THE REVOLUTION HAS COME

FOR THE LAST TWO ISSUES I’ve started out my Editor’s Intro by bringing up some bad news in one form or another. Whether that’s page cuts, budget cuts, temporarily letting go of Jarred and Alex, or something else, it’s been tough. I joined the team one week before our publishing house went into lockdown, and I’ve gotta say it’s been a hell of a first experience. That said, this job is everything that I’ve wanted it to be, and the support I’ve received from all of you who’ve mailed in, and from those who I’ve spoken to personally on our Discord server (shameless plug: bit. ly/MPCDiscord) has been fantastic. We couldn’t do what we do without you all, and I just want to thank you for that.

Nevertheless I’m happy to report that today I’ve got no bad news to share with you all. Everything at Maximum PC is running like clockwork right now; the team is doing well, producing some outstanding content on a very tight budget, and we’ve even started work on big plans for the coming year, requesting in hardware for massive build projects for the coming issues.

On top of that I actually have some good news for once. Next month we’re getting a large chunk of our regular budget back, meaning you’ll see a lot of the usual faces on our pages once again, and a step-up in our tutorials and features too (anyone curious about Wordpress?). I’ve also been informed that the 12 pages that we lost at the beginning of my tenure will return to MaximumPC once newsstands re-open across the U.S. And I’ve also managed to pester Jarred into writing a tech-talk for us this issue for free, as there’s a ton to cover on Nvidia’s new Ampere GPU architecture—yes, he is that much of a nice guy. So yeah, life’s tough, but things are getting better, even in the precarious world of tech print journalism.

“All right, so what have we got in this issue Zak?” Good question! Well, we’re taking a look at the homeworking revolution! That’s right. Many of us are now comfortably sat in our own home offices, wondering why on Earth we ever had to suffer through the morning commute to get to the bustling germ-filled world of our workplaces. And the answer is, you probably didn’t need to. So, as working-from-home vets, we’ve divulged our top tips and tricks for setting up the perfect home office environment, from hardware to software and everything in-between. We’ll make sure you’re covered for this new world we’re about to fall into.

We’ve also pieced together a fantastic 10-page feature on how to build your own $535 office PC. This kick-ass rig features a quad-core processor, 16GB of DDR4, and a 1TB PCIe SSD drive. It’s affordable, powerful, and for the nongamers out there, the perfect entrylevel system or modern-day upgrade.

Combine all that with a Windows security lockdown, reviews on Intel’s latest Cannon Lake processor, a plethora of tutorials, columns, and more, and I hope this is another kickass issue you’ll all enjoy.

As always, stay safe out there, and I look forward to seeing y you ne next time.