NAD Viso HP30 Headphone

NAD rocked the audiophile world in the late 1970s when it introduced its astonishing 3020 integrated amp. That amp eventually became one of the best-selling of all time and established NAD as the brand that prioritized performance over superfluous features and glitzy styling, at affordable prices. That “sound quality first” ethos continued over the decades, and NAD recently scored another direct hit with its Viso HP50 over-the-ear headphones. So, I was eager to check out their new Viso HP30 on-ear model.

B&W Zeppelin Wireless Sound System

The debut of the iPod was so cataclysmic that it nearly hurled the planet out of orbit. “1,000 songs in your pocket” was a revolution on par with “perfect sound forever.” And now it seems just as archaic. In fact, Apple no longer offers the iPod classic, and Bowers & Wilkins has quietly eliminated the iPhone/iPod dock from its formidable Zeppelin one-piece audio system. If you want to plug a wired device into the new Zeppelin Wireless, it’ll have to go into the analog minijack in back—the servants’ entrance, as it were. Only your wireless AirPlay and Bluetooth sources can waltz in the front door. The new Zeppelin is nearly an inch wider than the four-year-old Zeppelin Air, itself an update of the original Zeppelin from 2008. It costs $100 more, and shorn of its dock, it looks more than ever like a football—an American football, I should specify, since Mr. Bowers and Mr. Wilkins spoke with a British accent. On the front is a tab with LED indicators and buttons with backlit icons to pair Bluetooth devices and activate the aux input. On the back are the analog and Ethernet jacks; the USB jack is for service only. The composite video output has been eliminated along with the dock.

JVC DLA-X550R 3D D-ILA Projector

Most projector manufacturers refresh their product lines every fall like clockwork, but JVC opted to sit things out for 2014. The main reason (I suspect) was the state of flux surrounding the HDMI standard, which at that point was evolving to a new 18-gigabit-persecond version designed to accommodate a full range of 4K/Ultra HD bells and whistles, including 60-hertz frame rate, 4:4:4 color sampling, and high dynamic range.

Sony VPL-HW65ES 3D SXRD Projector

The last time i hadmy hands on a Sony product, it was a 4K projector priced at ten grand. That model, the VPL-VW350ES, had many positive attributes, along with one weakness: somewhat lackluster contrast compared with that of projectors that provide a dynamic iris control.

Video geeks know that picture contrast can have a dramatic effect on image quality. Sure, the detail boost that 4K provides is nice, but in the grand scheme of things, contrast ends up being an even more important factor. That’s why I was stoked at the prospect of reviewing Sony’s new 1080p VPL-HW65ES, a $3,999 projector that includes a dynamic iris to optimize contrast.

Wharfedale Diamond 220 Speaker System

When a venerable audio brand leaves its founders behind, sometimes it loses its way. But sometimes it gets a whole new lease on life. That’s what happened when the International Audio Group (IAG, originally of Taiwan, now of mainland China) acquired a handful of British brands, including Wharfedale, Mission, and Quad. When I visited IAG’s design and manufacturing facility in Shenzhen a dozen years ago, I was surprised at how self-reliant it was. The resident speaker designer could have a custom part made and tested in 24 hours, rather than having to outsource it and wait for months, as Wharfedale’s British forebears had to do. Thus, he has the luxury of endless tweaking. Even so, Wharfedale hasn’t had a commanding presence in the U.S. market commensurate with the brand’s engineering resources and expertise. Will the new Diamond 200 series change that?

BenQ HT4050 3D DLP Projector

Beginning in 2009 and early thereafter, Taiwan-based BenQ Corporation has claimed the distinction of being the best-selling brand for DLP projectors worldwide. While models designated for the business and education markets bolster the overall sales figure, the company has enjoyed a strong presence in consumer home theater as well. BenQ aims to retain that No. 1 status, aided by their new HT series of home theater machines, which includes our review unit, the range-topping HT4050. Stocking the projector with an assortment of finely honed features, BenQ promises the performance level found in more costly models while targeting an appealing price point. Will the HT4050 deliver winning image fidelity and a winning sales formula for BenQ? Let’s find out.

Onkyo TX-RZ900 A/V Receiver

Producing a test report on a “flagship” A/V receiver is always a bit of a high-wire act. On one hand, the receiver represents the top of the line: Maximum power, maximum features, and maximum performance are all expected—and generally delivered. On the other hand, cruiser-class designs rarely offer much of real importance that a model two or three jumps down any given maker’s line doesn’t also do quite competently—and for roughly half the price, which means it’s the model that most folks eventually buy. This leaves the hapless reviewer with the unenviable choice of either damning with faint praise or condemning excellence for its expense.

