphics;
8GB RAM 1TB Fusion Drive 27in 5,120 x 2,880 Retina 5K IPS display SDXC card slot 4 x USB 3 2 x
Thunderbolt 2 Gigabit Ethernet 802.11ac Wi-Fi
PERIPHERALS
WIRELESS ROUTER Asus RT-AC5300
+++++
SUPPLIER www.asus.com.au
If youre connecting less than ten devices to the twin
5GHz networks, this extra bandwidth isnt necessary,
but theres no harm in future-proofing as more devices
start including Wi-Fi.
ALL-IN-ONE PRINTER
Canon Pixma IP 8760
+++++
SUPPLIER www.canon.com.au
This Canon can do it all, and at a reasonable price.
SPECIFICATIONS Tri-band router (2 x 5GHz and 1 x 2.4GHz networks);
SPECIFICATIONS 9600 x 2400dpi print; 2400 x 4800ppi scan; USB 2; 802.11n
802.11a/b/c/g/n/ac compatible; 4x4 antennae design; Combined rate of 5334Mbps
WLAN; 150-sheet tray
DESKTOP STORAGE CalDigit T3

with Thunderbolt 2
NAS Synology
Diskstation DS415play
+++++
+++++
SUPPLIER www.amazon.com
The T3 is an expensive RAID device, but when you factor
in the drives and the capacity included, its good value.
SUPPLIER www.synology.com
For most home users, the DS415play is very impressive. Its
an all in one box that can literally do it all.
SUPPLIER www.dell.com.au
The best all-rounder in our printer grouptest, with excellent text printing and decent costs.
+++++
LASER PRINTER Dell B1160w
SPECIFICATIONS 6/9/12/15TB external hard disk with RAID; Thunderbolt and
SPECIFICATIONS 4x SATA 3 2.5/3.5 drive bays Intel Atom Dual Core 1.6GHz
SPECIFICATIONS 1800 x 600dpi resolution; USB 2; Wi-Fi; 150-sheet input trays;
Thunderbolt 2, 135 x 241 x 116mm 4.5kg.
CPU 1GB DDR3 RAM 2x USB 3.0 & 3x USB 2.0 1x Gigabit Ethernet
331 x 215 x 178
A-LIST REVIEWS
LAPTOPS
VALUE
Asus T100HA
GAMING
Metabox Prime P870DM-G
PRICE $428
SUPPLIER www.asus.com.au
Performance that delivers everything
typical day to day computing demands
short of intense gaming, combined
with a fantastic screen and a solid and
we think, rugged design makes this the
value king.
PRICE $4,549
SUPPLIER www.metabox.com.au
If you can handle the noise, the net
result of all of this hardware is a speed
demon of a machine, without doubt the
fastest gaming laptop weve tested.
PRICE $2,299 $4,199

SUPPLIER www.microsoft.com.au
Truly beautiful, undeniably powerful
and without doubt the best
professional laptop you can buy.
PRICE $2,499
SUPPLIER www.dell.com/au
This is a powerful, light, lovely
ultraportable that comes only hairs
breadth from perfection and is as sexy
as they come, too.
SPECIFICATIONS 17.1in 1920 x 1080 G-Sync display; Intel
SPECIFICATIONS 13.5in 3000x2000 IPS display Intel
SPECIFICATIONS Dual-core 2.5GHz Intel Core i7-6500U l
6th Gen Core i7-6700K CPU (quad-cored, Hyper-Threaded
i5-6300U/i7-6600U CPU 8/16GB RAM, optional Nvidia
8GB RAM l 256GB PCI-E SSD l 13.3in 3,200 x 1,800 IPS display
SPECIFICATIONS 10.1in IPS panel; Intel Quad-Core x5-
4GHz); 16GB DDR4 memory; 250GB Samsung EVO M.2 SSD
GPU 256/512GB PCIe SSD 802.11ac Wi-Fi Bluetooth 4.0,
l SD/SDHC/SDXC slot l 2 x USB 3 l Thunderbolt 3 l 720p
Z8500 processor; 64GB eMMC SSD; 4GB LPDDR3 memory
and 1TB HDD
2x USB 3.0 Mini DisplayPort
webcam l 802.11ac Wi-Fi (2x2)
+++++
+++++
+++++
TABLET
Samsung
Galaxy Tab
S2 9.7
PRICE $999
SUPPLIER
www.sony.com.au
Similarly impressive
performance and
specs to the Galaxy
S6 and iPhone 6s,
but with the valuable
benefit of dust and
water resistance and
a microSD slot.
PRICE $599
(32GB, Wi-Fi)
SUPPLIER
www.samsung.
com/au
Its neck and
neck with the iPad Air 2, but the Galaxy
Tab 2 gets it for a nicer screen, a faster
CPU, microSD and being lighter.
SPECIFICATIONS Octa-core 2GHz Qualcomm
SPECIFICATIONS 1.9GHz Octa-Core CPU 3GB RAM
Snapdragon 810 SoC 3GB RAM 32GB storage microSD
32GB storage 9.7in 1,536 x 2,048 IPS display 7,340mAh
slot (up to 200GB) 5.2in 1,080 x 1,920 IPS display
battery
+++++
EBOOK READER
Kindle Paperwhite
SMARTWATCH
Apple Watch Sport
PRICE $119
SUPPLIER
www.amazon.com
The premium
Kindle goes the
extra mile, with a
more attractive
design, lower
weight, and better
contrast.
PRICE $499
SUPPLIER
www.apple.com/au
This is not only
our pick of Apple
Watches, but of
the smart watch
market overall at
this point in time.
Good features, great
app support and just
so nice to use.
+++++
SPECIFICATIONS 6in 1,072 x 1,448 E Ink Carta display

2GB storage single-band 802.11n Wi-Fi optional 3G 1yr
RTB warranty 117 x 9.1 x 169mm (WDH)
ULTRA PORTABLE
Dell XPS 13
+++++
+++++
SOFTWARE
HANDHELDS
SMARTPHONE
Sony Xperia Z5
PROFESSIONAL
Microsoft
Surface Book
+++++
SECURITY Kaspersky
Total Security
+++++
SUPPLIER www.kaspersky.com
Kaspersky Total Security is the only
security package on test that achieved
both perfect protection and falsepositives scores.
AUDIO Cubase 7.5
+++++
SUPPLIER www.steinberg.net
The addition of better filters solidifies
this programs continued place on the
A-List.
BACK UP Acronis
True Image 2015
+++++
SUPPLIER www.acronis.com.au
The 2015 version adds full-system
backup and dual backup and unlimited
cloud storage.
VIDEO Sony Vegas Movie

Studio HD Platinum 11
+++++
OFFICE
SUITE
Microsoft
Office
365 Home
Premium
SUPPLIER www.sony.com.au
May not have the bells and whistles of
other consumer editing packages, but
its tools are efficient.
PHOTO Adobe
Photoshop Lightroom 6
+++++
SUPPLIER
www.microsoft.com.au
The easiest to use Office to date.
WEB DEV Adobe

Dreamweaver CS6
+++++
SUPPLIER www.adobe.com.au
Lightroom 6 doesnt add up to a
revolutionary update, but it improves
on what was already an exceptional
piece of software.
+++++
SUPPLIER www.adobe.com.au
This edition makes PHP and CMS its
core focus.
SPECIFICATIONS
340 x 272 AMOLED 512MB / 8GB 205 mAh iOS 8.2+
The Kitlog
THE GAME BOX
THE KEYBOARDS I LIKE BEST
MOTHERBOARD
CPU
INTEL CORE I5 6600K

PRICE $325
Gaming generally doesnt make use
of hyper-threading which makes
this the CPU of choice for this box.
ASUS Z170 PRO GAMING

PRICE $279
Our Skylake Value Award winner, it packs
in a complete set of features yet is priced
reasonably. Good audio also means we dont
need a sound card.
8GB OF DDR4
VIDEOCARD
MEMORY
part from the addition of the

new Asus PA329 monitor to the
Perfect PC, all items in the Kitlog
hold steady this month. The Asus is
reviewed on page 35 and theres no way we
couldnt put it in there really is no better
alternative when it comes to an amazing
screen, dazzling high-end specs and a very
reasonable cost.
We are holding for the moment on
replacing the Samsung 850 Pro in the
Game Box with our new favourite value
SSD the OCZ Trion 150 because we still
need to see what sort of street price the
Trion 150 goes for. As its a brand new
product we only have RRP at this stage,
and thats so very close to the street price
of the Samsung that until we can see a
clear cost saving for the OCZ the Samsung
holds its spot.
PRICE $120
The speed and brand makes so little
difference to performance we cant
recommend one over another.
NVIDIA GTX 970

PRICE $500
Quiet, sips power, but when the
performance is needed this blazer eats up
the frames.
VIDEOCARD
MEMORY
MOTHERBOARD
CPU
THE PERFECT PC
INTEL CORE I7 6700K

PRICE $525
Intels top-shelf unlocked i7 CPU.
GIGABYTE
GA-170X GAMING G1
PRICE $800
The most complete
100-series motherboard
you can buy today.
32GB OF DDR4
PRICE $430
For a general-purpose build 16GB is
all you need, but go big if you know
you need more.
MSI GTX 980TI GAMING 6G

PRICE $1089
Faster than a Titan X and
several hundred dollars cheaper,
this is an outstanding 980TI.
KITLOG REVIEWS
TOTAL: $3566 RIG ONLY: $1917
SAMSUNG 850 PRO 512GB

PRICE $349
This SSD offers greatly improved
durability. Supplement it with a hard
drive of your choice if needed.
ACER XB271HU
ASUS PG279Q
PRICE $1,050
G-Synced frames up to
165Hz in a generous 27in size
yet with a super thin bezel.
PRICE $1,050
The same core specs and
capabilities of the Acer, with
an added SD card reader.
AUDIO
HYPERX
CLOUD II
CORSAIR
VOID
PRICE $149
The HyperX Cloud II
provide excellent sound
quality and not just for
the price range.
PRICE $130
The USB 7.1 model
is the best balance
between price and
performance.
CASE
PRICE $99
Bitfenix continues to deliver great
budget cases that look terrific and
are easy to build in.
CORSAIR K70
PRICE $190
The glorious perfection of
mechanical keys with well
thought-out gamer design.
LOGITECH G502
MOUSE
KEYBOARD
PRICE $120
Easy to install AIO CPU cooling,
relative quiet and performance to
rival twin-radiator units.
BITFENIX RONIN
POWER SUPPLY
DISPLAY
SYSTEMDRIVES
COOLER
COOLERMASTER
NEPTON 140XL
PRICE $120
Comfortable, controllable and
impressively adjustable.
COOLER MASTER G750M

PRICE $125
Outstanding value for money, its
powerful enough for even performance
PCs packing twin GPUs.
TOTAL: $9,108 RIG ONLY: $6820
2 X SAMSUNG
950 PRO 512GB
PCIE/M.2 SSD
PRICE $1499
Leaves SATA SSDs
in the dust.
PRICE $429 each.

Intels equal, and in a
smaller M.2 form-factor.
ANY HDD
PRICE $100 (2TB)
Supplement the SSD
with cheap HDD storage.
ASUS PA329
PRICE $2000
32-inches of 10-bit colour at 4k res, 100%
RGB for professionals, and a luxurious
delight for gaming and general use.
CASE
KEYBOARD
INTEL 750
1.2TB SSD
PRICE $599
If you absolutely must have what is
very nearly the best case weve seen,
this is the one.
CORSAIR VENGEANCE K95

PRICE $189
The perfect keyboard. Lovely Cherry Red
mechanical switches, a slick and attractive
aluminium body and customisable
backlighting make this The One.
CM STORM REAPER
MOUSE
PRICE $160
Excellent cooling that is easy
to install with advanced
monitoring.
ANTEC S10
POWER SUPPLY
AUDIO
HDDS
SSDS
COOLER
CORSAIR H100IGTX
WATER COOLER
PRICE $75
Very solid and feels fantastic under
the hand with sweet on-screen
movement.
CORSAIR HX1000I
PRICE $299
Corsairs mighty HX1000i
pumps out extremely reliable
power, even when under
full loads.
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CONSUMER CYBORGS:
WHY GESTURE RECOGNITION IS
THE FUTURE OF BIONIC LIMBS
Computers cant read our minds, but they can read our muscles. Nicole Kobie discovers how
smart prosthetics might become affordable and whats next for human-computer interaction
martphones may seem like an

extension of ourselves, but a true
computer-human meld is a goal yet
to be reached despite work by military
researchers such as DARPA. While robotic
limbs are increasingly commonplace, they
remain difficult to attach and expensive.
DARPA is hoping third-party efforts can
help create the ultimate interface between
humans and machines.
Just as the Kinect sensor found uses
in remote surgery and controlling robots,
gesture-recognition hardware could be the
next big opportunity for bionics. In part,
thats thanks to developer Thalmic Labs
offering an API and software development
kit (SDK) for its armband, Myo. Myo
reads electromyography (EMG) signals
tiny twitches in your muscles and
translates them into data to communicate
movement in a game or control a drone.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University
saw the potential for people who are
missing limbs: strap on the Myo and use
it as a cheap way to read EMG signals
to control computerised prosthetics. It
worked.
MIND OVER MUSCLE

