Memory And Storage Deals

Give your PC a quick and easy boost with these upgrades…

When building a system, it’s a common mistake to overlook the memory and storage components in favour of faster processors and graphics cards. But you might be surprised to learn that slow memory and inadequate storage can cause significant bottlenecks, the likes of which no faster processors will be able to remedy. No matter how fast the data can be processed, it still has to be moved to a processor – from the storage, via the RAM.

Think of it as being a bit like a coal furnace on a train: a bigger furnace will burn faster, giving more speed, but eventually you reach a point where you can’t burn coal any faster. What you need is someone to shovel coal quicker. This, roughly, illustrates the problem with many systems. Slow hard drives and small RAM capacities mean that the fastest processors are forced to idle while waiting for data to be transferred. And that’s why we’ve come up with this selection of memory and storage recommendations for you to help speed up your system.

Graphic Card And Monitor Deals

Give yourself a visual treat, with this fine selection of goodies…

It’s remarkable how much improving the look of your system can make it feel like something new and exciting. You might not have changed the internals much, but your desktop is the main point of contact you have with a desktop computer. Upgrade that and it’ll seem as though everything old is new again.

This means two things: finding a new monitor and ideally a graphics card to go with it. Both are expensive components, but they’re worth the money: you’re guaranteed to appreciate their performance every time you switch your PC on. In this piece, we’ve looked at the various monitors and graphics cards available to help you find some of the best deals. Follow our advice, and in no time at all, your computer is going to look better than ever!

CPU And Motherboard Deals

Getting the right motherboard and processor combination – at the right price – is key

The starting point of any system is its CPU and Motherboard combination. These two components are built to fit one another with a particular socket and chipset combination, so it makes sense to choose them both at the same time.

When choosing a CPU or a motherboard there are a whole confusing host of options open to you, all which are fairly similar in design and compatibility, but different in function and capability. To help you understand what will suit your needs best, we’ll explain which processors are good for which purposes, explain how to match them up with the right motherboard, and point you in the direction of some deals and offers that might help sway your decision one way or the other.

LawBreakers

The legendary developer talks to us about his new outlook, as we take his gravity-defying shooter LawBreakers for a spin

Cliff Bleszinski is as close to a game development rockstar as this industry has ever known. Like many of the great pop stars there have been nicknames, personas, and a sense of a creative evolution that has inspired and driven the industry he contributes to. He was of course originally Clifford Michael Bleszinski, a native of North Andover, Massachusetts, creator of The Palace of Deceit: Dragon’s Plight when he was just 17 years old and later Jazz Jackrabbit. He would go on to became the face of Gears Of War, perhaps more so than its lead character Marcus Fenix. The man we sit with now is the head of his own studio in Raleigh, North Carolina, making a brand new FPS, LawBreakers, and is referred to by his colleagues as simply Cliff.

Top 10 Photos Tips

The Photos app in Windows 10 is perfect for browsing your snapshots, sharing and editing. Roland Waddilove presents his favourite tips

1 Browse Collections

If you want to browse all your photos and see them arranged in chronological order, select ‘Collection’ in the left panel. At the top is the month, and below are photos grouped by the dates they were taken. Spin the mouse wheel to scroll up and down through the photos.

The month is a clickable link, and it displays a list of months and years. You can quickly select another month or spin the mouse wheel to scroll the list and go back several years and select a month. This is a quick way to jump to photos from years ago without having to scroll through them all.