THE TIME OF OUR LIVES
AS PC ENTHUSIASTS, we’ve never had it so good. I know, that’s a bold statement for a new editor to make after two years of component shortages, inflated graphics card prices, and general stagnation in CPUs. “The new guy is crazy! Burn the heretic!” I hear you cry. But allow me to explain...
First of all, there’s finally some genuine competition in the CPU space. Intel’s 12th generation chips, particularly the i5-12400, offer incredible price-to-performance and bring real competition to AMD’s dominance in the low-to-mid-range. Look out for our next issue when we’ll be building an amazing system around this chip, redefining the mid-range gaming desktop in the process.
Not to be outdone, AMD looks set to build on its momentum in the laptop sector with new Zen 3+ chips featuring RDNA2 graphics. If successful, these chips promise to redefine what laptops can do without discrete graphics, delivering decent gaming performance at 1080p. We examine how the two major chip manufacturers compare with their 2022 portable efforts in our news section on page 8.
Then there are early signs of GPU demand returning to some sense of normality, thanks to budget cards, such as the RTX 3050, and scalpers enjoying less of the ridiculous premiums they once were. We’ll have a full review of the RTX 3050 in the next issue, with AMD’s equivalents also arriving in our labs soon. Hopefully later this year, Intel should also have something to say in the graphics space, and for the first time in years, we might have a threehorse race in this market.
Back in the here and now, my excitement also stems from having overseen a hell of a first issue. We set our writer Sam Lewis a particularly demanding task for the cover feature— build a great PC for under $600. Not only did he rise to the challenge, but he also did it in style, creating a PC that chews through everyday tasks—and looks great while doing it.
I also read Neil Mohr’s Home Theater feature this month with a mixture of intrigue and despair. Intrigue, because it covers all the projectors, screens, and automation tools you need to beat your local multiplex, but despair because it put my own lockdown project of wallmounting an OLED to shame.
I’ve only been here for a month, but I’ve already read plenty of letters from readers who love our future-gazing pieces. If that’s you, check out Jeremy Laird’s fascinating feature on Moore’s Law. It felt as though chip makers had been falling behind the famous computing law of late, but Jeremy finds it’s quite the opposite. And that’s before we even get into Quantum Computing.
One of the more shocking events in the industry this year is the rate of consolidation. We’re only a few months into the year, and already tens of billions have been spent acquiring games companies in deals that have rocked the industry. While console owners might rightly be concerned by the Microsoft-Activision deal, I think it’s a good thing in the short term for PC gamers, especially if you’re a Game Pass subscriber. Read our breakdown and what it all means on page 10.
As I said, there’s never been a better time to be into all things PC. Thanks for joining us for the ride! All the best,
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.