The use of EMG signals to control smart
prosthetics isnt new. British company
RSLSteeper uses a similar idea for its
myoelectric bionic hands. The Bebionic
hands work by picking up and magnifying
EMG signals from a users muscles,
explained Courtney Medynksi, product
development manager. These signals are
sent to the hand and translated into open
and close inputs. These open and close
inputs can be proportional, meaning the
input is related directly to the strength of
the muscle contraction.
While the system works, it has
limitations. The bandwidth we have to
work with is quite small, Medynski said.
Were limited by the number of inputs
from the user and the absence of any
feedback provided to the hand. Its difficult
when trying to create a product that
remains non-invasive while attempting to
match how natural peoples perceptions
are. Keeping connected prosthetics noninvasive is key. Its long been possible to
graft them directly to a person, connecting

nerve endings to the smart prosthetic for
direct control, but that involves surgery
and is expensive. The Steeper system
reads muscles via connections on the skin.
Thats exactly what the Myo is doing, but
at a fraction of the price. Bebionic systems
run to the tens of thousands, while the
Myo armband costs only US$350. That
price doesnt include the cost of software
and the prosthetic itself, but its a good
rst step to slashing the bionic bill
The Bebionic is the top-of-theline prosthetic and there are cheaper
alternatives, but the Myo could prove
easier to use than cheaper rivals,
potentially pairing top-end EMG features
with lower costs. The unique thing
about Myo is that it uses very sensitive
electromyography sensors, said Sameera
Banduk, marketing director at Thalmic
Labs. In the past, the EMG sensors had
been used to detect muscle activation
in hospitals and things like that. But you
need to put on conductive gel; you maybe
need to shave your arms so that you have
it directly on the skin; youre hooked up to
a $10,000 machine in a hospital in order
for it to read these electrical activity, the
electrical activity of your muscles.
However, the Myo is a consumer device
its designed to be easy to use and
requires none of that skin preparation,

said Banduk. You just slide it up on your
arm and you can start controlling devices.
DEVELOPING CHALLENGES
That doesnt mean the Myo will work
with all prosthetics. The Johns Hopkins
researchers had to program the device
to work with the prosthetic worn by test
subject Johnny, which connects directly to
his arm bone. At the moment, the setup
only works with a computer running the
program nearby. Banduk noted the Myo
works over Bluetooth, so it could in theory
speak directly to a prosthetic limb or via
a smartphone in the future.
Thalmic Labs believes the power in
its gadget isnt just the hardware, but
opening it up via an API and SDK. A big
focus for us is continuing to focus on that
developer community, said Banduk. So
enabling developer tools like the SDK
and the API, and listening to them on
the features that they want in order to
continue to unlock the potential of the
device. The armband has already found
a variety of applications, but Banduk said
the prosthetic work has blown away
the startups team of developers. This
was one of the most touching, rewarding
applications that we have seen come to
life so far.
FUTURES
DARPAS
CYBORG
SOLDIERS
Imagine if the brain could tell a machine
what to do without having to type,
speak or use other standard interfaces.
Thats the aim of the US Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA), which has committed US$60
million to a Neural Engineering System
Design (NESD) project to do just that.
Todays best brain-computer
interface systems are like two
supercomputers trying to talk to each
other using an old 300-baud modem,
said Phillip Alvelda, the NESD
program manager. Imagine
what will become possible
when we upgrade our
tools to really open
the channel between
the human brain and
modern electronics.
The aim is to create
a tiny chip no larger
than a cubic centimetre
that can translate the brains
electrochemical language into the
ones and zeros that constitute the
language of IT, DARPA said.
Current interfaces can read signals
from tens of thousands of neurons, but
the result is noisy and imprecise. The
NESD research aims to bump that up to
a million signals.
That wont be easy. The brain has
millions of neurons trained to look at
this, but technologies have limitations
in what they can do, said Angelo
Cangelosi, professor in AI and cognition
at Plymouth University. The challenge
remains, with so many signal patterns,
how do you map them to human-like
actions? This is a big challenge.
But its not impossible. Cangelosi
expects results within a few years, while
pointing out that a cyborg made from
machine parts linked directly to the
brain is a much longerterm project, measured in decades.
Were increasing the complexity of
signals, which are already hard to
handle, he said. Our machine-learning
systems are powerful, up to a point. Its
important to go past where we are now
with a few simple actions, but we have
to wait a bit.
However, Stephen Hawking has
warned that we must be careful with
cyborgs, lest they harm humanity.
Im an optimist, not like Hawking we
dont need to worry too much, said
Cangelosi. Humans can have control
over their technologies.
BITCOIN IS DEAD, LONG

LIVE THE BLOCKCHAIN
A key Bitcoin developer has declared the digital currency over but others
disagree. Can it survive, or will it be superseded by its own ledger system?
if you invested in 2012, each bitcoin you
bought would be worth ten times as much
now but what will it be worth if the
digital currency fails?
With a price above $540 it doesnt
look like Bitcoin is circling the drain, but
developer Mike Hearn raised the question
in an online post: Bitcoin is an experiment
and like all experiments, it can fail. He
claims its fading because the currency
was intended to be a decentralised
answer to nancial institutions, but is now
controlled by a handful of people.
Part of that comes down to the
blockchain, the digital ledger system
that manages transactions. According to
Hearn, because of an articial capacity
cap that those in control of Bitcoin wont
change, the network is now almost
completely exhausted. That limits Bitcoin
to three payments per second not
enough to keep up with transactions
while disputes are holding back proposed
solutions. A point Hearn hammered home
by quitting his work on the currency,
knocking 10% off its price.
What doesnt kill us...
Bitcoin faces challenges, but they can be
solved. Directors of the Imperial College
Centre for Cryptocurrency Research
and Engineering Professor William
Knottenbelt, Dr Catherine Mulligan, and Dr
Robert Learney considered the issue.
Bitcoin is having a governance crisis,
they explained. It has proved itself
as a novel kind of asset with unique
properties and, if anything, its the victim
of its own success. But it does face an
imminent crisis caused by the limited
transaction-processing capacity of the
current network. This may lead to higher
transaction fees and/or long delays on the
conrmation of transactions. Technical
solutions to address the scalability
challenges do exist.
Solutions include mining pools and
developers agreeing about protocol
changes to make Bitcoin scale more easily.
The closer the system gets to being
unsustainably overloaded, the greater
the pressure to achieve an agreement will
become.
Too big to fail?
Obi Nwosu, managing director of startup
Coinoor, also pointed to network effects
as Bitcoins saviour, noting that US$600
million is invested
annually and
transaction
volumes are
increasing.
Although failure
is technically
possible, the
numerous network
effects security,
liquidity, investment of Bitcoin remain
incredibly strong, he said.
Bitcoin could fail in other ways, though
Nwosu thinks its unlikely. Technically,
Bitcoin can be frozen or temporarily
stalled by a malicious person or
organisation taking control of the majority
of the network, or by a technical issue
preventing transactions from being
processed correctly. The combined
resources of Bitcoins decentralised
network protect it against the former
and the quality, competence and vested
interests of the Bitcoin development
community help it prevent the latter.
Even if the system falls apart, Coinoor
isnt worried. In the unlikely event that
Bitcoin fails, we would expect a new and
improved Bitcoin 2.0 currency to arise
and we would likely switch, he said.
The legacy of blockchain
If Bitcoin were to fail, it would leave
behind some empty digital wallets, but
also the legacy of the blockchain. Its
the digital ledger that runs Bitcoin, and
many see it as the most valuable part
of the experiment, suggesting it could
be used for online contracts and other
tasks requiring authentication. Microsoft,
Visa and NASDAQ have all invested in
blockchain startups.
We believe in the general notion
of trustless, veriable decentralised
ownership and the ability to transfer and
process information in a decentralised
but programmable way is very powerful,
said the directors. We expect it to
fundamentally change the way human
society deals with contracts, identity,
patents, copyright, votes and more.
Coinoors Nwosu isnt convinced. In
the long run, the unique attributes of
Bitcoin decentralisation, openness,
privacy, security and censorship
resistance mean that it will remain the
most revolutionary and disruptive product
to come out of the blockchain revolution.
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FUTURES
WHAT IS...
GIGA?
FUNKY SCIENCE
Here are the top stories from this month on the
innovations that are just over the horizon.
Theres a new format being

considered to boost internet
download and streaming
speeds. Heres how Giga could
make the web faster
Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is the language the internet speaks

but its time for a new vocabulary. TCP is the communications protocol that
splits your data up into tiny packets, sends them over the internet, and
then reassembles them (addressing them via Internet Protocol, hence the
acronyms usually appearing together as TCP/IP).
While TCP has served us well through the growth of the internet and
invention of the web, it was designed back in 1974 and a more modern
replacement has now been developed by networking firm Akamai. In
January, the company revealed Giga, a new protocol that can move data
30% faster than TCP. Heres how Giga works and why its so quick.
WHAT IS GIGA?
Like TCP, Giga is a protocol for splitting up data and sending it in packets
across the internet. Unlike the existing standard, its been designed
specifically for modern uses of the internet, such as audio and video
streaming.
In particular, it has an upgraded congestion-control system. As network
data is intelligently encoded, data that is lost in transit does not require a
retransmission approach, which helps performance, particularly on networks
with higher latency, said Kit Knox, vice president of media engineering at
Akamai.
HOW MUCH FASTER IS GIGA THAN TCP?
Akamai told us that the average data-transfer rate was 31.3% faster using
Giga than TCP, although that varies depending on the network structure.
Some tests in developing markets returned 150% improvements, while
others only saw a speed boost of a few percentage points.
The new protocol has several tricks to achieve such improvements. It
encodes packets to reduce dropped links if the connection is wobbly, and is
better at monitoring network capacity.
The Akamai work on protocol acceleration works to leverage more of the
capacity that exists within a network, said Knox. The Akamai deployment
model is to deploy as deeply into these end users networks as possible,
hoping to leave just the last mile and local networks as bottlenecks. Different
networks have different technologies deployed with differing amounts of
capacity that arent fully utilised by existing protocols. For example, if a
network only has DSL deployments that max out at 6Mbits/sec, there is less
available headroom for us to utilise to get improvements.
WHAT CONTENT DOES IT WORK BEST WITH?
The Giga protocol is strong at speeding up longer forms of content,
downloads that can clog up networks, such as streaming video. However,
theres another standard that could help with small objects too. Last year,
Google released an experimental transport layer of its own, called Quick UDP
Internet Connections (QUIC). Already in use in Chrome, its shaved 3% from
page-load times on Google Search, and helps buffer YouTube.
WHEN WILL GIGA COME INTO USE?
Akamai will be releasing the tech in an open format to encourage take-up of
Giga, but it will require hardware support from users client devices to the
servers from which youre trying to download data. That need not take long:
Google submitted QUIC to the standards body last year, and its now in use
across Googles products.
The AI doctor will see you now

Concerned about your health? In the near future, you
could be posing your questions about that funny spot
on your skin to an articial intelligence bot rather than
a human practitioner. The Babylon app offers remote
access to real-life doctors over your phone, and wants
to screen patients via AI in the future. Meanwhile,
limited robotic legal helpers are already here. A
student has built a simple AI to manage parking ticket
appeals and PPI claims, helping avoid paying large
fees to real-life lawyers.
Cosmetics get connected
French startup Feeligreen is
bringing connected tech to the
world of blusher, mascara and
lipstick. The rst products are the
I-Feel Beauty and I-Feel Sport, a
pair of skin creams that are applied
with a gadget that uses bipolar
micro-currents and light therapy...
thereby showing the creators are fully
aware that scientic-sounding jargon sells well in
the Boots makeup aisle. The gadget connects to an
app to offer recommendations for your skin type
while also tracking its use to report back to the rm.
Silly as connected cosmetics may sound, Feeligreen
is also working on more serious healthcare products,
including a patch to deliver pain relief and monitor
skin conditions.
Can Apple push pens and paper out of classrooms?
Back in 1996, Steve Jobs suggested he doubted the
value of tech in schools. Fast-forward 20 years, and
Apples VP of product marketing has a different take,
with Susan Prescott telling PC&TA the companys
aim is to make the learning personal for each and
every student so they can reach their full potential.
Research suggests technology isnt the key to solving
education issues, although individual schools have
found success. Fraser Speirs, who runs the worlds
rst 1:1 iPad school programme, said that most
schools fail to ask
the right questions.
They rarely ask if
technology enables
new abilities or
new kinds of
knowledge.
DVD CONTENTS
FREE FULL VERSIONS OF AMAZINGLY USEFUL APPS!
FEATURES
FULL VERSION
FULL VERSION
+ F-SECURE KEY+ CRAZYTALK 7

