THE BUILDS

ALL-OUT AMD

Guy Cocker IN THIS ISSUE OF MAXIMUM PC,

Phoenix and Meteor Lake coming

New generations of chips from AMD and Intel on the way

TSMC TO GO 2NM BY 2025

CHIP GIANT ON TRACK WITH THREE INTERATIONS PLANNED

RTX 4070’S PRICE PROBLEM

High pricing = low sales, it seems

Tech Triumphs and Tragedies

A monthly snapshot of what’s good and bad in tech

BRACE FOR IMPACT

AI developers warn: this could get bumpy

ACTIVISION BLIZZARD SALE BLOCKED

And Microsoft is very angry about it

Seagate drives reach 30TB

Hard drives have lasers now, in a bid

Hot Ryzens

AMD is having more problems with its 7000X3D-series

ARM to build its own

ARM will design a series of chips under

PCIe 5.0 SSDs Are Finally Here

THE PCI EXPRESS 5.0 specification was finalized on May 29, 2019. The first PCIe 5.0-ready consumer platform arrived with Intel’s Z690 chipset and socket LGA1700 platform in November 2021. (IBM’s Power10 processor was announced in 2020 and started shipping in mid-2021.) But PCIe 5.0 graphics cards and SSDs were nowhere to be found.

THE LIST

BEST CPUS FOR GAMING

Everybody chill, PC sales are not imploding

PC SALES NOSEDIVED by about 30 percent in the first quarter of this year. But that is no reason to panic—pretty much all digital devices have taken a hit of late. Besides, if you bother to give the numbers more than a cursory glance, you’ll see that PC sales are remarkably strong.

THE GREAT GRAPHICS CARD BUBBLE

GPU prices have been ridiculous for years. Jeremy Laird investigates how we got here and if we could return to “normal” pricing

SteelSeries Arena 9

ERFORMANCE GEAR LAID BARE ARE HEADPHONES literally doing

THIS PC DOES NOT EXIST

AI that creates text and images is a developing field that’s getting a lot of news coverage. Ian Evenden explains what’s going on

Run Stable Diffusion on your own PC

YOU’LL NEED THIS

BLUETOOTH

THE TOOTH SHALL SET YOU FREE

HOW TO

STEP-BY-STEP GUIDES TO IMPROVING YOUR PC

Build a bulletproof rescue disk

YOU’LL NEED THIS

Upgrade your CPU for a faster PC

YOU’LL NEED THIS

Manage email using Outlook’s Quick Steps

YOU’LL NEED THIS

LAB NOTES

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor won’t run well enough

Lenovo Legion Y32p-30

Great both as an investment and as an OLED monitor for daily use

Reviewed…

74 AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 76 Lenovo ThinkPad

DOCTOR

THIS MONTH THE DOCTOR TACKLES

LETTERS

WE TACKLE TOUGH READER QUESTIONS ON...

BUILD A GAMING POWERHOUSE

Introducing AMD’s latest and greatest chip, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D. The gaming CPU to beat?

KING OF THE RING IS THIS REALLY THE FASTEST GAMING PC?

01a 01b BUILT AND TESTED STEP-BY -STEP GUIDE

A RYZEN 9 MASTERPIECE?

AT THIS STAGE, you’re probably thinking that this

IS IT AS GOOD AS IT IS ON PAPER?

HECK YES, this machine is a monster when

BUILD A KILLER MEDIA SERVER

Nick Peers reveals how to take control of your media and build your own always-on streaming library

AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D

The best gaming processor AMD has ever produced

Lenovo ThinkPad X13s

A glimpse of the Arm-powered future of the PC

Pixio PXC277 Advanced

A high-refresh 1440p panel for relative pennies

Nvidia RTX 4070

An RTX 3080 with benefits

Intel NUC 13 Pro i7-1360P kit

Pocket-sized 13th Gen Intel i7 power for the enthusiast?

AOC Gaming 24G2SP

High-refresh, low-latency gaming on a budget

HyperX Pulsefire Haste 2 Wireless

A lightweight wireless gaming mouse at a very competitive price

PLA ALT Motion Controller

An unorthodox, unusual, and unique keyboard alternative? We’re interested.

Razer BlackWidow V4 Pro

So I heard you like macros…

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

The best thing to happen to Star Wars in years

Slack vs Discord

Battle of the chat apps—which should you use?