a thing or two about a thing or twomaximumpc.com MAR 2020 MAXIMUMPC 9
editorial
EDITORIAL
Executive Editor: Alan Dexter
Senior Editor: Jarred Walton
Hardware Lead: Bo Moore
Hardware Staff Writer: Joanna Nelius
Staff Writer: Christian Guyton
Contributing Writers: Alex Campbell, Alex Cox,
Ian Evenden, Phil Iwaniuk, John Knight, Jeremy Laird,
Chris Lloyd, Neil Mohr, Nick Peers, Mark Wyciślik-Wilson
Copy Editor: Katharine Davies
Editor Emeritus: Andrew Sanchez
ART
Art Editor: Fraser McDermott
Photography: Phil Barker, Olly Curtis, Neil Godwin
Cover Photo Credits: OpenShot, Future plc
BUSINESS
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East Coast Account Director: Melissa Planty,
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East Coast Account Director: Elizabeth Fleischman,
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West Coast Account Director: Austin Park,
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PRODUCTION
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Project Manager: Clare Scott
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Alan
Dexter
PLANS DON’T always play out the way
you intend. Like this month’s eight-core
cover build. It was originally designed
to hit a budget of $1,500, but once we
started building, we sailed straight
over that price point. This was partly
due to when we were building it—we
put it together at the start of January, a
notoriously tricky time, as pretty much
ever yone in the industr y is in Las Vegas
at CES (turn to page 10 to find out what
went down in the desert).
Once we started piecing together
our rig, we found ourselves upping the
parts list to use better hardware. When
you’re dropping so much money on the
CPU and motherboard, it makes sense
to spend a comparable amount on the
GPU, and here we decided to go with
the current card of choice for 1440p
ultra gaming: the GeForce RTX 2070
Super. Throw in some brilliant lighting,
plenty of fans, and some top-drawer
storage, and we found ourselves north
of $2,000. You don’t have to spend so
much on your own build, obviously, but
it’s easy to see how spending can get
out of hand when building a machine.
The eight-core cover build isn’t the
only system we’ve put together this
issue, but, as it turns out, it is the most
affordable. This is because for the
second build, we took a fairly standard
gaming machine and upgraded it to
become a workstation. And when
you’re doing that, you can’t scrimp on
hardware, particularly as everything
at this end of the market carries a
serious price tag. You can find out the
particulars of this upgrade on page 70.
One of the highlights from CES this
year was the proliferation of interesting
screen technologies, with the usual
array of headline-grabbing huge
screens, the push for 8K, high-refreshhitting 360Hz, and the likes of microLED
promising a vibrant future for us all.
But when will these technologies make
it to our PCs? This issue we find out,
discern what is actually important to
our systems, and see what the next 12
months hold for our monitors (page 44).
Once you’ve got your system built,
and you’re manipulating your data
on your high-res, high-refresh screen,
you’ll want to ensure that the data in
question is protected. This month we
show you how to do just that, whether
that’s protecting the data on your
desktop, or where and how you store
it elsewhere. We also show you how to
securely obliterate your data, to make
sure that no one can access it after the
fact. Turn to page 34 to read more.
On the subject of security, this issue
we also show you how to keep under
the radar when you’re surfing. Tor
has been improving over the years,
and now makes for a much smoother
experience than it once did (page 60).
We also show you how to get up and
running with the free video-editing
software OpenShot—it’s a powerful
tool, capable of some serious work, but
getting started requires a little help,
which is where we come in (page 56).
On top of that, we’ve got plenty of other
tutorials to get your teeth into, as well
as a packed review section.
I hope you enjoy the issue!PLANNING IS
INDISPENSABLE
Alan Dexter is Maximum PC’s executive
editor and a punisher of hardware. He’s been
a tech journalist for over 20 years, and has no
problem upsetting the PC industry as a whole.