STANDARD+ ABELSSOFT UNDELETER
2016+ SUPEREASY AUDIO CONVERTER
3+ ASHAMPOO HOME DESIGNER 2
ASHAMPOO HOME DESIGNER 2
ABELSOFT UNDELETER 2016
Ashampoo Home Designer is a 3D home

planning tool which makes it easy to see
how your next home project will look,
without having to pay for a professional
designer. You start by providing the
dimensions of your room, then add
walls, windows, doors, maybe carpets
to create the initial shell. Then youll add
further objects - the tables, chairs, bath,
TV cooker, whatevers appropriate - and
reorganise, rearrange and relocate these
until you nd the layout you need.
And then you can dress it further for
enhanced realism. Would your room
look better with parquet ooring or
granite tiles, for instance? Choose the
appropriate material and youll see, right
away. Youre even able to import your
own photos to use as backgrounds,
maybe a view of your garden as it will
appear through the window, to give you
the best possible idea of how your room
will appear in real life.
Abelssoft Undeleter 2016 is a free tool

for recovering accidentally deleted les.
A clear and straightforward interface
gets you started right away. Just point the
program at the drive or device containing
your lost les, optionally choose the le
type (images, audio, documents) and
click Next to begin.
Select your preferred option, click Start,
and scanning begins. Any recoverable
les are listed as theyre found. The nal
report can be lengthy, but fortunately
theres a Search box to help you drill
down to your lost les. Once youre ready,
manually select one or more target les,
or press Ctrl+A to select them all. Choose
your destination folder and Abelssoft
Undeleter 2016 recovers the lost les.
DRIVERS
+ ATI CATALYST + NVIDIA FORCEWARE
HELP
+ DISCLAIMER + DAMAGED OR FAULTY
DVDS + USING THIS DVD + INSTALLING
SOFTWARE
EDITORIAL
+ CREATE AN ANDROID APP
+ BENCHMARK YOUR PC +
UNDERSTANDING MALWARE
TROUBLESHOOTING
+ SERIAL CODES + BLANK
REGISTRATION WEBSITE + CANT FIND
A FILE? + INSTALLATION ERROR
WINDOWS
CCLEANER + CLASSIC SHELL +
CUTEPDF + DEFRAGGLER + FOXIT
READER + GREENSHOT + APPLE
ITUNES + LIBRE OFFICE + OPEN OFFICE
+ MALWAREBYTES A/M + SANDBOXIE
+ VLC MEDIA PLAYER + FLUX + 7ZIP
REQUIREMENTS:
- Windows 7, 8, 10 32/64-bit, 1500 MB
hard drive space
LIMITATIONS:
- Registration required.
- http://www.ashampoo.com/
MAC
+ ALFRED + BETTERTOUCHTOOLS +
APPLE ITUNES + DROPBOX + FLUX +
GOOGLE CHROME + MOZILLA FIREFOX
+ PLEX + SKYPE + TEAMVIEWER + VLC
INTERNET
+ VUZE + DROPBOX + GOOGLE
CHROME + MOZILLA FIREFOX +
MOZILLA THUNDERBIRD + SKYPE +
STEAM
LINUX
+ UNTANGLE
INSTRUCTIONS: Open Windows Explorer,
navigate to your DVD drive and doubleclick Index.html in the root directory. DISC
PROBLEMS: To replace faulty DVDs, please
send the discs to: PC&Tech Authority DVD
Replacements, Level 5, Building A, 207 Pacic
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Make sure to include your name and postal address on the back of
the package so that we know where to send the replacements. For
all other DVD related issues email cd@pcauthority.com.au. As the
delivery platform only, PC&TA and Haymarket Media cannot and will
not provide support for any of the software or data contained on these
discs. Although all discs are virus scanned, Haymarket Media cannot
accept any responsibility for any loss, damage or disruption to your data
or computer system that may occur while using the discs, the programs
or the data on them. There are no explicit or implied warranties for any
of the software products on the discs. Use of these discs is strictly at
your own risk.
REGISTRATION & INSTALLATION:

- Download and run ashampoo_home_
designer_pro_2_22789.exe
- After you launch the software, a prompt
will be appear requesting you to register.
- Click on Get free activation key,
this will open up a link in your default
internet browser.
- Enter your email and hit the Request
full version key.
NOTE:
- Users who have previously registered an
Ashampoo product, please log in.
- Once you have logged in, go back
to within the application and click
Request FREE full version key again
and ll out the prompts accordingly.
- Copy and paste your license key into the
application, press Activate now! and
complete the installation process.
- Congratulations! You have unlocked
Ashampoo Home Designer 2
For support of this software, please
direct your queries to: https://www.
ashampoo.com/en/aud/sup
REQUIREMENTS:
- Windows 7, 8, 10 32/64-bit
- 30MB hard drive space
LIMITATIONS:
- Registration Required:
- http://www.abelssoft.net/
- Download and run Undeleter-W_cs_
uk_06_2016.exe
- During our testing, we were not
prompted to register the application.
Here are the instructions provided to us:
- Get your registration code within the
application
- For support of this software, please
direct your queries to: https://www.
abelssoft.de/en/contact
FULL VERSION
CRAZYTALK 7 STANDARD
Standard portrait shots of friends and
family can often seem a little dull - but it
doesnt have to be that way. Reallusion
CrazyTalk can take a still image of any
face - friend, family member, celebrity,
whoever - and bring it to life. The head
will move, eyes will blink, the nose
will wrinkle, you can even make your
animated friend talk, and say anything
you like. You dont need Pixar-level
animation skills to make this happen,
either. Just import an image, draw a box
around the face, then position four dots
around the eyes and mouth. Set the
orientation of the face and thats the hard
work done; just click Play and your image
will start to blink, nod, look around and
more. It can be amazingly realistic.
CONTENTS DVD
REQUIREMENTS:
- Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 10
- 30 MB hard drive space
LIMITATIONS:
- Registration required.:
- http://www.abelssoft.net/
- Download and install CrazyTalk7Std_
Enu.exe
- Point your browser to: http://reallusion.
com/event/CT7std/pcauthority.aspx
- Create or login to your Reallusion
account. If youre creating a new
account, please point your browser to
http://reallusion.com/event/CT7std/
pcauthority.aspx again and click Login
Now.
- Select which platform you want and
click on Submit.
- Your serial number will be displayed at
the bottom right of the table. Copy and
paste the serial back into the installer
and complete the installation process.
For support of this software, please
direct your queries to: http://www.
reallusion.com/CustomerSupport/user/
FAQList.aspx
12 MONTH FULL VERSION

F-SECURE KEY 4
F-Secure KEY is a password manager
with clients for Windows, Mac, iOS and
Android. After the initial installation
youre invited to create a new KEY
account, which is as simple as entering
a password. Youre then able to import
your passwords, at least in theory (the
program can only import XML les
exported by other password managers,
including KeepPass and Password Safe).
If you cant access your existing
passwords then its easy enough to enter
them manually. Provide the login URL,
your user name and password (theres a
good secure password generator, if you
need one), and repeat the process for as
many sites as you like.
REQUIREMENTS:
LIMITATIONS:
- 12 month, Registration Required
- http://www.f-secure.com/
- Download and run f-secure_key_win.msi
or f-secure_key_mac.dmg for Mac users.
- To obtain your serial code, point your
browser to the following address:
http://key.disc.pcauthority.com.au/
- Register/login accordingly and you will
directed to a new page.
- If youre a new user and experiencing
difficulties logging in, open a new

browser tab/window and point to
http://key.disc.pcauthority.com.au/ and
login from there.
- Click on the blue button labeled, GET
SERIAL CODE and your serial key will be
generated.
- Once you have successfully installed
and executed F-Secure KEY, click on
Subscription and insert your serial code
(Voucher) and Redeem.
F-Secure KEY!
For support of this software, please direct
your queries to: https://www.f-secure.
com/en/web/home_global/support
FULL VERSION
SUPEREASY AUDIO CONVERTER 3
SuperEasy Audio Converter is a versatile
suite for downloading, ripping, extracting,
converting and saving audio les into
the formats you need. The program can
import audio and video les in all the
main formats, open CDs and DVDs, or
download videos from YouTube, Clipsh
or Metacafe. Simple editing tools enable
you to trim unwanted audio from each
clip.
REQUIREMENTS:
LIMITATIONS:
- Registration Required
- https://www.supereasy.net/en/usd

- Note: Please note, the program initially
installs as a 10-day trial version. After
setup is complete, click Request FREE
full version key on the splash screen
and enter your email address to receive
a free licence key.
- Download and run supereasy_audio_
converter_3_3.0.5224_8375.exe.
- After setup is complete, click Request
FREE full version key on the splash
screen and enter your email address to
receive a free licence key.
- You will receive an email where you
need to verify your account creation.
- Once you have completed the account
creation process, your serial key will be
presented. Copy and paste this back
into the software and click on Activate
Now.
F-Secure KEY!
For support of this software, please direct
your queries to: https://www.supereasy.
net/en/usd/sup
FREE FULL VERSIONS: Each

month, we offer PC & Tech
Authority readers full registrable
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instructions in the DVD menu
to complete registration, if
applicable. IMPORTANT: Full
product registration closes on
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DVD CONTENTS
AUTHORITY
FEATURE + F-SECURE KEY + CRAZYTALK 7 STANDARD + ABELSSOFT UNDELETER 2016
+ SUPEREASY AUDIO CONVERTER 3 + ASHAMPOO HOME DESIGNER 2 DRIVERS + ATI
CATALYST + NVIDIA FORCEWARE HELP + DISCLAIMER + DAMAGED OR FAULTY DVDS +
USING THIS DVD + INSTALLING SOFTWARE EDITORIAL +CREATE AN ANDROID APP +
BENCHMARK YOUR PC + UNDERSTANDING MALWARE TROUBLESHOOTING + SERIAL
CODES + BLANK REGISTRATION WEBSITE + CANT FIND A FILE? + INSTALLATION ERROR
WINDOWS + CCLEANER + CLASSIC SHELL + CUTEPDF + DEFRAGGLER + FOXIT READER +
GREENSHOT + APPLE ITUNES + LIBRE OFFICE + OPEN OFFICE + MALWAREBYTES A/M +
SANDBOXIE + VLC MEDIA PLAYER + FLUX + 7ZIP MAC + ALFRED + BETTERTOUCHTOOLS
+ APPLE ITUNES + DROPBOX + FLUX + GOOGLE CHROME + MOZILLA FIREFOX + PLEX
+ SKYPE + TEAMVIEWER + VLC INTERNET + VUZE + DROPBOX + GOOGLE CHROME +
MOZILLA FIREFOX + MOZILLA THUNDERBIRD + SKYPE + STEAM LINUX + UNTANGLE
INSTRUCTIONS: Open Windows Explorer, navigate to your DVD drive and double-click Index.html
in the root directory. DISC PROBLEMS: To replace faulty DVDs, please send the discs to: PC&Tech
Authority DVD Replacements, Level 5, Building A, 207 Pacic Highway, St Leonards NSW 2065
Make sure to include your name and postal address on the back of the package so that we know where to send the replacements. For all other DVD related
issues email cd@pcauthority.com.au. As the delivery platform only, PC&TA and Haymarket Media cannot and will not provide support for any of the
software or data contained on these discs. Although all discs are virus scanned, Haymarket Media cannot accept any responsibility for any loss, damage
or disruption to your data or computer system that may occur while using the discs, the programs or the data on them. There are no explicit or implied
warranties for any of the software products on the discs. Use of these discs is strictly at your own risk.
JON HONEYBALL
THE MORE I LOOKED, THE MORE IT