Sony VPL-VW665ES 3D SXRD 4K Projector

Here we are now a full four years beyond Sony’s debut of the VPL-VW1000ES, the first consumer-level native 4K projector. And yet the bounty of 4K content that was promised at that time is really now just coming to fruition with an assortment of streaming options and a new Blu-ray format springing forth. In late 2015, Sony did what I’d call a mid-cycle refresh on one of our previous model, the VPLVW600ES, adding a few new features like HDR capabilities and improved contrast and brightness. But is the VPL-VW665ES the projector to buy as we head into the land of Ultra HD and all its promises?

MSI Gaming 27T 6QE All-in-One PC

The idea of using an All-in-One computer as a gaming desktop hasn’t probably crossed the minds of many enthusiasts and gamers. And until we saw MSI’s Gaming 27T 6QE All-in-One PC, we wouldn’t have blamed you, as AIOs typically feature cut-down mobile versions of components and limited GPU horsepower. MSI flips the script with the Gaming 27T 6QE by packing an Intel Core i7-6700, as well as an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M with 8GB of GDDR5 memory, into an AIO with a 27-inch, Full HD display.

Rosewill Stealth

One thing that we know from spending lots of time at LAN parties and talking to modders and DIY PC builders everywhere: Where PC cases are concerned, one size does not fit all. Certainly there are popular trends in case design, just like in any other product market, and the other Rosewill case we review in this issue (the Gungnir) is a great example of how to build a budget case and still include many of the hottest features available today.

Patriot Viper V760

Patriot has been producing enthusiast-grade memory for decades, and the company has naturally become pretty good at it. Over the years, Patriot’s shown a knack for making other high-end PC hardware, too, as its fleet of enthusiast gear has steadily grown. Now, with the Viper Gaming trio, gamers have even more firepower at their fingertips, particularly with the Viper V760 mechanical keyboard.

The Perfect Storm

MSI’s Vortex Is As Powerful As It Is Stunning

If you’re here looking for a small form factor PC that plays by the rules, you’ve come to the wrong place. Oh sure, there’s nothing inherently wrong with traditional SFF cases, but when was the last time “traditional” excited anyone? We know what a box looks like, and, by and large, what we can put in it. There are rules.

You’ve got to dare to be stupid

The inside story of how the founders of Criterion Games formed a new studio and began making Dangerous Golf

How do you explain an idea like Dangerous Golf to a small team of game development veterans eager to start a new project? “I was like, ‘I don’t know, it’s probably a bit like Crash Mode, but with a golf ball. But it’s probably way more out there than that, with a shitload of destruction’,” reveals Alex Ward, co-founder of Three Fields Entertainment and former chief of Criterion Games. It’s a pitch that managed to capture the imaginations of colleagues from the Burnout development team and beyond, but obviously it wasn’t quite so simple as that.

Overwatch

As Blizzard takes on the fps, should you be fearful for the state of your spare time?

”It’s really important for us to be listening to the community, because with Overwatch, as soon as it launches, it belongs to them just as much as it belongs to us. We want to make sure Overwatch is a cool environment that they enjoy hanging out in. We don’t want to do anything that really detracts from their sense of enjoyment in the game. We feel like the community works with us; they own our games as much as we do… We want to do right by the players”

Home Computing Security Risks

What are the real, everyday security risks for the average user, and what can you do about them?

There’s often refereed a lot of hyperbole surrounding the coverage of PC security, hacking and cybercrime, not helped by over-the-top movies that paint a totally different picture to real life and real world news that tends towards sensationalising the topic. Such coverage ultimately leads to unwarranted fears and a general misunderstanding of the real threats. People can easily become too worried to even use the Internet, or at least venture away from their daily, already known websites.

However, as much as it may be misunderstood, PC security really isn’t the big bad beast it’s often built up to be. Yes, there are risks, and yes, you need to be careful, but the truth is, you’re much safer than some members of the media would have you believe, you just need to know how to conduct yourself online, and how to protect your PC. This is what we’re going to look at here, beginning with the basics.

What Is Markdown, And Should You Use It?

