
Jacob Ridley
Jacob earned his first byline writing for his own tech blog. From there, he graduated to professionally breaking things as hardware writer at PCGamesN, where he was one half of a popular weekly YouTube show. He would go on to run the team as hardware editor before ing PC Gamer's world-class staff as senior hardware editor. Today, he's managing editor of the hardware team, and you'll find him spending his days reporting on the latest developments in the technology and gaming industries. He's found reporting from floors, benches, and, if he's lucky, plush press rooms at the biggest tech shows, such as Computex and CES. But more often than not he's hunched over the office test bench evaluating the newest PC components.
When he's not writing about GPUs and Us, you'll find Jacob trying to get as far away from the modern world as possible by wild camping.
Latest articles by Jacob Ridley

Cherry proclaims a 'new era' for keyboard switches: induction is 'half the cost of a regular mechanical switch', more reliable, and less power hungry than analog alternatives
By Jacob Ridley published
Computex Though whether it gets used for analog gaming keyboards is up to keyboard makers—Cherry says it is aiming at the mass market.

Wooting is adding knobs to its gaming keyboards and the good news is existing Wooting owners can knob themselves too
By Jacob Ridley published
Computex 2025 These new knobs actually replace a switch (or four) on existing Wooting keyboards.

AMD unleashes up to 96 cores of Zen 5 with its new Threadripper 9000 Series chips
By Jacob Ridley published
Computex Coming June 2025.

Hyte's ludicrous liquid cooler will soon be able to show entire system monitoring charts on its screen
By Jacob Ridley published
Computex This speaks to my nerdiest desires.

Hyte's latest case is a bold and colorful break from today's obsession with angular and understated
By Jacob Ridley published
Computex Computex is chocked full of colourful cases.

Corsair made a see-through PSU because everything looks better when you can see its innards... welp, that came out weird
By Jacob Ridley published
Computex I just mean translucent tech is cool, leave me alone.

The Corsair Air 5400 offers such a clever and unique approach to U cooling, I'm surprised no one did it sooner
By Jacob Ridley published
Computex This case has triple chambers, but not in the way you might imagine.

Asus just solved the biggest issue with its BTF graphics cards on most motherboards and in the process found a way to supercharge its GPUs over 600 W
By Jacob Ridley published
Computex Turns out, BTF cards won't work on non-BTF motherboards, but the newer versions will.

There are only 666 of this ROG Astral RTX 5080 Doom Edition being made and I'd go to Hell and back to get one if it wasn't $2,000
By Jacob Ridley published
Computex I'm about to rip & tear something over these darn high prices.

Asus is bringing two great features to ergonomic keyboards with its ROG Falcata
By Jacob Ridley published
Computex Hall effect and wireless connectivity.

I'm actually jealous of the workstation that gets to use this Maxsun graphics card containing two Intel Arc GPUs and 48 GB of VRAM
By Jacob Ridley published
Computex Dual-GPU cards might be dead for gaming but they're alive and well for AI inference.

Best gaming desk in 2025: my top picks for standing, sitting and everything in between
By Dave James last updated
Top Desks We've chosen the best gaming desks based on hours of playing on both sitting and standing desks, just to see which is worth your money.

Best U for gaming in 2025: these are the chips I recommend for gaming, productivity, and peace of mind
By Jacob Ridley last updated
Happy Cores Fire up your rig with the best U for gaming. More cores, more clocks, more of everything that matters.

Best wireless gaming keyboard in 2025: my top picks for cable-free typing delights
By Jacob Ridley last updated
Freedom Cut the cord with the best wireless gaming keyboards.

Best handheld gaming PC in 2025: my recommendations for the best portable powerhouses
By Jacob Ridley last updated
Portable PC PC gaming has officially gone portable, and these handheld gaming PCs are mighty quick.

Best PC fans in 2025: I've put these case fans through their paces to find the coolest and quietest
By Jacob Ridley last updated
Hot Tip The best PC fans will keep your gaming PC cool and quiet.

Best SSD for gaming in 2025: the speediest SSDs I personally recommend
By Jeremy Laird last updated
Speedy storage Give your gaming PC a serious speed boost with the best SSD for gaming.

Best M.2 SSDs for gaming in 2025: my top picks for blazing fast storage
By Jeremy Laird last updated
High speed Our choices for the best NVMe M.2 SSDs give you blisteringly fast load times.

Best webcams in 2025: the 1080p and 4K webcams I recommend for gamers and streamers
By Jacob Ridley last updated
Look Your Best These are the best webcams for streaming and video calls.

Arctic Freezer 36 review
By Jacob Ridley published
Top notch An all-round excellent air cooler.

Cooler Master Hyper 612 Apex review
By Jacob Ridley published
Apex Looks a million bucks, but costs a whole lot less.

The best desk lighting in 2025: my recommendations for key lights and lightstrips to illuminate your gaming set-up
By Jacob Ridley last updated
Light it up! Whether making your Twitch stream more professional or aiming for an ambient office environment, I've got the best lighting kits for your PC covered.

Best 4K gaming monitors in 2025: the ultra hi-res s I highly recommend
By Dave James last updated
4K Vision The best 4K gaming monitor has all the bells and whistles an enthusiast could ever want or need.
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