WASNT THERE MY 50TB LTO-6 HP
TAPE LIBRARY HAD DISAPPEARED
The sudden disappearance of a tape library has taught me
that when things change, they usually do so for a reason
n the words of Winnie-the-Pooh,

the more I looked, the more it
wasnt there. My 50TB LTO-6 HP
tape library had disappeared. I knew
this because Retrospect was whinging
that its backups hadnt completed
correctly. I tried restarting the Retrospect
management app. Retrospect consists
of a server engine and a management
console, but you dont have to be running
the management console to keep the
server engine running, and indeed they
dont even need to be running on the
same machine. There are also client
agents that you install onto all the
computers you want to back up, meaning
in a comprehensive solution you might
have multiple Retrospect servers, multiple
desktop/server agents and control
all of these from one or more desktop
machines. But rebooting the computer
that hosts the server engine, as well as the
management console, didnt help either.
The tape library was gone.
This was odd because I could see
it, not merely physically (because its
in my line of sight over on the other
side of the lab, connected via a long
run of bre Thunderbolt cable from
the iMac workstation), but also when I
went into Apple Menu | About this Mac
and clicked on System Report. I dived
into Thunderbolt and it saw the Atto
Thunderbolt to SAS adapter, which made
things all the more curious. So I red up
the Atto conguration tool, cursing that
it requires Java to be installed, and it too
could see the Atto card on the other side
of the room. It was, after all, sitting on the
PCIE bus of the computer, meaning that it
should be fairly hard to ignore. However,
the tool couldnt see the HP G2 1/8 Ultrium
6 drive or the robotic autoloader, which
happen to appear as separate devices on
the SAS bus.
JON HONEYBALL
Jon is the MD of an IT consultancy
that specialises in testing and
deploying hardware
@jonhoneyball
Poking the HP tape library with a metaphorical stick indicated that it was happy enough
Poking the HP tape library with a

stick indicated it was happy enough,
and logging into its web management
interface showed nothing amiss either.
Clearly, I was going to have to dig deeper.
If the hardware was present but I couldnt
see the tape library on the SAS bus, it
would suggest that the SAS bus wasnt
loading up correctly, and point to a driver
not initialising. So I went to the Atto site,
But I like living

dangerously and youre
all bold power users, so
its time to roll up our
sleeves
downloaded the latest driver and ran its
installer, which went without a hitch and
required a reboot. But still no sign of the
SAS bus.
It was time to turn to Console, which is
buried away in the Other folder. Console
is essentially a real-time monitor of all
the log messages in your OS X computer,
rolling past in real time. I wouldnt
normally recommend users to go scraping
through Console looking for things, for
the simple reason that you can either
terminally confuse yourself or scare
yourself witless. Its a bit like digging
around in the Windows Registry that
is, fun right up to the point where your
machine keels over and dies. But I like
living dangerously and youre all bold
power users, so its time to roll up our
collective sleeves.
A dig through the Console log showed
that the Atto driver wasnt loading

properly, citing that its digital signature
was wrong. Nothing had happened to
cause this, or so I thought, until I suddenly
remembered that this machine was
running the current beta of OS X. At this
point, I had a stern word with myself:
Obviously you shouldnt be running a
beta, even an inline, mid-stream beta,
on a machine thats running your tape
library. My only excuse is that it was
necessary at the time, a few months ago,
and that justication was genuine, but
I should have moved the tape library to
another machine and done the proper
thing back then. Suitably chastened, I dug
further. It seems that Apple is tightening
up on the KEXT driver signing, which is no
bad thing because unsigned (or wrongly
signed) drivers are the bane of any
sensible persons computing. Letting any
old rubbish in is really not a good idea.
I needed a solution and there simply
wasnt time to do the right thing
by migrating everything to another
workstation. Problems rarely occur when
its convenient. But what had Apple done,
and could I undo it? Some digging around
on the internet took me to an Apple
support page titled Conguring System
Integrity Protection. It appears that
Apple stores the security conguration
in NVRAM on the computer rather than
in the le system itself, which enables
the conguration to be enforced on any
bootable partition, and thats certainly a
good idea. In order to allow my perfectly
legitimate Atto driver to load, I had to
loosen the security settings just slightly
until Apple and/or Atto (along with all the
other driver vendors, I hasten to add) have
JON HONEYBALL REAL WORLD COMPUTING
worked this out. If Apple is going to be this

strict, and I have no problem with it doing
that, then many of the third-party driver
vendors are going to have to update their
signing and reissue drivers.
Anyway, the command I needed to
use is CSRUTIL, but you cant just re up
a command prompt and type it in. You
have to boot into the recovery installation,
open up a command prompt and only
then type CSRUTIL DISABLE (CSRUTIL
STATUS will tell you what the current
status is). After a reboot back to my
normal bootable partition, the driver
loaded just ne. My Atto driver loaded
and the SAS bus magically appeared, and
then to complete the circle, Retrospect
had suddenly discovered that it had a
tape library.
The moral of this story? When things
change, they usually do so for a reason,
and despite this happening on a beta
OS, it could just as easily have happened
after an update. Use the tools available
to decide how much of it is working and
at which protocol level, then work out
which bit is missing. Console is useful to
keep open, because it can indicate all
sorts of things going on in your machine
that youre unaware of. Indeed, Ive just
spotted a power management driver for
a Buffalo NAS trying to load, although I
havent had that device connected to my
network for more than a year, meaning its
time to do some more surgical removal. I
might be some time.
THOSE LAPTOPS AGAIN

Over the last few months, Ive been
regaling you all with tales of woe
concerning the various high-cost
laptops Ive recently purchased. Dell
has managed to almost terminally
blot its copybook with some dreadful
Fusion has been a useful tool for me, allowing me

to run complex virtualised environments on big
Mac computers
shenanigans over digital certicates,
and then truly compounded its error by
releasing a rmware update that wasnt
digitally signed, along with an updater app
that simply didnt work. Since then, Im
pleased to report that the pair of Dell XPS
13 laptops have now settled down and
started to do sterling work.
Ive gone through them both with a
ne-tooth comb to remove layer upon
layer of crud from their Windows 10
installations. It does really surprise me
that Microsoft still wont offer a minimal
stuff only setup option for homes and
small businesses. Of course, thats easy
enough to achieve in a large business,
where you install everything via corporate
images that have been careful scrutinised
for every DLL and applet, a bit like a caring
mother scouring her childs head for
nits. And if thats a somewhat upsetting
mental image, it just goes to show how
much I dont want any unnecessary muck
on my work laptops, thank you.
However, Ive yet to get hold of any
Thunderbolt 3 (TB3) devices that work
through the USB Type-C socket, and I
cant help but think that well need to
wait for Apples refresh of the MacBook
Pro to see TB3 implemented properly.
That might seem catty, but the PC world
has little meaningful experience of
Thunderbolt at the best of times, whereas
the Mac world has embraced it heavily.
Indeed, I still run multiple strands of bre
Thunderbolt here in my lab, crossing the
room between my iMac workstation and
all the disk storage, tape libraries and so
forth on the other side of the room.
Now for the Microsoft
Surface Book. I still
really want to like
this laptop its
so close to being
utterly lovely. The
combination of the
solid, high-quality
keyboard and
touchpad with the
excellent tablet
My pair of Dell
XPS 13 laptops
have settled down
and are doing
sterling work
component ought to tick every box going.

Even Windows 10 would make some
sense on it. However, the downside of
poor system stability still hasnt been
xed. Far too often, even with the very
latest rmware, the system just wont
come back out of sleep, or it comes back
with the screen contents corrupted, or
its Wi-Fi stack vanishes. Hopefully, these
problems will be xed soon, as Microsoft
seriously needs to pull its nger out. What
probably wont get xed any time soon
is its pitiful battery life: two-and-a-half
hours for the tablet component doing a
moderate workload is right on the edge
of my acceptable level. That increases by
about four hours when docked into the
keyboard, with its additional battery unit,
but both of those durations are barely half
what Id hoped for from such a stateof-the-art, ultra-high-spec (and price)
laptop/tablet hybrid.
VMWARE FUSION
Apparently VMware has laid off the Palo
Alto engineering teams for its Fusion
product. Of course, a marketing person
has announced that everything will be just
rosy and that theres no need to worry, but
it cant be a good thing when something
like this happens. Im somewhat miffed
by this as Fusion has been an incredibly
useful tool for me, allowing me to run
heavyweight and complex virtualised
environments on big Mac computers,
safe in the knowledge that the host
OS is not the same as the hosted one.
There are competitors, including Oracles
VirtualBox and the Parallels Desktop
product. I used Parallels when it rst
came out many years ago and found it
then to be somewhat buggy, but that
was the best part of a decade ago. When
VMware brought out its product I moved
over to Fusion because it gave me easy
compatibility with virtual machines
running on the full VMware server product
line, and since then Ive seen no reason to
move, despite the somewhat swingeing
upgrade cost every year or so. Until now,
that is. Ill now be looking hard at Parallels
again. To see how well it can import my
existing libraries of virtual machines and I
shall report back here with my ndings.
MICROSOFT OFFICE INSIDER

Psst, want to try new features in Microsoft
Office before they go to general release?
Well now you can. Simply go to Microsoft
AutoUpdate and check the box marked
Join the Office Insider program to get
The CLIOFW does a variety of audio analysis and signal-generation

tasks
Go to Microsoft AutoUpdate and tick the box at the bottom to try
features in Office before they go to general release
early access to new releases. Its not clear

whether this will just be bug xes or new
features, but even just bug xes would be
a good move. You need to have a current
Office 365 licence I believe, but that
should be no real handicap.
MEASURING WOW AND FLUTTER

For reasons too complicated to explain, I
needed to measure the wow and utter
(W&F) of a record turntable. Wow is a
slow speed uctuation in pitch, often
caused by a record with a hole not quite
in its centre, while utter is a higher speed
pitch wobble often caused by motor or
bearing problems. There is a
full specication for comparing
these defects, dened both
by IEC and DIN, but the issue
is the measurement process
itself. In the past, back when
analogue audio was far more
mainstream than it is now, you
could buy W&F test instruments from
Leader and other rms, but these havent
been made for decades and, even if you
were to pick one up on eBay for peanuts,
youd have no idea whether it was actually
working properly.
However, I found a lovely piece of
audio engineering equipment from an
Italian company called Automatica. This
is a box called the CLIOFW that does all
sorts of useful audio analysis and signal
generation tasks. It can do fast Fourier
transform (FFT), signal generation and
a wide range of room acoustics and
loudspeaker measurements such as
MLS, Wavelet, and cumulative spectral
decay, as well as energy-time-frequency
plots. Moreover, it will do wow and utter
measurements, derived from its FFT
analysis. This was going to be ideal for
my needs, and having a second audio
generator/analyser to go alongside my
monster PRISM unit would be no bad
thing either.
The measurement box connects to
a PC via a FireWire cable, from which it

takes its power, meaning the rst thing I
had to do to my bench Dell workstation
was add in a FireWire card. Once Id
done that, the software loaded and I
was up and running. My measurements
were done within a few minutes, and Ill
confess that Ive become quite besotted
with this little device. Automatica does a
smaller and cheaper version too, which
costs only a few hundred pounds, called
the CLIO Pocket. It has software for
both Windows and OS X and connects
via a USB cable. It doesnt do the most
advanced tests of the CLIOFW model, but
Philips Digital Interface Format, and its

been around since the early days of the
CD player. You might have seen those
strangely marked single phono sockets
on the back of a CD player and wondered
what theyre for, or else their optical
equivalent called TOSLINK (for Toshiba
Link, which came up with the idea). While
TOSLINK used to be fairly common on
laptops, its now faded from view. There
was a move to put the optical connector
into the tip of the headphone plug/socket,
but even that rather wacky idea appears
to be fading out.
So, if you want to get a good digital
audio stream out of your
computer, what do you do?
Well, there is a range of really
quite cheap devices that can
do it via USB for you, and they
can cost only a few pounds.
However, you have to be
careful because their clocking
can be of poor quality, which means that
they will introduce a lot of jitter into your
otherwise clean signal. M2Tech in Italy
makes some rather nice, if still somewhat
robustly-priced, devices. I went for the
rms new Hiface Evo 2 interface, which
is eye-wateringly expensive, but has
some very clever features that I wanted,
including I2S interfacing, along with DSD
decoding and the ability to upgrade the
clock in the future, as well as the ability to
re-sample the clock rate.
If you plug something such as this into a
Mac, no driver is required, but on Windows
its a quick download and install to get the
device up and running, and they provide
a neat little popup utility to control all of
its settings. If youre building a very high
quality computer-based music player,
for example, then getting clean signals
is a priority. However, how much that is
worth to you nancially is something only
you can decide. For my needs, therefore,
I had to be absolutely sure of what was
justiable.
What cost tens of thousands of

pounds when I was a student can
now be yours for less than a rst-class
return from London to Brussel
it does more than enough for any engineer
looking into electro-acoustics. Add to
it a remarkably affordable calibrated
measuring microphone that Automatica
also offers, and you have a pocket-sized
toolkit for troubleshooting all sorts of
audio equipment.
If you have a serious interest in audio
or hi- and really want to know what
makes things tick and why, a box such
as the CLIO Pocket is an incredible tool
that enables a huge range of capabilities
(and, therefore, learning) for not too much
money. What cost tens of thousands of
dollars when I was student can now be
yours for not much more than the price
of a business-class return seat on the
ight from Sydney to Brisbane. Best of all,
though, you can see, hear, play, adjust and
learn, which has to be a good thing.
USB TO SPDIF
As part of my audio ddling activities I
needed to generate a really good quality
SPDIF signal. SPDIF stands for Sony
PAUL OCKENDEN REAL WORLD COMPUTING
PAUL OCKENDEN
IM SURE WHEN GOOGLE

INVENTED THE CHROMECAST, IT
DIDNT THINK IT WOULD BE USED
FOR TURNING ON SUBWOOFERS
A reader finds an ingenious way to ensure a subwoofer is switched on alongside his television
egular readers will know that