This markup language is slowly and steadily gaining acceptance. Roland Waddilove shows how to use it to write and format text for a variety of uses

Have you heard of Markdown? It’s becoming a popular way to format text, especially for use on the web, and it’s supported by an increasing number of Windows applications, websites and mobile apps. Markdown is a markup language, which sounds confusing, but it’s basically a way to specify the formatting of text using various symbols and conventions. It enables you to mark text so it’s displayed as a headline, in bold, as a numbered list, in italic, as a link to a website and so on.

Give Yourself A Clean Start

To keep your PC running smoothly, you’ll need to keep it clean and tidy.

Is that PC you spent hundreds of pounds on not a few months ago now running more like an old, crusty Pentium II? Have your programs started to take a veritable ice age to open files? Has Windows turned into an aged old app that has to be told what to do twice or more before it reacts? If so, then you’re probably suffering from the usual system slowdown we all go through from time to time. It’s guaranteed that any PC will slow down after prolonged use, and your daily actions will take their toll.

Synology Router Manager: Revolution or Evolution?

Will SRM change the way we use routers?

It’s not often something interesting happens in router technology, so when Synology – the much admired NAS maker – announced it was releasing its own router I sat up and took note.

The fact the RT1900ac is an 802.11ac-compatible router with a USB port wasn’t remarkable, as there’s a lot of them about. What is remarkable is that the router runs Synology Router Manager (SRM), a desktop-style operating system that’s similar to the Synology DiskStation Manager (DSM) OS that runs on Synology’s NAS enclosures.

Audio streaming services - which is best?

We check out the best places to get your music…

As any sound-system buff will tell you, it’s no good having featurepacked audio equipment at your disposal if you haven’t got the music to make it worthwhile. In the past, that might have meant a wall full of CDs or even a killer MP3 collection. These days, though? It tends to mean an internet connection and a streaming music service with thousands of tracks available on demand.

Subscription-based streaming services have fast replaced audio downloads as the medium of choice for songsters everywhere. But with loads of different services to choose from, where do you even start? We’ve rounded up and compared some of the most popular so you don’t have to.

Getting into soundbars

They’re smaller than full speaker setups, but they still pack a punch…

You don’t have to be a diehard audiophile to know that the sound quality on integrated speakers, whether they’re in your monitor, TV, tablet or laptop, is pretty bad. The drive for slimmer devices means that more and more manufacturers are compromising on audio quality to squeeze out those extra millimetres.

In fairness, perhaps there’s a good reason for that. If you’re buying a high-end screen, maybe you want the chance to choose your own high-end sound system to go with it. Why rely on weak, tinny internal speakers that face in the wrong direction when you can choose your own, finely tuned drivers instead?

Bluetooth Speakers Guide

Cut the cord with these fantastic wireless speakers…

Portable devices are great for carrying your music out and about with you at all times, but even in the most expensive hardware, their built-in speakers tend not to be. If you want to listen to music while outside your house, whether it’s in your garden, at the park or even somewhere like a caravan or hotel room, you need to get hold of a good portable speaker. And that’s why we’ve put together a list for you.

Wireless Speakers Guide

Whether it’s wi-fi or Bluetooth, there are plenty of speakers that can help to free your house of wires…

Mobile devices might be improving all the time, but there’s at least one area where they never quite match up to their desk-bound equivalents: audio quality. Finding a laptop, tablet or smartphone with speakers that are truly worth using is virtually impossible, no matter what technology manufacturers claim they’re using. You don’t have to be the world’s most picky audiophile to be annoyed by the tinny, raspy sound most mobile hardware chucks out, and for the most part it’s not getting any better. The constraints aren’t cost so much as space, weight and power.

Of course, mobile devices do tend to have wireless compatibility – and that means you can always improve your situation with a pair of Bluetooth or even wi-fi networked speakers. Whether you want floor-shaking bass, fantastic portability or features not found in most wired speakers, there’s a speaker out there for you somewhere – and hopefully we’ve found it!

The best PC speakers under £100

How much audio quality can you get for your money?

Finding the best PC speakers can sometimes be a difficult task. Everyone has different needs for their audio, and that means the speaker system that’s best for one person might not be the best for another.

But getting the right sound out of your PC is essential for enjoying the experience of watching movies, playing games and listening to music – not to mention those helpful audio adverts that occasionally run themselves over a website when you open a tab.

So whether you wondering if your current speakers are up to the job, running a system that lacks decent speakers entirely or just in the market for a refresh, we’ve put together this guide to some of the best speaker models around no matter what you’re looking for.

