FEATURE / CUSTOMISATION
excessof1 Gb.Manyalsooffermorecapable
cooling and power circuitry than their last-
gen counterparts. However, there’s nothing
wrong with using a B450 or X470 chipset
motherboard with 3rd-gen Ryzen CPUs, and
AMD has stated that these CPUs should work
just as well in them too.
If you currently own an X470 motherboard,
there’s not much reason to upgrade unless
you’re dead set on owning one of the
ludicrously fast PCI-E 4 SSDs that are hitting
the shelves. If you just want to take advantage
of the new CPUs’ better performance, you’re
good to go. There are a couple of caveats,
though, with the most important being that
400-series chipset boards will require a BIOS
update to work with 3rd-gen Ryzen CPUs.
That’s fine if you still have an older Ryzen CPU
or can borrow one from a friend, but without
one, you won’t be able to update the BIOS.
The exceptions here are boards that were
equipped with a BIOS Flashback feature,
which allows you to update the BIOS without
a CPU being installed. Some of our previous
Socket AM4 favourites, such as the MSI
B450M Mortar, offer this feature. If you pick
up one new or second-hand, it won’t matter
if it has an old BIOS – you can update it even if
you have no CPU to hand.
However, even if your board lacks this
feature and you have no way to update
the BIOS, all is not lost. AMD has revived its
processor loan service (custompc.co.uk/
AMDLoan), where it will send you an older
CPU, allowing you to update the BIOS on your
motherboard, before returning the CPU to
AMD – all free of charge.Memory
16GB (2 x 8GB) Corsair
Vengeance LPX 3466MHz
£118 inc VAT
scan.co.ukAMD’s 3rd-gen Ryzen CPUs support memory
up to 3600MHz in a 1:1 ratio with Infinity Fabric,
all with no extra tweaking required. Above this
frequency, you need to delve into some fairly
complicated overclocking and dividers, for
limited benefits, so we recommend stickingto3600MHzasyourlimit.However,we
found there to be only modest gains above
3466MHz, as well as noticeably higher costs.
Our tip is to opt for a dual-channel CAS16
3466MHz kit, such as Corsair’s Vengeance
LPX one, and simply overclock it to 3600MHz- it’s an easy tweak that gives you a little extra
performance for free.
Alternatives
If you want to add RGB lighting to the
equation, Corsair’s Vengeance RGB Pro with
the same spec costs around £20 more, while
its luscious Dominator Platinum RGB kit
costs an additional £40.Power supply
Corsair CX450M
£46 inc VAT
scan.co.ukModern systems rarely draw more than
400W from the wall, even if you fully load
an overclocked CPU and graphics card at the
same time, which is unlikely to happen in
either games or content creation software.
Firing up Prime95 and 3DMark TimeSpy’s
graphics test at the same time for a worst-
case scenario, our PC drew less than 400W
when overclocked even when fully loaded,
and in games and content creation, you’ll be
looking at around 100W less than this figure.
Therefore, there’s not much point opting
for much more than 450W for our PC. We’ve
chosen Corsair’s CX450M semi-modular
power supply, as it offers plenty of headroom
for our PC, as well as the benefit of some
modularcables,soyoucanditchthoseunused Molex cables
to make your cable tidying a little easier.Alternatives
If you need a little more headroom, Corsair’s
CX550M offers 100W more headroom,
which would allow for more scope with
future upgrades, especially if you want
to use a more powerful CPU than we’ve
chosen, or if a move to a 4K-capable GPU
might be on the cards. It costs another £10,
while stumping up another £35 will bag you
the RM550X, which also sports 550W of
power, but with a completely modular cable
set. The latter allows you to replace the stock
cables with a set braided in specific colours –
great if you want to add a personal touch.Solid state drive
Corsair 1TB MP600
£250 incVAT
scan.co.ukThere’s
not much
point in opting
for an X570system
and not investingina
PCI-E 4 SSD.Mostofthem
come withheatsinks,whichis
great for outheatsink-lessmotherboard,
but they can also be cooled effectively by
motherboard heatsinks too. We’ve picked
Corsair’s 1TB MP600 (see p26 ), which is fast
and offers enough space for most people to
ditch their hard disk too, giving you a single
volume of ultra-fast storage.Alternatives
If youneed more space for
a monster game library
and 4K content creation,
there’s a 2TB version
of the MP600,
although it will set
you back £470. If
you’re sticking with
anX470 motherboard, it’s
notessential to fork out for a
PCI-E 4 SSD. The 1TB versionSHOPPING LIST CONT