Im a fan of whats probably
best described as ingenious
solutions. That is, using technology
in a completely different way from
what it was originally intended to do. A
great example is a note I received from
reader Matt Collinge, who wanted to
automatically switch his subwoofer on
and off at the same time as his TV. There
are several ways to achieve this: for
example, OneClicks Intelliplug device,
which is essentially a plug-in, multi-way
device with three outlets one is always
on while the other two are master and
slave. The way the latter two work is
that the slave outlet gets switched on or
off depending on whether any current is
being drawn from the master
outlet, which is a neat solution.
There are other options: you
could use a monitor plug such
as the Energenie model I wrote
about previously, and make
the output from that power a
remote socket. Unfortunately, at the time
of writing, Energenie still doesnt offer
current draw as one of the triggers for its
IFTTT recipes.
Matt took a different approach. He
already had one of the Energenie plugs,
with a Pi-mote controller that enables
the plug to be switched using a Raspberry
Pi. All he needed was a way to detect
whether the telly was switched on or not,
and this is where ingenuity is needed. If
Matt had one of the latest smart TVs,
hed probably be able to see it appear on
the network when it was on (although this
isnt guaranteed as some TVs maintain
their network connection, even while in
standby, so they can update apps and
EPGs). Matt noticed that the Chromecast
he has plugged into his TV appears on

the network when the telly is powered
up, so he wrote a script that runs on
the Pi and scans for the Chromecasts
MAC across the network. If it nds it, the
subwoofer gets switched on and, once
the Chromecast vanishes, the subwoofer
is powered down. Matt said he noticed
that, in certain situations, the ARP scan
cant see the Chromecast, even when its
powered on. It appears to occasionally
drop off the network momentarily, but
that meant his subwoofer would switch
off while he was watching a movie. He
added a counter to his scripts, which
ensured that the Chromecast must be
absent for three knocks before switching
takes place. Im sure when Google
but that might have interfered with its

other onboard radio transducers, which
consist of ZigBee (running at 2.4GHz),
Z-Wave (using the 868MHz band in
Europe), and Bluetooth radio (currently
disabled). The Z-Wave frequency is
important because its different in the
US, which means that youll need to be
very careful when buying things such as
sensors over the internet, since they may
not work here. ZigBee is safer as its the
same standard worldwide. While were
talking radios, I should mention that any
kit thats permanently powered (that is,
not running on batteries) will act as a
repeater and so constitutes a meshed
network. Neat.
As well as the hub, the kit contains four
Things, only one of which is
controllable, with the other
three being sensors. Its a
plug-in power outlet. Theres
no dimmer, merely a simple
on/off switch, but you do get
the ability to measure current
draw, so its really a sensor too. And like
all of the Samsung kit in the box, it uses
ZigBee for its comms.
The second Thing is a Multi Sensor,
combining a temperature sensor,
accelerometer (to register orientation,
vibration and movement), and an open/
closed contact sensor that you can use
on doors and windows. Also in the box is
a Motion Sensor. Its essentially a batterypowered PIR movement detector, except
it also measures temperature. Finally,
theres a Presence Sensor that triggers
an event whenever it goes in or out of
range of the hub. Its quite small and
Samsung suggests attaching it to your
key ring or leaving it in your car so that
the system can tell when youre at home
or attaching it to your pets collar. All of
these Things are tied together by a very
rich app.
Samsungs SmartThings Starter Kit

will allow you to get a feel of what kit
like this can actually do
PAUL OCKENDEN
Paul owns an agency that helps
businesses exploit the web, from
sales to marketing and everything in
between @PaulOckenden
invented the Chromecast, it didnt think it

would be used to turn on subwoofers.
AUTOMATIC FOR THE PEOPLE

Last month, I referred to Samsungs
SmartThings, but its probably worth
providing you with further detail, as
SmartThings are different from anything
else on the market. A good way to get
going is with the Starter Kit, which you
can pick up for around $300. You should
think of it as an experimenters box, which
will allow you to get a feel for what kit like
this can actually do. What comes in the
box wont be enough to fully automate
your home (or small business), although
the sensors and controls it contains are a
good starting point.
What do you get for your money? Well,
the starting point is a hub. This requires
a wired connection to your broadband
router, but Ive checked and it works
ne over a HomePlug link if you need to
install it in another part of the building.
Its a shame theres no Wi-Fi option,
THE BLUETOOTH BLUES

Several readers have asked similar
questions recently, on the subject of
wireless speakers and headphones, so

Im going to try to answer them at once.
Typical is this one from Roy Stanley: I
use headphones to listen to the TV, as I
prefer the volume a bit louder than the
rest of my family, but dont like to disturb
them. My old headphones disintegrated,
so I bought some new ones online. They
all seem to be Bluetooth these days. The
new headphones sound great, but theres
a noticeable processing delay, which
means I see lip-sync issues when
peoples words dont quite match up
with their mouth. Its very frustrating and
makes watching TV difficult.
Likewise, a tweet from Sylvia asks:
Can you recommend a wireless speaker
that doesnt delay the sound? There
have been about half a dozen similar
questions, all asking the same thing: how
do you get quality wireless audio without
the delay?
Most digital signals are going to suffer
from this effect to a greater or lesser
extent. If youve worked in networking
or electronics, youll know that this
delay is known as latency and its the
cumulative result of several factors the
original analogue-to-digital conversion
process, buffering, compression and
other signal processing chopping
the data stream up into packets and
transmitting it, and the same in reverse
at the other end. If youll allow me a slight
digression for a moment, the biggest
digital latency problem I can think of is
the Greenwich Time Signal, known as
the pips when played out on DAB radio.
These are often off by several seconds,
which makes them pretty useless as a
time signal. You can hear this delay for
yourself if you place a DAB radio next to
an FM one and compare the output on
the same station.
What you may not have realised is that,
for a few years now, most FM stations
have suffered a delay, due to the way the
signal is delivered to the transmitters
using NICAM encoding. FM signals
will typically be delayed by about one
second, which is just about tolerable
for most people, and might work in
the classic Okay chaps, synchronise
watches scenario. DAB, on the other
hand, can be six to eight seconds off the
delay depends on the brand and age (and
processing speed) of your DAB receiver
and renders the time signal useless.
I once made an official suggestion to
the local broadcaster that they add a

warble to the time signal on DAB (and
also on internet streams) to remind
listeners that this signal isnt accurate, but
it fell on deaf ears.
Back to wireless headphones and
speakers, which as Roy pointed out are
mostly Bluetooth-driven these days. In
fact, I just did a quick search for wireless
headphones on the electronic goods
website, which at the time of writing
lists 88 products, of which 84 employ
Bluetooth. Im not getting into any
I once made a
suggestion to the
BBC that they add
a warble to the time
signal on DAB, but it fell
on deaf ear
arguments about Bluetooth audio quality,
especially as my cloth ears max out at
around 192Kbits/sec VBR MP3 quality
these days (I cant hear any improvement
at higher rates, or when compression is
removed). For me at least, Bluetoothbased headphones or speakers sound
plenty good enough. I do appreciate the
better sound quality of certain models
over the rest my ears may be poor, but I
still hate tinny or boomy sound. However,
this is usually more affected by build
quality, size and other factors than by
transmission medium or compression
method. For me, its all about balancing
sound quality with comfort and
portability (headphones can get very
uncomfortable if used for a long time).
In terms of latency, Bluetooth speakers
or headphones will typically exhibit

delays in the 100-200ms region, although
a few may suffer a whopping half second.
A typical video source runs at 50Hz, so
each frame will last 20ms, and at 20ms
per frame audio thats delayed by 200ms
can arrive ten frames late. That will be
very noticeable, and is exactly what Roy
was complaining about with his new
headphones.
Incidentally, its a common
misconception that TV is captured at
25Hz because of interlacing: that may
have been the case some years ago, but
these days many of us watch 1080p (or
better) sources that arent interlaced
and have a proper 50Hz or even 60Hz
frame rate. Hardly anything is lmed for
TV at 25Hz these days, except when its
makers are aiming for a deliberate vintage
archive look.
There have been studies into how bad
audio delay needs to become before it
causes so-called lip-sync issues, and
one of the most respected is from the
American Advanced Television Systems
Committee, which recommends a
maximum of 45ms (www.webcitation.
org/60UbU5Ziv). An earlier study by
the European Broadcasting Union had
suggested that 125ms was acceptable.
The point at which delay becomes
unnoticeable appears to vary from person
to person, meaning all such studies try to
adopt a sensible most of the population
limit. The problem with these studies
is that they encourage broadcasters to
work within these tolerances. This means
that, in many cases, the material youre
watching will already be pushing right
against the limits, and even if your own
equipment is also within the limits, the
compounded effect of both delays may
push you into the detectable region. You
need to do everything possible to keep
latency as low as possible, so
what can you actually do?
For starters, theres equipment
out there that doesnt use
Bluetooth for its audio and, in
fact, doesnt use digital signal
processing at all. I mentioned
above that 84 of those 88
headphones on sale at Currys
The SmartThings Starter Kit contains
a range of sensors
PAUL OCKENDEN REAL WORLD COMPUTING
Denons Envaya Mini is a fantastic

Bluetooth speaker, and one of the
few to support aptX Low
Latency
Most people dont

realise that not all
Bluetooth audio is equal:
there are a number of
different prole
use Bluetooth, but that means there are
four that dont. Im pretty sure they all
employ 868MHz analogue RF channels,
which means theyll essentially display
zero milliseconds delay. When it comes
to wireless speakers, there are also a
few that employ analogue RF channels,
but they tend to be at the lower end of
the market and sound pretty dire. More
expensive wireless speaker systems
usually have better than Bluetooth
latency: for example, with Sonos
speakers, its around 70ms. Thats still
enough to sometimes notice lip-sync
problems, but better than most.
So whats the answer? The best Ive
found so far is Bluetooth, but not normal
laggy old Bluetooth. What many people
dont realise is that not all Bluetooth
audio is equal. There are a number of
different proles that you can use to
transmit audio. In the early days, these
were mainly designed for telephony
applications, but then along came A2DP
or Advanced Audio-Distribution Prole
offering far better sound quality. By
default, A2DP uses a codec called SBC
(Low-Complexity Subband Coding and,
no, I cant work out how that yields the
acronym SBC either). In fact there are
several different versions of SBC, but
as with most things Bluetooth, the
transmitter and receiver do an initial
handshake and then choose the
highest standard acceptable to both.
However, the spec allows other
codecs to be used, and this is where you
can shave a shedload of time from the
standard Bluetooth latency. In particular,
theres a commercially licenced codec
called aptX Low

Latency, which comes
from a company called CSR. Using
aptX LL (as its usually called) reduces
the latency to 32ms, which is the best
youre going to achieve for wireless digital
headphones or speakers, unless you
stump up for products at the megabuck
end of the market that employ custom
audio protocols. The aptX LL codec
has to be specially licensed by product
manufacturers so you wont nd it
available on much kit. Theres a fairly upto-date list on CSRs website at tinyurl.
com/zb32grx. Please dont confuse
aptX LL with normal aptX: the latter is
all about getting sound quality from
Bluetooth, but it doesnt address the
latency issue in the same way that the LL
version does.
In terms of compatible speakers,
I really love Denons Envaya range.
Furthermore, theres a Mini version
(which isnt listed on the CSR site at the
time of writing, which is odd because
it does support aptX LL). I reckon that,
in many respects, this actually sounds
better than its bigger and more expensive
sibling (although bear in mind what I said
about my hearing). You can pick up the
Envaya Mini for around $150, and that has

to be something of a bargain for such a
high-quality product. Mine is probably
one of my most used gadgets and I dont
only use it for low-latency applications
it also regularly plays music
streamed from my phones and
tablets.
If you want to banish lip-sync
problems, remember that aptX
LL needs to be supported at
both ends in order to work. This
means that if youre going to use
one of these sets of speakers or
headphones for listening to an
audiovisual source such as a TV set,
youll also need a transmitter that
supports aptX LL. As youll see from the
CSR website, there are quite a few of
these, but Im a huge fan of the Avantree
Saturn Pro. This is a small puck-like
device that will easily t into the palm of
your hand, powered by a rechargeable
battery thats good for around ten hours
between charges. If your telly has a
USB socket, you can use that to keep
the device permanently powered. Its
important to get the Saturn Pro, as the
non-professional version only supports
the normal, high-latency version of aptX.
The great thing about the Saturn Pro is
that it will work as either a transmitter or
a receiver theres a little switch on the
side. Thats a really good thing: if you take
a look at the range of headphones with
built-in aptX LL on the CSR site, youll see
that theyre all quite high-end, with price
tags to match. But with the Saturn Pro
running in Receiver mode, you can simply
plug in your favourite wired headphones.
If you need them, you can even get a
pack with two Saturn Pros, ready paired.
This is usually about 20% cheaper than
buying the two individually, which is
always nice.
Avantrees Saturn Pro is an excellent way to achieve

low-latency Bluetooth audio
MARK NEWTON
THE POSSIBILITIES OFFERED

BY THESE LITTLE PARCELS OF
COMPUTING POWER AND HARDWARE
CONTROL ARE IMMENSE
Its free and simple to develop Windows 10 Internet of Things apps for
microcomputers such as the Raspberry Pi and Galileo. Heres how
f, like me, youve been observing the

