NOT CONSOLING MYSELF

I STARTED my journalism career on a home theater publication, where I cut my teeth reviewing televisions, speakers, and amplifiers. So, when our writer Sam pitched the idea of building a living room PC for this issue, naturally, I said yes. The resulting build is stylish and compact but highly customizable, thanks to Intel’s NUC 12 Extreme barebones PC. Sam built a machine that games, streams, and even works like a champ, while being easy to tuck away behind a TV or in an AV cabinet. You can follow his guide on page 16.

Sam’s build highlights what a successful return to the living room the PC has made in the last couple of years. More televisions support Variable Refresh Rate standards from AMD and Nvidia, while GPUs and laptops are pushing HDMI 2.1 and 4K 120Hz output. I now regularly plug my PCs into my OLED TV for a quick gaming session, especially for controller-based games, such as ForzaHorizon5 and Godof War. For the first time ever, I now no longer even own an Xbox or PlayStation console. Living room PC gaming is just so much better.

On that note, we look forward to the best games coming our way this issue. There’s been a lot of consolidation in gaming this year with Microsoft buying Activision and Sony buying Bungie, and as a result, we forget that there are loads of great games in development, including Starfield, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.2, and SaintsRow. We’ve rounded them up in our preview from page 36.

I know not all of you are into games, so elsewhere in this issue you’ll also find a massive SSD roundup. Jeremy Laird has rounded up the best PCIe 4.0 M.2 drives available right now and declared a winner—you may be surprised who’s victorious. Let’s just say I’ll be adding one such drive to the new Lenovo Legion 5i Pro I bought this month, so thanks for the recommendation, Jeremy!

Enjoy the issue!

GuyisMaximumPC’sEditor-in-Chief. HebuilthisfirstgamingPCin1997to playTombRaideron3dfx,andhasbeen obsessedwithallthingsPCeversince.