Remembering… Ocean Software Ltd

This week, David Hayward takes a look back at a much loved software house

Last week, we took a look at one of the great videogame publishing houses from the 80s, Durell Software Ltd. But as great as that was, there another name that truly dominated the computer gaming scene in the 80s and 90s: Ocean Software Ltd.

The names of Jon Woods and David Ward are carved into the British gaming industry under the legend category, along with other such notable Ocean staff as Gary Bracey, Paul Patterson and Dawn Hollywood (nee Drake).

Top 5 Things About The Nokia 3210

Was this the best phone ever? Maybe…

1 Predictive Text

These days, predictive text has combined with autocorrect to become a technology that’s all too often the source of mirth, rather than admiration. People laugh at memes that show autocorrect making innocent messages sound rude or inappropriate. But back in the days of the 3210, predictive text was actually really useful. No longer did you have to press each number key several times to find the letter you wanted. Instead, you just tapped the key once, and as you progressed through the characters, the phone would guess what you wanted to type. It might seem run-of-the-mill now, but at the time, it was a huge time saver.

WavePad v6.8

If you need to edit audio files, clean them up and apply special effects, this editor can do the job

WavePad is an audio editor that runs in all versions of Windows from 32-bit XP up to 64-bit Windows 10. Aimed at both home users and professionals, it can be used to edit music files and podcasts, to clean up tracks converted from old vinyl records and to mix your own music.

Cocktail Audio Pro X100

A customised Linux-based media streamer with some interesting features

Just when you thought CD ripping had gone the way of the dinosaur, along comes a device that manages to combine it with network audio streaming.

The Cocktail Audio Pro X100 is an interesting marriage of technologies. It’s a compact unit measuring just 204 x 240 x 80mm, and it looks similar to the previous generation of Shuttle media cases.

Within its black chassis lies a 2GHz Intel Trial-D quad-core processor and 4GB of DDR3 memory. On its 1TB hard drive, you'll find a copy of Fedora 22 running in console mode, with a selection of pre-installed audio apps, Samba and a selection of other networking media programs.

NZXT Manta

Sleek lines and clever engineering abound in this marvellous PC case

We recently had the pleasure of reviewing a couple of NZXT cases: the Source 430 and H440. Both are superb and offer system builders a solid foundation on which to design their creations.

This week, we have a new case from NZXT to review, the Manta. This is a mini-ITX chassis that manages to pack in so many features you begin to wonder whether it's actually a full tower server chassis.

XMG P506 Pro Series Gaming Notebook

Mark experiences the pinnacle of portable gaming with the XMG P506

I’ve been hoping that the latest Skylake technology would filter down to Schenker, and here's proof it has arrived in the musclebound physique of XMG P506 (aka Clevo P651RE).

A bit like Dell’s website, Schenker’s allows you to specify exactly what goes in your P506 through an options process. Starting with a baseline cost of £952, you can then add all manner of exotic options till your current account or plastic can stand no more.

Brother ADS-2400N

In need of a networked document scanner for the office? Look no further

Brother's range of document scanners make for some interesting reading. There are portable document scanners, large professional scanners, high speed scanners and middle-ground office document scanners.

Each has its own unique set of specifications, with the ADS-2400N falling into the mid entry level for home offices or smaller workgroups.

Asus Chromebook Flip

Big performance from a small laptop

There have many attempts, by various manufacturers, to combine the best of both laptops and tablets. Some have been more successful than others, of course, but it's clear that there's interest in this market, and that's something that Asus is keen to exploit.

The Asus Chromebook Flip gets its name from the fact that the screen can rotate back over itself, much like the Yoga from Lenovo’s line of Chromebooks.

Freecom Tablet Mini SSD

Andy Shaw tests an external SSD drive that you can use with your PC, tablet and phone

It’s difficult to predict how much storage space you need on a mobile device – too little and you’re constantly having to shuffle apps and data around to make room for new things. But not everyone can justify spending hundreds of extra pounds to get their devices with the maximum amount of memory installed.

Some Android devices are built with memory-card slots that make adding extra storage much simpler but if your device doesn’t have this, the Freecom Tablet Mini SSD provides a convenient solution.

Why your high-speed internet is so slow

Your connection may offer you dozens of megabits per second, but it’s unlikely that you’ll ever touch that target. Robert Irvine explains why and how to fix it.