growth of microcomputer boards
such as the Arduino, Pi and Galileo,
I suspect youll have bought a couple
and dabbled with them and their various
development tools. The web is full of
projects using these devices, ranging from
the total overkill of creating a dimmable
LED to much more complex projects
limited mainly by ones imagination. Its an
exciting arena: the possibilities offered by
these little parcels of computing power
and hardware control are immense.
The overall terminology for this family
of devices, dened by their ability to be
easily interfaced with the real world, is
the Internet of Things, or IoT, and most
recently Ive been drawn in by Microsofts
version (dev.windows.com/en-us/iot).
Microsofts IoT initiative isnt merely a
framework that allows you to develop
code for these devices, but also a
community of like-minded developers.
There are many example projects to help
you get started and sort out problems
along the way. Its also a way of gaining
inspiration and, ultimately, showcasing
your own projects.
As a developer, Im excited because
it enables me to use the development
environment that Im used to, along with
the languages that Ive invested a lot of
time in learning: Visual Studio 2015 and
C++, C#, Visual Basic and JavaScript.
Python is available as an extension.
The physical microcomputer boards
themselves can be extended by plugging
in boards known as shields. Theres
support for virtual shields within Visual
Studio so you can fully test code against
your proposed hardware. The nal
debugging can be done on the hardware
itself, as Visual Studio will connect

directly to it and run your code on the
boards. Its perfect for nding those nal
bugs in your code.
These tools will only work on Windows
10, but thats no surprise: Microsoft
continues to remove support for previous
versions of Windows. At least you only
need the free Express version of Visual
Studio 2015 to develop with the IoT
framework, while all the other tools are
also available as free downloads.
GETTING STARTED
If you have a paid-for version of Visual
Studio, you need to do a custom install
and select the checkbox Universal
Windows App Development Tools | Tools
and Windows SDK. Then make sure that
you install Update 1 from the Extensions
And Updates dialog in Visual Studio. This
update can take a while (it did on my copy
of Visual Studio 2015 Professional), but
just be patient.
This is also the time to download a free
version of Windows 10 called Windows
10 IoT Core which is specically for
boards such as the Raspberry Pi 2,
MinnowBoard Max and Qualcomm
DragonBoard 410c. Lower-powered
boards such as the Arduino are unable to
MARK NEWTON
is based in Orkney and is an
internet solutions developer
and MD of ECats Ltd
run this OS, but you can still develop and

test Arduino code with this Visual Studio
setup using third party plugins.
The next stage is to install the IoT
Dashboard program, which is a free
download (tinyurl.com/ztmy95p). This
is used to create bootable images of
Windows 10 Core onto SD cards that can
be plugged into your micro-devices, and it
can also monitor them to see if all is well.
After all, these devices often dont have
displays of their own.
To do this, rst use Dashboard to
choose the device type for example,
Raspberry Pi 2 that youll be using. If the
SD is mounted in your card reader and
the Dashboard sees it correctly, it should
appear in the dropdown.
When you attempt to do this, you may
nd that the software doesnt recognise
the built-in SD card reader in your PC. If
this is the case, as it was for me, just buy
a cheap USB card reader and plug it in.
The Lexar one I use to take the cards from
my DSLR worked a treat, so I dont think
its particularly fussy except with built-in
readers. In fairness, Microsoft does warn
that this might be the case.
Windows 10 IoT Core has been developed especially
for boards such as the Raspberry Pi 2
MARK NEWTON REAL WORLD COMPUTING
Local Machine
loads quickly and
provides information
on resource usage as
the program run
The IoT Dashboard will download the
code, extract it and partition and image
the SD for you. Should the card not image,
this could be an issue with an obscure
card (my stock of SanDisk cards worked
ne). The software is quite happy for you
to attempt the imaging as many times
as you like without redownloading the
image, which is both a nice touch and
calms the temper.
Once the card has the Windows 10 IoT
Core imaged onto it, remove the card
from the reader and place it into your
microcomputer. In my case, it was a
Raspberry Pi 2.
Well done, you are now ready to try
writing some code.
DEVELOPMENT FIRST STEPS

When you open Visual Studio and try
to create a new project, youll see an
option under each of the languages in the
Windows subfolder to create Windows
IoT Core applications. Currently, there is
only the option to create a background
application: these have no direct user
interface and, if they crash, are restarted
by the OS. This means theyre ideal
for applications designed to control or
monitor hardware. This will give you the
necessary framework of code to get
things going.
The rst time you try to create a project,
your machine should prompt you to
change its settings to developer mode.
Thats because, by default, Windows 10
will only install Universal apps via the
Store. This is to minimise the chance
of badly behaved and rogue programs
getting on your machine, in much the
same way the App Store pioneered for
Apple devices.
There are two options here, one of
which is to allow sideloaded apps. These
are apps that havent been certied by
the Windows Store and hence may be
unsafe, so you should only load apps that
you trust yourself. This can be used to
bypass the Store for internal apps for your
own business. The second option is to
set your machine in full developer mode,
which will allow you to run apps within
Visual Studio in debug mode and this,
of course, is what you will want to do. You
can always change these settings later by
going to Windows settings, searching for
developer and looking at the Update &

Security settings. This is the same option
if you want to run your application on any
Windows 10 device, which also includes
phones and tablets.
Microsoft has, thankfully, changed the
way developers license their apps while
developing for Windows 10 devices.
Its now much easier, with a developer
licence no longer required for each device
that you want to use to develop for, install
or test your app. You just enable a device
once for these tasks from the settings for
the device. Thats it. No more having to
renew your developer licences every 30 or
90 days.
There are plenty of samples on the
Microsoft IoT website to download and
investigate, although some of these seem
to be written for a previous framework
as they complain about components not
being registered (if you rebuild the project
these errors sometimes x themselves).
However, its always good to start with
a Hello World app and one is provided
here. Load the project into Visual Studio
and take a look at the code. To run it
without any other devices connected,
make sure that the x86 or x64 processor
type is selected on the debug toolbar,
assuming your development box has an
Intel CPU, and then select Local Machine
or Simulator as the device to run on.
Local Machine is probably the best: it
loads quickly and provides information
on resource usage as the program runs.
Simulator is better if youre working on
The Microsoft IoT website is your starting point

for help and inspiration
the UI and testing the touch behaviour,

since it loads a mock-up of a generic
tablet. There are also full phone and
tablet emulations (dev.windows.com/enus/downloads) to test in when your app is
close to being deployed they take time
to load, though, so are a little tedious to
use in the early stages of developing.
If you connect your microcomputer
board to your network, Visual Studio
should see it if you select Remote
Machine, although I had to enter the Pis
IP address as it wouldnt discover the
board. The IP address is probably most
easily found by looking at the boot screen
of Windows 10 Core on the Pi, by simply
plugging in an HDMI monitor into the port
on the board.
To get started with coding, I suggest
that you download Blinky (tinyurl.com/
j6vxf6x) as it just blinks an LED on the Pi.
If you change the value of the port in the
code, it turns on and off to Pin 47 thats
the activity LED on the Pi board then
you wont need any extra hardware. This
code also changes the colour of a button
on the screen connected to the Pis HDMI
port, should you wish to test this way.
Is this going to impress anyone?
Absolutely not. But for now we just want
to get our head around the various stages,
so that we can later build that killer
Maker project. Ill set you off in the right
direction for that in next months issue.
DAVEY WINDER
ONCE SOMEONE KNOWS A DEVICE IS

ENCRYPTED, THEYLL DEDUCE THAT
THE DATA ON IT IS WORTH STEALING
An encrypted physical drive offers several advantages over software
encryption, not least the ability to hide all your sensitive data
f youre serious about encryption,

theres a lot to be said for doing
it in hardware, especially on
portable devices such as USB sticks. A
dedicated processor, physically located
on the encrypted drive, offers several
advantages over software-based
alternatives. The onboard processor runs
a random number generator to create the
encryption key, meaning your password
unlocks access to this key but isnt used
to generate it a vital advantage. It also
requires no driver installation and doesnt
depend on software being installed on
the host computer. Im mentioning this
because of a small thing Ive got my
hands on recently: one of Kingstons new
DataTraveler 2000 range of hardwareencrypted USB sticks.
The 32GB Kingston DT2000 isnt the
smallest USB stick on the market by a
long chalk, feeling as large as devices
I was using a decade ago. At 80 x 20 x
10.5mm in its sleeve, and weighing 24g,
its big compared to the Kingston DTSE9
(39 x 12.4 x 4.6mm and 6g) that I also use.
However, the DTSE9 is USB 2 and relies
on me encrypting my data via software.
Also, appearances can be deceptive
and the DT2000 is far from unwieldy or
old-fashioned. It looks good, in an angular
kind of way, in its shiny blue aluminium
housing, which is certied waterproof to
IP57 rating.
The surprise as you pull it out of its
sleeve is the alphanumeric keypad, a
quality item rather than a cheap, imsy
job thats likely to break after a few
presses the well-spaced keys are sturdy
and responsive. The sleeve protects
you from accidentally pressing the
keys in your pocket, initiating the selfdestruct mechanism that would reset the
encryption key, reformat the drive and
destroy all your data after ten incorrect
DAVEY WINDER
Davey is an award-winning
journalist and consultant
specialising in privacy and security
issues
@happygeek
entry attempts. Opportunists and

determined brute-forcers alike will nd
this hardware-encoded restriction very
tough to deal with.
The auto-lock is unlocked by your PIN,
which must be between seven and 15
digits obviously, Id recommend the
longer end of that range.
Operations such as setting the DT2000
to read-only mode, or setting a timeout,
are all set through the keypad this is
ddly but you get used to it. Leaving
your device unattended, unlocked and
connected to a host computer makes
your data vulnerable, hence the timeout
(which, for some reason, Kingston saw
t to disable by default). Enable it via a
keypad code and the drive will lock after
anywhere from one to 99 minutes, and
you need to enter the PIN to open it again.
Half an hour works well for me because I
dont nd it too distracting, yet it provides
a good measure of protection at the
same time.
The auto-lock activates after removing
the drive from a host, which, coupled
with hardware-based, full-disk, 256-bit
AES encryption (using XTS block-cipher
mode), makes it pretty damn secure. I like
that it supports USB 3.1 Gen 1 (USB 3) and
USB 2, meaning data transfers are speedy
on my USB 3-equipped ultraportable
(135MB/sec read and 40MB/sec write
on my 32GB model, which isnt bad for
an encrypted device). I also like the fact
that it works with any OS , including
Windows 10, Chrome OS and Android.
Most of all, I value the reassurance of
hardware-based encryption. Its not a
cheap device, costing $294 for the 32GB
model, but then neither is it cheaply
constructed. The DataTraveler should be
available from the usual retailers, and a
Google search suggests one vendor is
pricing the 64GB unit at $150,
within reach of any
security-minded
business.
The Kingston
DataTraveler 2000
is a well-built USB
drive
HIDDEN ENCRYPTION
One problem with devices such as the
DataTraveler 2000 is that you cant
exactly hide that its encrypted. Why
would you want to? Well, because once
someone knows a device is encrypted,
theyll deduce that the data on it is
valuable and, therefore, worth stealing.
Assume the worst-case scenario takes
place, and they get past your PIN. How
exactly do you hide all of your precious
and sensitive data? Moreover, whatever
encryption method you choose to
employ, there will be clues that its been
used unless you get a bit creative.
This is where VeraCrypt a fork from
the defunct TrueCrypt software-based
encryption solution so beloved by so
many users for so long comes in handy,
allowing you to create a hidden volume.
Youll nd full and easy-to-understand
instructions at tinyurl.com/jzmgq7y.
Basically, you create a passwordprotected and fully encrypted outer
volume on your USB drive that is visible to
everyone, throw some non-sensitive data
onto it and then keep that data updated
to preserve an illusion of use. Within that
volume, you create a hidden volume
where you store your really sensitive
data. The volumes are encrypted with
different passwords, but display the
same prompt when you insert your drive.
Which volume opens will depend on
which password you use, and when you
open the outer one theres no evidence
of the hidden ones existence, because
free space on any VeraCrypt volume is
always lled with random data when the
volume is created. This means no part
of the hidden, dismounted, volume is
DAVEY WINDER REAL WORLD COMPUTING
distinguishable from other random data.

