The Best Current Processors For Overclocking

Want to squeeze more power out of your PC, you’ll need a decent overclockable CPU. Aaron looks at some of the best

It’s often painted as the most advanced, and in turn, daunting PC tweaking you can indulge in, but overclocking has become far more accessible over the years. Whilst it was once undeniably something for only the technical elite to play around with, pushing hardware past its out of the box specification has been handed to the masses with a range of increasingly overclock-friendly products being released.

Rise Of Incarnates

When the end of the world arrives, what better way to pass the time than with a brawl on civilisation’s embers? In Rise Of Incarnates, the first free-to-play Steam release from a team of designers drawn from the Tekken and SoulCalibur talent pool, humanity’s ruined capital cities certainly provide a dramatic backdrop. The London Eye tilts disapprovingly at the fracas unfolding on the far side of a collapsed Westminster Bridge, while the disembodied head of the Statue Of Liberty glares at the air battles brought to New York by this cast of anime-styled invaders. As with Gundam Vs – Bandai Namco’s two-on-two, arena-based fighting game, which remains highly popular in Japanese arcades – this idiosyncratic brawler lacks the precision of Street Fighter and makes fewer physical demands of its players. But matches are bold and memorable, and there’s no shortage of mind games to be found within.

The Magic Circle

The Magic Circle’s game within a game (bearing the same name) is a wreck, yanked this way and that by a precious auteur over years. Pixellated ’90s sci-fi spills onto a monochrome waste of RPG clichés; dark forests, skull mountains and hive queens are just some of the discarded ideas that will never be good enough to conclude a hallowed series and be studio head Ishmael Gilder’s legacy. Bills are mounting, the team’s rabid, and a demo must be shown at E4 in days.

Her Story

While to some extent the draw of illuminating the unknown is an underpinning for all stories – be it externally to the reader, or internally within the framework of the tale itself – no genre draws on it as explicitly, nor dangles the prospect of discovery so tantalisingly before the audience, as crime fiction. It co-opts the simplest narrative question of ‘What happens next?’ into the complex mysteries of how, why and when a foul deed was committed, conventionally in service to pointing the audience towards the grand unveiling of whodunnit. In works of traditional media, we tend to accept such fiction as ‘good’ when its twists are both well orchestrated and impactful, the plot’s arc elaborately crafted to deploy its surprises at key moments, or to spike expectations set up by clever framing. Her Story (written, developed and directed by Aisle developer and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories scribe Sam Barlow) hits many of the beats of and touchstones for a good crime story, but it is far from traditional, abdicating a generous measure of authorial control by allowing you to dictate in which order you experience this tale’s twists and inversions.

Sony Xperia Z2 tablet

Acouple of years ago, Sony launched the Xperia Tablet Z, a very powerful, slim and lightweight 10" tablet that was ahead of its time. Since then, the Xperia range has grown to include the Tablet S, Z2 (which we’re reviewing now), Z3 Compact and the top-of-therange Z4.

Clearly, the Xperia range is here to stay, and it’s not difficult to see why. The 10.1" IPS screen has a maximum resolution of 1920 x 1200 and features the coveted TriLuminos display engine for great clarity and colours. Added to that is the quad-core Snapdragon 801 processor running at an impressive 2.3GHz, and a huge 3GB of memory. It’s available in 16GB or 32GB models, with Android 5.0 Lollipop installed.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet has been a firm favourite of consumers for some years now. It was, toward the end of 2013, the Samsung flagship tablet, but nowadays the Tab A and Tab S models have taken over with better hardware and offering more for the consumer.

The Galaxy Note 10.1, however, is still available, which is impressive considering it’s placed in a market that changes so rapidly. The 10.1" WXGA TFT screen with a maximum resolution of 1280 x 800 still looks good, and the ARM Cortex A9 quad-core processor running at 1.4GHz together with 2GB of memory is capable of running the installed Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich well enough.

Lenovo ThinkPad 10

This entry is a little different from the last couple we’ve already looked at, in that with it being a Lenovo product it’s more business focused than consumer. However, it’s still available to the public and therefore it can be included with the other examples in this tablet group.

The ThinkPad 10 has a fairly impressive specification. The 10.1" WUXGA IPS multitouch screen has a maximum resolution of 1920 x 1200, and the Intel Atom Z3795 processor running at 1.59GHz far outperforms the other examples we’ve looked at so far. There’s also an outstanding 4GB of PC3-8500 DDR3 memory, and 128GB eMMC of storage with Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit edition pre-installed.

Hannspree Hannspad 10.1

Coming in even cheaper than the previously reviewed Linx 10, the £100 Hannspree Hannspad looks like it might be the best value Android tablet on the market. Or is it?

This 10.1" tablet with an IPS LED screen has a maximum resolution of 1280 x 800, a quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 1.3GHz processor, 1GB of memory, and 16GB of NAND flash storage with Android 4.4 KitKat installed.

Linx 10

The Linx range of tablets has taken the online markets by storm in recent months. These low-cost, but pretty decent specification tablets certainly have a lot going for them, with the Linx 7, Linx 8 and Linx 10 models all boasting Windows 8.1, an Office 365 subscription and good hardware throughout.

The Linx 10 model we have for review in this instance is the top of the product range. It has a 10.1" ten-point capacitive multi-touch IPS LCD screen, with a resolution of 1280 x 800. An Intel Atom Z3735F quad-core processor running at 1.3GHz with a boost speed of 1.83GHz is lively enough. Plus there's 2GB of DDR3L memory and 32GB eMMC storage, on which you’ll find Windows 8.1.