
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 joining 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 CPUs, you'll find Jacob trying to get as far away from the modern world as possible by wild camping.
Latest articles by Jacob Ridley

You might mock Microsoft's new emoji button in Windows 11 but as someone that's explained how to quickly access emojis and special characters too many times, I get it
By Jacob Ridley published
News Case in point: Two of my colleagues just learned about this handy shortcut from reading the draft for this article.

There's one reason I come back to this one rapid trigger gaming keyboard over the rest, and that's great software
By Jacob Ridley published
Soft power Software is make or break for competitive gaming keyboards.

AMD confirms more affordable RX 9060 graphics cards will arrive in 'the second quarter of this year'
By Jacob Ridley published
News AMD does have eyes for the entry-level market after all.

A match made in heaven: Buy a 1600 W MSI power supply and get Monster Hunter Wilds for free
By Jacob Ridley published
News These guys get it.

Razer has seen sense and slightly lowered the Razer Tax with its latest Blade 16 gaming laptops
By Jacob Ridley published
News These are still hella expensive gaming laptops but priced a little more competitively.

Latest Nvidia Game Ready drivers fix various black screen issues that left gamers staring at their sad reflections
By Jacob Ridley published
News Get yourself down to the driver store and pick up version 572.60 for a fix.

iFixit has pulled apart Framework's mini PC and it looks to be the AMD Strix Halo-powered desktop device I've been wanting for at least a week and more
By Jacob Ridley published
News The modular laptop maker has seemingly thought of everything.

The moon is getting 4G before parts of my town
By Jacob Ridley published
News Nokia is bringing 4K to the moon, which will help rovers explore its craters, map the rocky world, and watch fun videos of cats on TikTok.

A rocket was just fired into space containing the first data center to land on the moon, which is both incredible and incredibly corporate in equal measure
By Jacob Ridley published
News For when your data is too valuable to be stored on Earth… I've gotta get my Deviant Art sketches on the next shuttle.

It only took Razer some 15 years to finally do the right thing and make a gloriously ugly Minecraft creeper keyboard
By Jacob Ridley published
News Hate to say I love it?

We've tested the battery life of over 30 gaming laptops and here's how they stack up
By Jacob Ridley published
Battery tested Are you looking for your next gaming laptop? We've collected battery life data while gaming for most popular models, which you can see right here.

Best liquid cooler for CPUs in 2025: I've tried all the best AIO coolers and these are my top picks
By Nick Evanson last updated
Wetware These are the best liquid chip chillers to suit all budgets, form factors, and processors.

Asus ROG Flow Z13 (2025) review
By Jacob Ridley published
ROG-pad I try to wrangle some sense out of AMD's beefy Strix Halo experiment stuffed inside a gaming tablet.

Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti launch day live: All the retail links to RTX 5070 Ti graphics cards, including MSRP and absolutely nowhere near MSRP models
By Jacob Ridley last updated
Live I'm updating this page with the latest listings and prices across major US and UK retailers.

Sorry, ROG Flow Z13, but after a weekend with you I don't see the point in a gaming tablet
By Jacob Ridley published
Take your tablet It's not quite a gaming laptop, not quite a handheld... just a little bit worse than both.

Ducky One X review
By Jacob Ridley published
Needs work The world's first induction keyboard fails to materialise into a must-have product.

Monster Hunter Wilds PC performance: From Nvidia's latest, past AMD's greatest, to Intel's failing silicon, this is what the game does to PCG's own rigs
By Dave James published
We put our own machines through the ringer with the Monster Hunter Wilds benchmark, to lesser or greater success.

This no-vidia gaming PC is a great example of how small design decisions can make it feel like you're building a PC on easy-mode
By Jacob Ridley published
Simple All thanks to a roomy case, fan controller, and incredibly simple NVMe slots.

Noctua NH-L12S review
By Jacob Ridley published
Lil' chill A classic low-profile air cooler still worth a look in 2025.

This Minecraft creation blots out the sun for the villagers below, they surely praise it as God, but we know it really to be a functioning 32-bit computer with 2 kB of RAM
By Jacob Ridley published
News This computer, built fully within Minecraft, ran the Fibonacci Sequence.

Best graphics cards in 2025: the GPUs I recommend for every budget
By Jacob Ridley last updated
Pixel Pushers Our picks of the most powerful gaming GPUs and the ones that provide the best bang for your buck.
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