A recent ‘State of the internet’ report by content-delivery network Akamai (bit.ly/akamai392) ranked the UK thirteenth in the world for internetconnection speeds, with an average of 13Mbps. That sounds pretty respectable (hey, we beat Belgium!), but many of those surveyed pay for “up to” 17Mbps, 38Mbps and even 76Mbps, and rarely – if ever – come close to that figure. This discrepancy in the speed you pay for and the one you get is often blamed on your distance from the broadband exchange, but there are other factors involved, too. So you can either move your house closer to the exchange (not easy unless you live in a motorhome) or you can try our secret tricks to tackle the causes of your slow connection.

Secret tips for Google Photos

Preserve battery life when backing up

Google Photos has a useful ‘Backup & sync’ feature, which – once activated – automatically backs up your snaps when your phone or tablet has a Wi-Fi connection. If you notice your battery life suffering as a result of backups running in the background, you can easily fix the problem by setting Photos to only back up your pictures when your device is charging. To do this, open the main Photos menu, tap Settings and choose ‘Backup & Sync’. Scroll down and switch the option ‘While charging only’ to the On position.

Keep All Your Emails Private

Do you ever worry that strangers are reading your emails? Wayne Williams explains how to stop the contents of your messages being accessed by anyone other than the intended recipient

Following a recent European Court of Human Rights ruling, the press widely reported that “your boss can now read your personal emails” (bit.ly/bossemails). Although the court later denied this interpretation of its ruling, the decision could still set a precedent for cases of this kind and the panicked public response to the news suggests many of us worry about people intercepting our emails, texts and web chats.

So you want to make a game

Making games takes a lot of time and effort - but with the tools available in 2015, it’s never been easier. DANIEL HINDES tells you everything you need to know to start thinking about games not as a player, but as a creator.

Interested in making a PC game? That’s cool. So am I! In fact, I started doing so a little over a year ago, with absolutely no experience whatsoever. If you’re in the same position and have no idea where to start, this is the guide for you. But don’t raise your expectations just yet: reading this won’t give you the power to make an entire game right away. It is a long, arduous and often tedious process. But you can do it. I believe in you.

What can you expect to do after reading this, then? You’ll have a starting point. You’ll be set up and ready to go with all the tools you need to begin. You’ll understand on a conceptual level all the elements that make up a basic game, and how they interact with one another. And you’ll get to this point without even having to write a single line of code.

Listening to games

George Lucas is said to have said that ‘Sound is 50 percent of the moviegoing experience’. Which is actually a very silly statement. You can’t divide an experience between two of its contributing factors. Absent sound or absent vision, you’re probably getting just five per cent of the combined experience.

Nonetheless, it captures some essence of not only movie-going, but game playing. Shooting the enemy is enormously more satisfying when there’s a visceral thunk from the sound of your 5.56mm rifle than a mere sketch of what’s happening from some plastic computer speakers. Your game score can even be higher if you can accurately and instantly detect the direction of hostiles from their sound.

Optimize your network

As our lives become more and more reliant on the internet and access to data – so does our expectations to have that data immediately. Streaming media from providers such as iTunes and Netflix has only increased our demand for fast connections. Recent years has seen internet speeds increasing rapidly and we’ve almost hit (some countries have) the point at which your internet connection is just as fast as your home network. This is all good news for the multiplayer gamer as well as the experiences have become larger, more intense and more immersive. Just about every home now has its own network (in one form or another) and most people are looking into how to make it better.

PC cooling guide

Once upon a time cooling was one of the most essential parts of any PC build. Even at stock, enthusiast and gaming hardware tended to push a lot of heat, and if you overclocked your CPU, then you were really asking for it.

I have fond memories of a friend’s high-end gaming system with its side panel off, a desk fan perpetually blowing air into the oven-like interior.

What to look for in a mouse

It’s actually kind of odd that possibly the cheapest piece of kit in your build is the one you rely upon the most, but that’s the nature of the machine interface that has evolved around the PC. CPUs and video cards are still the big drivers of what your PC can do, but they’re out of the way. Your mouse, though, is front and centre, and if you’ve ever used a friend’s PC, or sat down to a strange system at a convention, the time it takes to get used to a new mouse can be catastrophic – using one that is actively bad, or at the least not designed for how you game, can be even worse.

But what makes a good mouse, when it’s such a deeply personal computing peripheral? Well, to help you make the right choice, there are some basic things to look for.

