Letters
Bite the dust
I’ve been reading Custom PC since
the very first issue and I’m over the
moon at the improvements since
the Raspberry Pi buyout! There is
one feature I would absolutely love
to see in the magazine, though,
which has plagued me for decades
- how to build a dust-free PC.
It doesn’t seem to matter what
components or case I use, dust finds
its way into my rig, and always has
done (even in a tidy and smoke-free
environment). I recently upgraded
my son’s PC, and it took us longer to
clean it than it did to install the new
GPU. Is there any way to prevent
this, and if not, how about an article
full of your top cleaning tips? Keep
up the excellent work with the
revived magazine!
RICHARD DAVEY
Ben: There’s no way to completely
remove dust from the equation I’m
afraid, Richard. PCs need an airflow
system that involves taking air from
your house into the chassis and then
exhausting it – you’ll always end up with
some dust entering the system. There’s
a few tips and tricks though. One is to
buy a case with removable dust filters
around the fan mounts – these trap a
fair amount of dust, and you just need to
occasionally give them a clean.
Wealsohavea guideonourwebsite
tomakingyourownonesatcustompc.
co.uk/dust– youonlyneeda pairof
tights.Youcanusea minivacuum
cleanertocarefullyremovedustfrom
yourPCaswell.I liketheideaofa
generalcleaningarticlethough– we’ll
putit onthelist.
GamingCPUs
I’vebeenlookingatupgradingmy
PCrecently.I’velookedatthespec
forthe‘mid-rangegamingsystem’
onyourElitelist,andamgoing
toworkwiththatone.However,I
havea coupleofthingstoconsider.
I currentlyusea Corei7-3770K
anda GeForceGTX970,which
handlesmoststuffprettywell,but
I definitelywanttochange
totheRTX 2070 togetreal-
time ray tracing.
I’m just don’t know how
big the difference will be
with my current CPU and
the current generation
of CPUs. I’m also not
looking to overclock it
all, so I’m wondering if
I can reduce the costs
a little by changing
the motherboard or
some of the other
components. I
already have a case
Please send us your feedback and correspondence to
[email protected]
FEEDBACK
JAN
Issue 198^9
will be on sale on Thursday, 9 January
When’s the next issue out? and PSU that will cope well with
the new parts. Most of my existing
storage will transfer to the new
build easily too. I could do with your
advice on this before I make any
attempt to get the pieces I need.
NICHOLAS LAMBOURNE
Ben: Well, this is timely – our feature
on p78 addresses the difference that a
CPU can make to gaming, so it’s worth
having a read of that first. In all honesty,
while the Core i7-3770K is old now,
it’s still a pretty good gaming CPU. It’s
worth upgrading to a CPU with six or
eight cores, but for you, it’s the GPU
that will make the main difference to
gaming performance.
You can also definitely save some
money. If I were you, I would look at
getting one of AMD’s latest 3rd-gen
Ryzen CPUs (the Ryzen 5 3600X
will be ideal for this if you’re not
overclocking), but running it on an older
B450 motherboard. You may need
to update the BIOS so the board will
recognise the new CPU, so ask the
retailer if they can do this for you before
you make your purchase.