Guy
Cocker
A TALE OF
TWO SYSTEMS
Guy is Maximum PC’s new Editor-in-Chief.
He built his first gaming PC in 1997 to
play Tomb Raider on 3dfx, and has been
obsessed with all things PC ever since.↘ submit your questions to: [email protected]
WHEN I JOINED Maximum PC last
month, my immediate concerns were
meeting the team, getting stuck in to
our publishing systems, and, of course,
getting a magazine out four weeks later
(quite important, that last one). By virtue
of the fact that my face still appears
above, I can confidently say: Mission
Accomplished. However, little did I
know that I was being eased in gently
for a much bigger task this month:
tackling the mountain of equipment
that had built up at Maximum PC
towers. No one had warned me that we
were on the verge of a PC peripheral-
based avalanche so big, it would only be
matched by the ensuing mountain of HR
paperwork if it ever fell on anyone.
Ever the resourceful editor though, I
thought about how I could turn this epic
clear out into my first Build It feature.
CPUs got re-pasted, RAM modules
were re-paired, and AIOs swapped
out, and the resulting Frankenstein
build was an absolute pleasure. Not
just because I got to play with cool
stuff, but because it made me feel like
I was actually doing something useful,
spurring me on to recycle some of the
gear I’d gathered at home which was
collecting dust in drawers. After finding
an MSI B450 motherboard, an AMD
3600 CPU, and some discarded RAM
modules, I realized I only needed a case
and PSU to make a nice little office PC
to give to a friend, relative, or charity. I
hope you’re similarly inspired!
Our other build this month is rather
more up-to-date, with our superstar
writer Sam taking on his third cover
build in a row. Two months ago, he was
let loose on the brand new Intel 12th-
gen i9 CPU, building a high-end system
around it that cost $3,000. This month,
I tasked him to do the same, but at less
than half the price, using a franklyridiculous value 12th-gen i5 CPU and
the new RTX 3050. The result is a build
that I think embodies the perfect price-
to-performance ratio in 2022. Find out
how to build it yourself on page 16.
We’ve also put the traditional
Windows PC against two of its biggest
competitors in this issue, Chrome OS
and Mac OS. Christian ordered in a
stack of Chromebooks and Windows
laptops to see which deserves a place
in students’ backpacks this semester.
Jeremy, meanwhile, was prepared
to don fireproof overalls and stoke
perhaps the biggest flame war in tech
with his Mac vs. PC feature, where he
calls a definitive winner in the age-old
battle of the systems.
If there’s one disappointment this
month, it’s the AMD 6500 XT that
Jarred reviews on page 80. I’ll leave
him to explain why, but AMD has
basically trimmed so much away on
its latest budget GPU that it’s seriously
hobbled for gaming. It’s so basic that
cryptocurrency miners will also leave it
alone, so you should at least be able to
pick one up. Nvidia’s 3050 fares better,
with its manufacturer including enough
RAM to make it worth buying—but still
expect to pay over the odds for one.
Before I go, a quick thank you to all
the readers who wrote to welcome me
to Maximum PC, as well as those who
took the time to tell me all the things we
could improve! From the whole team
and I, we hope you enjoy the issue.a thing or two about a thing or twoAPR 2022 MAXIMU MPC 7
editorial
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EDITORIAL
Editor-in-Chief: Guy Cocker
Staff Writers: Christian Guyton, Sam Lewis
Contributing Writers: Jeremy Laird, Chris Lloyd, Ian Evenden,
Jarred Walton, John Knight
Production Editor: Jon Crampin
Editor Emeritus: Andrew Sanchez
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