a thing or two about a thing or twomaximumpc.com OCT 2019 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 Editor: Chris Angelini
Contributing Writers: Jonni Bidwell, Alex Blake,
Alex Campbell, Christian Cawley, Alex Cox, Ian Evenden,
Jeremy Laird, Chris Lloyd
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Alan
Dexter
YOUR FEELINGS on reinstalling Windows
will largely be dictated by how long
you’ve been using it, and by how the
process has worked out for you before.
Windows has a sordid history of filling
up with dross, eventually slowing down
to the point of being unusable, and
hiding data and settings in the obscurest
of places to make sorting it all out an
unappetizing proposition. Reinstalling
Windows can be frustrating, time-
consuming, and flawed. It can leave you
in driver hell, and may not even fix the
very thing that forced you to reinstall.
Such experiences are rare now,
though. Things have changed. A lot.
And mostly for the better. Still, if you’ve
been using your PC for a long time,
there’s a good chance that the thought
of reinstalling Windows will have your
anxious twitches coming back. To be
fair, there are still lots of programs
that misbehave enough to make such
activities daunting. There’s also the
question of whether you should have to
reinstall Windows, as surely it’s getting
better at sorting out its own foibles?
It is, but we haven’t quite reached OS
nirvana yet—there are still times when
reinstalling is the best option.
Starting on page 24, we walk you
through reinstalling, but also consider
the other options you have in these
days of Windows Reset, Refresh, and
Fresh Start. We also consider virtual
options, setting up a slightly mad dual-
boot system, and look at the best ways
to back up, as you should do that before
embarking on a reinstall. You may find
you don’t even need to reinstall.
One time you will want to reach for
your trusty USB drive and the WindowsMedia Creation Tool is when you’re
building a new PC, and while we often
refer to PCPartPicker, it isn’t the only
system-building assistant. This issue,
we explore other options, and tell you
why and when you should consider
them for specific builds (pg. 30).
Another feature this month looks at
the state of loot boxes—we consider
whether they’ve added anything
positive to gameplay, but also try to
ascertain whether their days are really
numbered (pg. 34). Our final feature
investigates whether Libra, Facebook’s
already controversial cryptocurrency,
stands a chance of making it out into
the real world, and what sort of impact
it will have if/when it does (pg. 44).
On top of that, the onslaught of new
hardware releases continues, and we
have reviews of Nvidia’s new Super
2060 and 2080 cards, take a look at
the more affordable Radeon 5700,
put the first fourth-gen SSD through
its paces, and look at one of the best
motherboards ASRock has ever put
out. We also turn our hand to Ryzen
9 3900X overclocking, show you how
to get up and running with Nvidia
FrameView, show you how to stream
to YouTube from a RPi, and loads more.
It’s a packed issue—I hope you like it.GET THAT NEW PC
FEELING, WITHOUT
LOSING A BYTE
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.