Neat, huh? Give the powers that be the
outer password and, more likely than not,
your hidden volume should remain very
well hidden.
HOLDING YOUR DATA TO RANSOM

The biggest media headlines about
cybercrime always involve millions of
customers having their personal details
or passwords stolen, but, although this
scenario is serious, its far from the only
kind of threat. Data theft is only one kind
of risk two equally dangerous types,
which are dubbed fast-growing in
security industry reports, are distributed
denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and
ransomware.
DDoS attacks are a familiar blot on the
security threatscape, the weapons of
choice for hacktivists, state-sponsored
actors and organised extortion gangs, but
ransomware has been stealthier in its rise
to the top of the threat list. CryptoLocker
was a big deal a couple of years ago, and
for good reason: it was a clever piece of
software that was cleverly exploited by
the bad guys. CryptoLocker encrypted
just about every document it could nd
on an infected machine, and the network
beyond, using AES. It then encrypted the
AES key with RSA-2048. There was no
easy way out for a victim, and no quick x
from the security vendors (at least not for
many months). If you didnt have off-site
backups that escaped this encryption,
the only way to recover your les was to
pay the ransom. The bad guys played it
clever by setting ransoms steep enough
to get a good return, but low enough to
keep them within the reach of businesses
being targeted.
CryptoLocker was a far cry from the
original ransomware attacks of 20 years
ago, which consisted of nothing more
than a malware password-protected
lockscreen. A threatening warning would
appear on the screen that demanded
money to hand back control of your
computer, which may have worked on
non-techie users, but IT support staff
worth their wages (and the emerging IT
security vendor market) could disable
the lockscreen by removing the malware.
CryptoLocker and its ilk, such as
CryptoWall, changed everything, and felt
very much like something new. But now
ransomware is starting to feel more like
the norm.
The Foursys IT Security Survey,
published in January 2016, asked 400
IT managers more than half of them
in organisations with more than 500
employees about their security,
and revealed that 15% admitted to
experiencing a security breach in 2015.
And 42% of these breaches were
ransomware. Theres a good reason for

that. James Miller, Foursys MD, hit the
nail on the head when he said: With so
many victims paying out, its no wonder
that ransomware is becoming more and
more attractive to cybercriminals. Once
les are encrypted, youd better hope your
backups are secure and up to date, or pay
the ne and keep your ngers crossed
that the les will be decrypted!
I would never advise anyone to pay
up, no matter what the FBI says. At
the end of last year, FBI agent Joseph
Bonavolonta told delegates at a security
conference that we often advise people
just to pay the ransom when it comes
to ransomware attacks. Ive gone on
record to describe that advice as about
as much use as a one-legged man at an
arse-kicking party, not least because
once the criminals have your bitcoins,
what incentive is there for them to risk
getting caught by having any further
communication with you? Even if the
While dont pay the

ransom is always
good advice, dont get
infected is even better
decryption key was released to you, it
may not work. The recent Power Worm
ransomware, for example, was so badly
coded that les couldnt be decrypted
even if the attackers wanted to, since
it had already destroyed the required
keys. If you do get lucky and unlock your
les, whats stopping them from being
hit again by the same criminals now they
know youre a soft target?
My advice has not been heeded, if
the Cyber Threat Alliance is correct
in reporting that the gang behind
CryptoWall has made in excess of $400
million from paid ransoms. Hopefully, as
ransomware gets more exposure, both
in the media and in the security vendor
research labs, this will start to change.
While dont pay the ransom is always
good advice, dont get infected is even
better. We all know that isnt as easy as
it sounds, and sometimes the sticky stuff
hits the fan despite your best efforts to
prevent it, in which case heres another bit
of advice: have an effective data-backup
strategy in place before it happens!
Your business should have endpoint
protection that can prevent old threats
from creating new problems. Your
security systems should reduce your
insecurity footprint, providing less
opportunity for the bad guys, so ensure
system OS and application patches are
installed. Do staff social-engineering
education its worth it because most
ransomware attacks will start with an

email attachment or malicious link.
Dont forget backups, too, which must
be the centre of your data-protection
strategy. Its now not only possible but
affordable to have multiple backups, both
local and cloud, air-gapped to prevent
them being tied into the computers or
networks that might be infected. Youd be
a fool not to use them.
RANSOMBLOCKER
The good news is that the research
labs are busy reverse-engineering
ransomware as it appears, learning
from each iteration and creating tools
to unlock your data without paying any
ransom. One of those leading the way is
Malwarebytes, which has just released an
anti-ransomware tool.
Malwarebytes looks to block
ransomware on four fronts. The rst is
by looking for exploit-based delivery
mechanisms, and the Malwarebytes AntiExploit tool works to proactively prevent
exploits being triggered in the rst place.
Then theres the social-engineering
vector, and the Anti-Malware tool has
this covered with a mix of behavioural
pattern, signature and heuristic checking
to prevent the execution of malware.
The Website Blocking tool is third. This
can help prevent command-and-control
servers from downloading the encryption
keys that lock your les.
The fourth piece of the protection
puzzle is the Anti-Ransomware beta,
a detector that spots ransomware
activity and quarantines it before any
le encryption can occur. Malwarebytes
Anti-Ransomware (tinyurl.com/
jh59xap) looks promising, starting as
CryptoMonitor, which the company
acquired and started developing further
with the original programmer. It works
by monitoring what is happening on your
system not signatures or heuristics but
all behavioural analysis and has caught
all CryptoLocker, CryptoWall, CTB-Locker
and TeslaCrypt variants thrown at it
during testing.
Its still being tested during this beta
phase, and is far from ready to go into
a production environment, but once
out of beta, it will be rolled out into the
Malwarebytes products.
Its worth checking with your security
vendor if you do get hit: its what you pay
them for and they may have the answer,
even if they didnt manage to prevent the
infection. If you know which ransomware
has hit you and most attackers make
it clear enough use Google to research
it. Whatever you do, though, dont pay
that ransom. Pay a security consultant
instead: at least theyll actually be on your
side and want to help.
STEVE CASSIDY
I SUSPECT MICROSOFT DOESNT

FULLY GRASP THE PERILS OF THE
SMALL-BUSINESS MARKETPLACE
The person standing in the way of moving your PCs over to Windows 10 is the
developer who never bothered to hone their product to high efficiency
ou cant have missed the signs

poorly coded software is an
abundant annoyance but the
picture has now grown big enough that I
think a wider viewpoint must be sought,
one that includes the factor of crap
software writers. Its a long time since I
wrote any software worthy of the name,
and what I used to produce wasnt like
modern PC applications. Minicomputers
were luxurious places for a programmer:
fast, roomy and with the best brains on
the planet dedicated to the hard work of
writing the compilers and linkers. Issues
such as lifecycle, commercial payment,
support and updates were years in the
future (and keeping up with vendors
misadventures over online security
farther still). What Im claiming here is
that I have earned a wage cutting code
that Im told ran for ten to 15 years after
I left and so I feel quali ed to offer
advice to other developers. What Id like
to tell them is that its a crying shame
they have become the nal obstacles to
businesses who want to move up from
Windows 7 to Windows 10.
Im not talking about Windows Store
content here. If youre bristling because
youve written an app that passes
muster in anybodys modern repository,
then youre not who Im talking about
although I do have a lot of sympathy
for those Windows developers who
suffer version fatigue, trying to keep up
with the revisions and off shoots of the
Windows Store that every new edition of
Windows brings. Im talking about those
developers who lurk within every sector
of business, providing a much older
type of vertical application. These
are people for whom code quality (and
good citizenship in complex business
network environments) comes a distant
STEVE CASSIDY
Steve is a consultant who
specialises in networks, cloud, HR
and upsetting the corporate apple
cart
@stardotpro
second to making life easier and more

productive for their target customers. In
other words, they write crap code.
I suspect Microsoft itself doesnt
entirely grasp the perils of this
marketplace (which is perhaps unduly
polite, given what Ive just said of the
developers themselves). It does very
little to speak directly to the people
who write software suites for dental
practices, or databases for estate
Very small businesses

may be emotionally
devastated by legal
action, but the larger
ones treat it as part of
the rich tapestry of life
agency letting management systems.
Microsoft has conversations with
them, right enough, but at a wholly
inappropriate scale mostly driven by the
adoption of Azure.
If you got the whole cloud thing
back in 2009, then youre probably
working in a single large business. This
is a very different arena in terms of

development funding and recruitment to
the small, independent software houses
with particular domain knowledge
of our milling, furniture making or
lm production. There seems to be
almost no way to address this scale of
developer, and I believe this deciency
explains Microsofts problem with
getting people to migrate to Windows
10. The person standing in the way of
moving your PCs over to Windows 10
is that developer who never bothered
to hone their product to high efficiency,
being more concerned about keeping
their customers business going by
mimicking their oldest working practices
in code that makes your eyes water.
Such code wont do well when moved
from Windows 7 to 10.
WHAT DOES BADLY

CODED MEAN?
Some peoples noses will be put out of
joint by this accusation of poor coding
practices in industry-specic software.
Many will consider code that gets the
job done to be good enough (and I
shouldnt really be pointing the nger as
my early efforts were only saved from
the quagmire of BASIC execution by a
STEVE CASSIDY REAL WORLD COMPUTING
brilliant VAX/VMS compiler). However,

a cynic may retort by observing that the
code quality of any piece of software is
directly proportional to its general utility,
while its cash value to a big sh, small
pond market is inversely proportional.
Thats how we end up with staggeringly
bloated and inefficient, intolerant
databases for diamond renishers that
cost $500,000 a year, alongside fast,
beautifully tuned, resilient and portable
le zipper/unzippers that come as
freeware (take a look at 7-Zip (7-zip.org)
which is fast, always updated, portable
and available for all the common
platforms).
Badly coded in this case is all about
abstracting the task from the machinery.
The more abstract the actual logic and
processing, the easier it is to respond
to changes in the machinery, whether
that means a new OS or a sudden
security-driven change to the old one.
Of course, the closer you have to relate
to your users and their activities, the
harder it gets to remain abstract. 7-Zips
writers have only about three different
inputs and two different outputs, and
the middle part of their process is just
grabbing les and throwing them about
the disk, meaning security changes or
the closing of a user-interface loophole
wont affect them too much. If, on
the other hand, youre writing code to
put (overridable) intelligence into an
ordering system for prescription lenses,
youre in the opposite position, with a
few well-dened outputs to be rescued
from a mass of tortuous, mangled user
inputs. Your code will be perfect for
the sector it serves, but youll have to
do far more work per thousand lines
of code whenever a change comes
in from outside the application, as
well as tearing up any rule book that
you thought you could rely on for the
foreseeable future.
I think Dell is aiming at the same
target I am, based on a meeting I had in
early January with Dells Claire Vyvyan
and Thomas Meyer from research house
IDC. Even though Vyvyans beat is the
enterprise sector and the meeting was
to look at a downloadable series of
IDC reports, it was pretty clear that the
outcomes of all those questionnaires
and trends pointed in a similar direction.
Dell is more polite than me so most
of what you can read at tinyurl.com/
zubl4pw and tinyurl.com/hezhmrq is
more for enterprise developers than the
indies. As we discussed while I tried to
absorb the entire report, though, theres
a surprising convergence of opinion with
an unmistakable element of one-sizets-all creeping in.
The apparent lesson of these two

future-facing documents is that going
modern building applications that use
cloud-capable platforms, languages,
interfaces and communication layers
will become the shortest route to
payback. In Dells enterprise-speak,
this is a story about making savings,
which is how the report is couched.
However, looking at things from the
view of a small, sector-speci c business
developer, you could turn that on its
head and say its not savings for the
customer but prot for you. Its less
money wasted chasing virus outbreaks
that looked like bugs in your code and
less time required rolling out to new
customers, or coping with mergers or
acquisitions among existing customers.
Suddenly, seen that way, the whole
problem takes on a higher priority in the
mind of developers.
Thousands of products that were
coded over decades and then left
untouched because their developers
either didnt believe the latest round of
In the main, these

exotic computing
environments are just as
dull as all of the others
hype or didnt see sufficient advantage
in the small increments offered by
Microsofts latest SDK are suddenly
coming under the microscope. This is
a far more satisfactory outcome than
their developers punishing any user who
mistakenly clicks on the upgrade to
Windows 10 now button in a moments
sleepy inattention.
CLICKED BY MISTAKE?
It really could be too late. One of my
clients over-ordered a stack of Windows
7 licences about ve years ago from
a vendor who shaved a bit of cost by
offering brown-box, OEM single-shot
install copies. Eventually, one of their
PCs had to be replaced because the
nasty peripherals mandated by their
software supplier burned out the power
supply to all its USB ports and that
software supplier was also deeply
Windows 10-phobic. Get one of the
spare machines out from the store, this
supplier said, put a new disk in it and
reload Windows 7. That might have
been a perfect x, except that after
activating these brown-box Windows
7 copies from 2010, they seem to have
installations that are both activated and
bringing up the counterfeit software
The Future-Ready
Enterprise
Driving Business Results Today While
Preparing for the Challenges of Tomorrow
An IDC White Paper, Sponsored by Dell
October 2015
The lesson of the IDC documents is building cloudcapable platforms, languages and interfaces will pay
warning. And theres nobody to talk to

about this, nor anywhere to buy any
provably usable Windows 7 installs,
short of an MSDN subscription that
costs several thousand pounds a year
(and which youre not supposed to use
for production code).
WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT IT?

