The Great Cache Hunt

It started in a Hog’s Breath car park, in the middle of a Friday afternoon. My girlfriend directed me towards a tree, the compass on her phone spinning around and pointing towards it as we explored the surrounding area. It was a clear day, and the GPSguided compass claimed accuracy within one meter. I was searching for my first geocache, becoming part of a global phenomenon I had heard mentioned in hushed conversation for years. We found the cache fast – a small plastic container, containing a log book and a pencil for us to ‘check in’ with. We wrote the date and our usernames, logged the find on the app  with a few comments, and set off for the next one.

Halo 5: Guardians

The Chief returns to our consoles with something old, something new, something borrowed – and Red vs Blue.

Everyone knew he was coming back. From Xbox One’s announcement, it was always just a matter of time before the Chief crashed through the atmosphere and reminded us all just what a real FPS looks like. The focus of Halo 5: Guardians is exactly that, and with it a beautiful surprise that every long-term fan has been dreaming of. This is a game built from the ground-up to return Halo multiplayer to its first principles, and to the forefront of competitive shooters. “From the day we started working on this game,” says executive producer Josh Holmes, “competitive has been the core of the experience.”

AOC U3477Pqu

Super wide, seriously dramatic, sadly pricey.

We’re so over 4K. That first rush of super high-res 4K screens were pretty exciting, but only because they were offering a new resolution we hadn’t seen before. Now those 4K screens are securely packed away in the kit cupboard because there’s a new wide-boy in town: AOC’s U3477Pqu.

Our big problem with 4K screens is that there isn’t the content yet to justify the step up in resolution and resulting step down in performance. Realistically, moving from a 1440p screen to a 2160p one doesn’t currently offer anything other than a drop in frame rates. Your in-game textures are still generally the same scale and won’t deliver the visual fidelity promised by the 8MP 4K resolution.

Intel Core i7-5820K

The missing link between Haswell and Haswell-E has been found...

The top end of Intel’s Haswell-E platform is where all the finest new technology from this generation of performance computing lies. When you’ve got the fastest PCIe-based storage connections, a brand new generation of system memory and a full eight-core consumer processor pulling it all together, that’s the pinnacle of today’s PC tech right there.

Quite rightly then, the Core i7-5960X, with its 16 threads of processing power, got all the initial headlines. But for us, this bargain-priced six-core Core i7-5820K is the most interesting CPU of this latest chip generation.

Second-hand hardware: What to buy, what to avoid

Used goods don't always equal bargains, so what should you be looking out for?

The option to get discounts on hardware by opting for second-hand and reconditioned goods is a tempting one, and if you're smart about the way you buy hardware, you can knock a fair amount of money off your purchase by doing so. But there's a risk inherent in buying second-hand hardware that might mean you end up enduring a lot of hassle for a very small saving.

If you want to avoid subjecting yourself to unnecessary risks and inconveniences, it's important to be a little discerning about the type of second-hand goods you go for. Some components are fine to buy second hand, others are risky, and a small number should even be avoided altogether. In case you're planning to do some second-hand shopping, here's the advice you'll need so that you can tell the difference.