Performance tweaking your PC for games

One of the joys – and frustrations – of being a PC gamer is the ability to tweak and configure our systems. It’s why many of us are so passionate about the PC, and the joy of getting a system zinging is akin to tuning a performance vehicle. The only problem is that there are myriad different ways to tweak your PC, so we’re going to cover some of the basics. Note that this article won’t cover overclocking; you can find that guide elsewhere in this issue. Let’s start with the simple stuff – maintaining the health of your PC.

Gaming CPUs and the rise of DX12

We often refer to the holy trinity of gaming performance here at PC PowerPlay, which pertains to the three major components within your system that will impact on frame rates. Your graphics card is obviously of paramount importance, as it’s tasked with the final steps of the rendering process, and the better your GPU the higher the resolution, anti-aliasing and other graphical effects you can run. System memory is also key, as if the game runs out of memory it’ll have to fetch data from the sluggish hard drive, causing stuttering and slow downs. The final piece of the performance pie is one that is often overlooked – the Central Processing Unit, or CPU. The following article will explain how certain CPU specifications impact game performance, and how the introduction of DX12 is going to unleash its power.

50 Amazing Free Tools For Web Pros

In many occupations, solving problems and finding ways to be more productive are top priorities. This is especially true for web designers and frontend developers who perform and repeat many microtasks. The fact we work with open web technologies that are often used to build free and open source software means we have a plethora of tools at our disposal. In my ongoing research into web tools, I come across dozens of new options every week – scripts, plugins, browser extensions, native apps, web services, libraries, frameworks, graphic packs and so much more.

After wading through the mountains of possibilities, I’ve put together a categorised list of 50 amazing tools that can benefit web designers or frontend developers. And the best part? They’re all absolutely free!

Interview with Rachel Inman

Google’s UX designer on visual thinking, helping people do good in the world, and how she found her fire

Rachel Inman doesn’t like exclusivity. Describing herself as a “bit of a nerd” growing up, it reminds her of when one group of kids felt entitled to exclude others. In a business environment, people can often unconsciously create an ‘us versus them’ mentality too.

Digital - first branding

James Bates asks why digital is still treated like a second-class citizen when it comes to building a brand identity

Branding has always been a very top-down process: through identity and messaging, brand designers have tried to define and influence what consumers think. Then with consistent exposure, they hope to build recognition, trust and eventually loyalty. This approach arguably worked when you had control over static mediums like advertising, packaging and even television, but these days brands no longer exist purely on a shelf or a billboard. They live online.

Iiyama ProLite X4071UHSU

The proper screen size for a display is always a matter of both personal taste and personal space. However, all the other displays on test this month are dwarfed by Iiyama’s X4071UHSU-B1, which rivals TVs in terms of size. Indeed, it even includes a remote control. What’s more, it appears to offer amazing value for money. The secret is its 10-bit MVA panel technology, which sits somewhere between TN and IPS in terms of capabilities. It has the good 178-degree viewing angles of IPS panels, with a 3ms response time, high contrast ratios and deep black levels.

AOC U2879VF

With launch prices of several thousand pounds, 4K displays have earned a reputation for being hideously expensive, and you didn’t even get a 60Hz refresh rate on some early 4K models. As the technology has become more mainstream, and production lines have matured, though, you can amazingly now pick up a 4K screen under for under £300 inc VAT.

Oblivion Systems Guardian

We’re used to watercooled machines with striking colour schemes, but Oblivion Systems’ Guardian really stands out with its bold, pink coolant. The interior of the Phanteks chassis is dominated by a pair of coolant tubes that wind from the roof-mounted Raijintek Triton 280 to the chunky CPU block on top of the Skylake Core i5-6600K CPU. Both tubes ripple with bright pink Mayhems coolant, which is then lit up by the CPU block’s LED.

Computer Planet Fusion X7 GT

Computer Planet’s Fusion X7 GT has flamboyant green design that really makes it stand out. The fans on the Corsair Hydro H80i and two intake fans are equipped with green LEDs, and a strip of lights sits behind the raised section in the middle of the case. Meanwhile, the MSI GTX 980 Ti card has been fitted with a green-accented cooler, and the NZXT S340 case has a huge Razer decal down one side and green lights on the base. Even the Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Game Plus motherboard has green heatsinks.

Quantum Leap

Google and NASA's one small step for quantum computing could prove to be a giant leap for mankind.

In the last 45 years conventional computing has seen performance increases of around two million-fold, an astonishing rate that has changed the way we live. So when two organisations as respected as Google and NASA announce a 100 million-fold increase in computing performance, the potential outcome is nothing less than world-changing.