Lets say youre being served by a
developer who has been hysterically
negative about Windows 10. What are
you going to do about it? There are,
realistically, only ve options.
1. SUE THEM.
Ive participated in three large rollout
projects where the developer was working on bug xes and feature additions
while also being wrenched through the
courts by the same client. Very small
businesses may be emotionally devastated by legal action, but the larger ones
treat it as part of the rich tapestry of life
and may even start to pay more attention, if reluctantly.
2. STIMULATE THE OPEN-SOURCE
MOVEMENT. Not really ideal for smaller
businesses, but if youre a charity or a
public body, asking for something useful
to be re-engineered outside of a difficult
commercial relationship might work
out more positively than you think. This
isnt a short-term thing, and is likely to
deliver you an answer with parts youre
going to have to work on yourself. There
arent many open-source, free-to-use
relational database products out there
that come with deliverable, prebuilt data
models for specic industries. However,
researching what there is can be a useful
preparation for your next conversation
REAL WORLD COMPUTING CASSIDY
with that obdurate, Windows-stick-inthe-mud software supplier (as I was

typing this, I felt obliged to quickly check
to see what MySQL is still doing in and
around the Human Genome Project). If
you starchily inform them that youve
been looking at such things, they may
begin to realise that their market-sector
dominance, and hence commercial
stranglehold, could be at risk. Live by the
market, die by the market.
3. GET SERIOUS ABOUT
DESKTOP VIRTUALISATION.
Many people think of their business PC
as an inviolable, dust-caked pile
of junk with no user-serviceable
parts inside, and entirely forget its
capabilities as a general-purpose
computing device. My longstanding suggestion for anyone
whos offered the Windows 10
upgrade on a perfectly usable
Windows 7 PC is that, before they
click OK, they should upgrade
their machines disk to an SSD.
All the sensible SSD upgrade kits
come with disk-cloning software
tools little apps that allow you
to copy your PCs entire boot
drive over to the new drive. In the
case of a Windows 7 machine
ready to upgrade to Windows 10,
when you perform this cloning
process, youll end up with two
perfectly workable, bootable
drives that contain the same
stuff applications, licence keys,
documents, surng history, the lot.
Clone really does means clone.
This may enable you to sidestep
your developer problem by allowing
the Windows 10 upgrade to complete
on the SSD clone of your PC, running
the Windows 7 clone still left on the
old drive as a virtual machine from
within Windows 10 (either on VMware
Workstation or Hyper-V). That VM
will appear in a desktop window and
believe itself to still be on that same
PC, with the good and bad software
still available around the core set of
les and services. This isnt a one-shot
x, as it requires nding things such as
WinImage by Gilles Vollant the only
tool Ive found that will convert an old
Windows 7 disk to a usable Hyper-V VM
for Windows 10. It may also require you
to reactivate your copy of Windows 7,
and thats not without its pitfalls. But, at
the very worst, you can always give up
on the whole experiment and roll back
to the machines original conguration.
This is much less stressful than suffering
the panicky protests made by the more
histrionic of the software vendors,
to justify staving off the Windows

10 upgrade process until its most
inconvenient for you, their customer.
4. GO FOR THE REMOTE
DESKTOP OR VDI OPTION.
This is regarded in the IT business as the
enterprise-grade solution, although in
fact its both achievable and affordable
to smaller operations. Whats less
achievable is getting some of these
developers to even admit they dont
know how their app will behave in such
a non-standard Windows environment.
Im serious: some of them still dont
In the case of pipeline control software, a Xeon

5500-based machine shrank a 20-minute delay to
mere seconds
really trust multithreaded CPUs, let

alone shared-platform server OSes
or (heaven forfend) VDI enabled by a
hypervisor. Some of them will write
detection code into their applications
to spot when theyre running in a VM or
a multi-user setup, rather than x the
parts of their software they think will
break under this revolutionary, liberating
approach to overcoming their stick-inthe-mud outlook.
My counter-argument to these
developers is that, when someone builds
an RDP host or a VDI deployment, they
probably wont succeed if they dont do
it in a disciplined, cleanly thought-out
and rational way. Thats pretty unusual
in the messy, imperfect world of smallbusiness computing. To my mind, the
chances that unsatisfactory software
will become less reliable due to the
predictable, known and repeatable
customisations that are involved in
creating the virtualness or sharedness

of the platform, will be almost entirely
dwarfed by the far more likely prospect
that what made the rubbish software
become unstable is other crap software,
too freely distributed and used on a
small business original PCs.
In fact, whenever Ive done an RDP
rollout, this has been what Ive found.
Most developers are too cautious
about making promises to credulous
users, and absolutely do not want to
make their development burden any
heavier by adding any more tech than
theyre battling already. If you think Im
overstating the case, consider
someone I know who builds
pipeline control software, and
who was very proud of his
HP Pentium D workstation, a
development environment hed
been using for about seven years.
His full-build app run was about
20 minutes, a delay around which
his entire working existence
revolved. I brought him a Xeon
5500-based machine not
new, but not the same ancient
generation as his D and that 20
minutes shrank to no appreciable
delay whatsoever. As his nger
lifted from the mouse button, the
bing noise from a completed
build would sound. But to feel
that honour had been served, he
felt obliged to re-test every single
part of the built application, to
check thered been no smoke,
no mirrors and that this fastappearing rabbit was the one hed
been holding up for 20 minutes per build
on his old machine for the thick end of
a decade.
SAFETY ALWAYS
However, such hidebound attitudes
are not uncommon in the small
developer community, so its hardly
surprising they react badly to the more
exotic promises of hypervisor-based
computing. A running VM host farm can
move a live, computing, ticking-bomb
application from one VM host to another
it involves using memory snapshots
written to disk, but thats a digression
from my point and I can understand
why people who bash away with such
fossil development tools might be
apprehensive about their code being
tested in that sort of ery furnace.
The reality, however, is that not every
small business needs to pull off that
particular trick every day of the week.
In the main, these exotic computing
environments are just as safe and dull
as all of the others.
ACS PROFESSIONAL REAL WORLD COMPUTING
ALAN ALDA ADVOCATES

THINKING LIKE A SCIENTIST
How it could benefit you in everyday life
*A*S*H actor and now science

communicator Alan Alda believes the general public could
learn a lot by thinking more like scientists. For the best part of the past two
decades, Alda has focused his time
off-stage and screen helping scientists
present their work to the public with
clarity and in a vivid way.
The vehicle for this exercise is the
Alan Alda Center for Communicating
Science, and it has recently struck its
first international partnership with the
Australian National Centre for the Public
Awareness of Science, which is based at
ANU in Canberra. Its one of the reasons
Alda is presently in Australia. Another
reason hes here is that hes taking part
in the World Science Festival Brisbane,
which runs March 9-13.
Speaking at the National Press Club,
Alda said he thought the public should
take the opportunity to learn how to
think like scientists. In particular he
believed people in all walks of life could
benefit from making decisions based on
evidence and questioning hypotheses
put before them effectively becoming
accustomed to turning on their own
ideas. Science has so much to offer us
in the way we make decisions and the
way we think, Alda said.
However, a major stumbling block
to this occurring is that science is not
currently a daily part of our lives,

whereas he thought it should be. I
really feel that science belongs to all
of us and we all dont have access
to it the way we should, Alda said.
Science ought to be available and [as]
refreshing as the air we breathe but it
isnt because science and the public
understanding of science have drifted
apart.
teaching scientists to
communicate better
allows people from
different scientic
disciplines to break
down jargon and
understand each other.
One reason Alda took a more active
role in science communication is
because he didnt want to leave that
communication to chance. We need
to hear from scientists because if we
dont hear from scientists about their
own work, were going to hear from
other people telling us about science,
he said.
Those other people could include
Former Army surgeon and US presidential canditate

Alan Alda speaks on technical innovation
science journalists whom Alda had

no problem with. But were also going
to hear about it from people who
are simply mistaken and well hear
about it from some people who know
theyre making mistakes and who are
deliberately distorting the science for
their own agenda and gain, he said.
Unless scientists are in there telling us
what the real story is were liable not to
get the real story. Thats not going to be
in our interest.
Apart from stemming the tide of
science misinformation, there were
other good reasons to focus attention
on how science is communicated, Alda
said. He said senior scientists that
underwent programs at his centre had
told him that the communication skills
helps them do their work because
theyre more focused on what theyre
doing.
Thats a result we didnt expect,
Alda said, noting that his expectations
were more around aiding the publics
and policy makers understanding
of science. The latter is particularly
important because it is often the source
of scientific research funding. Why
would they give money to anything they
dont understand? We have to be clear
to them about what the science is.
Another unexpected benefit of
teaching scientists to communicate
better is that it aids collaboration,
allowing people from different scientific
disciplines to break down jargon and
understand each other. Specialisation
has made us drill down into our own
understanding to such a point that we
do have a separate language, Alda
said. Ive been told by mathematicians
that they often dont understand one
another. This shouldnt be. Were
going to make more progress if we
understand one another.
For more content like this, do please

visit the ACS Information Age website at
https://ia..acs.org.au
EPILOG
AN ANTISOCIAL JON HONEYBALL

THINKS ITS TIME TO SEVER CONNECTIONS,
NOT CREATE NEW ONES
Youve heard the meme that
everyone is connected to
everyone else in the world by, on
average, no more than six people. It
works because a small number of
people know a lot of people, who act as
hubs. Just think of Kevin Bacon, which
is why the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon
game in which you must connect
any actor with Mr Bacon as quickly as
possible caught on so successfully.
Its more interesting to see the result
of a recent analysis by Facebook, where
it crunched its entire dataset of users
looking for links. Each person in the
world (at least among the 1.59 billion
people active on Facebook) is connected
to every other person by an average
of three-and-a-half other people, the
report read. The average distance we
observe is 4.57, corresponding to 3.57
intermediaries or degrees of separation.
Within the US itself, people are
connected to each other by an average
of 3.46 degrees.
It goes on to state that our collective
degrees of separation are shrinking.
In 2011, researchers at Cornell, the
Universit degli Studi di Milano [the
University of Milan] and Facebook
computed the average across the 721
million people using the site then, and
found that it was 3.74. Now, with twice
as many people using the site, weve
grown more interconnected, thus
shortening the distance between any
two people in the world.
This is fascinating, if not entirely
unexpected. A few years ago, in this
very magazine, I stated that Facebook
was an underdeveloped hellhole and
that Twitter would do me just ne,
thank you very much. Today, I must
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eat my words. All of my friends, both

close friends and acquaintances, have
moved to Facebook. I am now in far more
frequent contact with them than ever
before in my life. My security settings are
quite strict anything I post only goes
to friends, and not to the geometrically
growing nightmare of friends of friends.
Im happy to restrict my inane ramblings
to long-suffering acquaintances alone,
thanks very much.
Twitter, however, has stalled and taken
on the stench of rotting esh. The lack of
Twitter is simply too

stupid a platform to be
useful, and the signalto-noise ratio continues
to plummet
control is a critical issue. I cant prevent
anyone from reading my stuff, or sending
it to someone else. I can if I lock down
my account and prevent new people
following me, but that is a sledgehammer
approach. Twitter simply doesnt have
the granularity or nesse to work even
adequately.
The lack of ltering control is almost
criminal. Take a certain former editor of
this august organ, who has a particular
and peculiar fascination with a certain
football team. That is deeply lovely, but
I have no interest in his interest in that
club, or indeed sport. I have no means of
ltering out this stuff, while still being able
to read what he says on interesting topics.
You might argue that this should be
done at the client itself, but I would
disagree. Applying such ltering at the
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Publishing Limited absolutely and may not be reproduced, whether in
whole or in part, without its prior written consent.
client means I end up with different

settings on my desktop compared to my
phone. I might like to use one client on
the desktop and a different supplier on
my phone. I want to have best of breed at
each location. Such ltering, ne-grained
and self-learning, should be running at the
server side. This is the huge opportunity
that Twitter is missing, and why users are
leaving. Its simply too stupid a platform
to be useful, and the signal-to-noise ratio
continues to plummet.
Even with the somewhat crude facilities
built into Facebook, I can take much
better, ner and nuanced control of what
I read, and how I read it. Thats why I have
gravitated to Facebook for my home life,
friends and family. Some work stuff still
happens on Twitter, but that platform is
rapidly becoming a read-only, SMS-length
aggregator of newsfeeds that interest me.
Back to Facebooks analysis do
I believe it? No, not really. Its a bit of
mathematical fun, but it does provide an
insight into whats happening to our digital
world. Its most certainly true that people
are far more accessible, discoverable and
contactable now than they have ever
been. That is the real democratisation
legacy of the internet.
The question then comes: is that a
good thing? We have no idea of the real
long-term effect on global society and Im
far from convinced that its a net positive
theres a downside here that is hard to
pinpoint, but is most certainly a signicant
underlying worry. Do we want this level
of interconnectedness? Does it result in
a grey mush of average thinking? Does
it stie the mad, the crazy, the wild and
fantastic thinking that has brought the
human race to today? We dont know, and
by the time we nd out it will be too late.
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VIRTUAL REALITY: HOPE FOR

irtual reality is the buzzword

component manufacturers are outwardly

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Its unclear what

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Smartphones aside, Microsofts

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Once again, it appears the PC might

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Computer Alliance Pty Ltd

Any configuration other than original product specification is not guaranteed.

With so many cores and threads and

situations. Crossre proles will of course

it could mean Navi may feature more

NVIDIA LAUNCHES NEW

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