TESTED &
GEEK
APPROVED
USB DRIVES! They’re not—let’s be
honest here—very exciting. If, like
us, you work in the tech field, you’ve
probably seen a million and one of
them. And yet, this diminutive fella had
us smiling with almost child-like glee.
It’s so tiny, packing 32GB of storage into
a sliver of metal and plastic barely an
inch long. It’s Gen 3.1, so it’s offering
speedy USB transfers (at least, until
USB 4.0 rears its beautiful head). But
best of all, it’s got a little slider on one
side, enabling you to swap between a
Type-C USB interface on one end and
a Type-A connector on the other.
That Type-C connector proves its
worth swiftly; while many people are
still rocking cases or motherboards
without USB-C support, there’s a
pretty good chance that your phone
has a USB-C port for charging and
data transfer. SanDisk has its own
app, called Memory Zone 3.0, to
make managing files on its drives
via an Android device a cinch, and it
works well. The app is free and not
ad-supported, and the drive has a
download shortcut preloaded on it
to make things even easier. Whether
you’re using a notebook, tablet, or
smartphone, this is one of the best on-
the-go storage options available.
Lastly, and this may not quite be
in the spirit of an analytical review,
it’s really rather fun to play with. The
design is solid, and the little switch
clicks satisfyingly into place at either
end when moved. If you’re the fidgety
type, this serves a dual purpose (no
pun intended) as something to keep the
fingers occupied while you work. We
like it.–CG
$22, http://www.sandisk.comSanDisk Ultra
Dual Drive
Type-C 3 2GB
AMD RYZEN 5 3600I love how competitive
AMD’s Ryzen CPUs are,
and the 12-core/24-
thread Ryzen 9 3900X
gives Intel some much
needed competition. It’s forcing Intel to
cut HEDT prices in half for the upcoming
10th-gen Cascade Lake-X parts. But as
awesome as the 3900X is, for less than
half the price, I think the Ryzen 5 3600 is
the CPU most people should be looking at.
On paper, it doesn’t look too impressive.
A six-core/12-thread CPU with a base
clock of 3.6GHz and a 4.2GHz boost? It’s
theoretically only 200MHz slower than the
3600X, but in testing it looks like it runs at
about 3.95GHz—only 100MHz slower than
the 3600X. And you can overclock it if you
want to make up the difference.
For heavy multithreaded CPU
workloads, the 3900X is about 70 percent
faster. But for general PC use and games?
The gap there is far less damaging, with
the 3900X only leading by around 10
percent—and that’s with an RTX 2080 Ti.
B a sic al ly, le s s than $2 0 0 get s y ou a CP U
that comes very close to matching Intel’s
i7-8700K. If you’re trying to put together a
nicely balanced mid-range PC for around
$1,250, I’m not sure there’s a better CPU
you can buy right now.
$195, http://www.amd.com
NITRO CONCEPTS
S300I recently bowed to
societal pressure and
got myself a gaming
chair. OK, I lied; my
rubbish old desk chair snapped, sending
me sprawling to the floor. My new gaming
throne is Nitro Concepts’ S300, in “Inferno
Red,” which makes it sound like it should
get me fired up for some edge-of-my-seat
action. It doesn’t—it’s a red chair—but I
admit I should have done this years ago.
Sitting in this chair is like being gently
lowered into the cockpit of a fighter jet.
It almost wraps around you, holding and
supporting you through gaming binges.
Everything is adjustable, from the angle
of the armrests to the lumbar support. In
my old chair, attempting to stand up after
a few hours was a guaranteed pathway to
backache. Now, I can slap this bad boy into
recline and chill out, safe in the knowledge
that I’m in no danger of toppling back ward.
Buying a gaming chair is a commitment;
if you buy me, it says, you have to play
games. No other furniture commands
such influence, except a footstool,
possibly, which insists you put your feet up.
Maybe that’s what the S300 is missing....
$280, http://www.nitro-concepts.comSenior editor, Jarred Walton, and staff writer, Christian
Guyton, are excited about very different hardware
Editors’ Picks:
Digital Discoveries
maximumpc.com DEC 2019 MAXIMUMPC 93