Dave James

Dave James

Managing Editor, Hardware

Dave has been gaming since the days of Zaxxon and Lady Bug on the Colecovision, and code books for the Commodore Vic 20 (Death Race 2000!). He built his first gaming PC at the tender age of 16, and finally finished bug-fixing the Cyrix-based system around a year later. When he dropped it out of the window. He first started writing for Official PlayStation Magazine and Xbox World many decades ago, then moved onto PC Format full-time, then PC Gamer, TechRadar, and T3 among others. Now he's back, writing about the nightmarish graphics card market, CPUs with more cores than sense, gaming laptops hotter than the sun, and SSDs more capacious than a Cybertruck.

Articles by: Dave James

GTA 6 car sliding around a corner

If GTA 6 isn't coming to PC until 2026 this is what a top-end gaming rig should look like when it does

By Dave James published

Tech dreams With a PC release not likely until 2026 here's the hardware that will be cutting edge when we hit the state of Leonida.

Two gaming laptop deals on a blue background

Gaming laptops on sale: top Australian deals in December 2023

By Chris Szewczyk published

Deals A running list of the best gaming laptop discounts and deals from across Australia, updated regularly.

Black Friday deals

Best Black Friday PC gaming deals in Australia for 2023: The big day has passed but the bargains remain

By Dave James published

Black Friday dies so Cyber Monday can live.

The best gaming chairs guide header image with Logitech Herman Miller Embody chair and Secretlab Titan Evo 2022 on a green background with PC Gamer recommend badge.

Best gaming chairs in 2023: the seats I'd suggest for any gamer

By Jacob Ridley last updated

Take a seat Treat your posterior to one of the best gaming chairs.

Two of the best graphics cards from top down and side on view, on a pastel yellow background

Best graphics cards in 2023: 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.

Two of the best gaming PCs on a grey background with the PC Gamer Recommends badge in the top right.

Best gaming PCs in 2023: these are the builds and brands I recommend

By Dave James last updated

Perfect PC Everything you need to know about buying the best gaming PC today.

Galax RTX 4060 Ti Unparalleled Max graphics card

This is the spiritual successor to the best graphics card ever made

By Dave James published

News Galax has listed a single slot beauty on its China pages, and I really want to get my hands on one.

Steam Deck OLED insides

'The next thing we're working on moving forward is Steam Deck 2,' but Valve has yet to see silicon offering the leap it's looking for

By Dave James published

News "That's not going to happen next year or the year after that. It's probably going to be more than that."

SteamOS on multiple handheld gaming PCs

SteamOS will be coming to other handhelds before you can install it on your PC 'because right now, it's very, very tuned for Steam Deck'

By Dave James published

News "Oh, man, it's very high on our list."

Valve Steam Deck OLED handheld PC

Valve knows people will jam the shiny new OLED panel into old Steam Decks 'but it's probably not going to go well'

By Dave James published

news It says Steam Deck OLED "parts are not swappable" with the original LCD version.

Valve Steam Deck OLED handheld PC

Valve is committed to bringing Steam Deck OLED 'battery life improvements to the LCD models as well'

By Dave James published

news A post-launch BIOS update will see all the firmware and software improvements of the new version brought to the original Steam Deck.

Steam Deck OLED insides

Steam Deck OLED vs Steam Deck LCD: what's inside

By Dave James published

Innards We've cracked open both the new Steam Deck OLED and its OG LCD version to see what's change. Spoiler, it's a lot.

Valve Steam Deck OLED handheld PC

Valve just unveiled 'the definitive first generation Steam Deck' with an OLED screen and new Sephiroth APU

By Dave James published

news The more efficient HDR panel, bigger battery, and 6nm APU all add up to between 30 - 50% longer game time.

Lenovo LOQ 15 gaming laptop

Lenovo LOQ 15APH8 review

By Dave James published

LOQ'd not loaded Lenovo's budget-oriented LOQ feels like a rare miss from the company's laptop makers.

Two handheld gaming PCs on a yellow background with the PC Gamer Recommends badge in the top right.

Best handheld gaming PC in 2023

By Jacob Ridley published

Portable PC PC gaming has officially gone portable, and these handheld gaming PCs are mighty powerful.

Baldur's Gate 3 - Withers the necromancer holds up his hand while talking to the player in camp

Yaaas, AMD's FSR 2.2 has finally been patched into Baldur's Gate 3

By Dave James published

news I am in handheld gaming PC heaven right now.

The PC Gamer Top 100 2023

The top 100 PC games

By Phil Savage published

Class of 2023 PC Gamer's annual list of the best games you can play on PC.

Framework 13 with AMD mainboard

Framework 13 (2023) AMD mainboard review

By Dave James published

It works First you get style, then you get the customisation, then you get the gaming power.

Cyberpunk 2077 Ray Reconstruction enabled without Path Tracing

You can already hack Ray Reconstruction into Cyberpunk 2077 without the path tracing limitation, but Nvidia promises to open it up officially soon

By Dave James published

News Ray Reconstruction makes Cyberpunk 2077 look absolutely stunning, but it can only be enabled with path tracing, or via some hacks.

Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty

The best settings for Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 and Phantom Liberty

By Dave James published

tested We've tested Cyberpunk 2077's latest update to determine which settings do and don't matter, with benchmarks and image quality comparisons to help you tune your experience.

Nvidia Shield device superimposed on a Cyberpunk 2077 screenshot

A simple Windows 11 shortcut has changed my view of PC HDR gaming: Win+Alt+B

By Dave James published

HDAAAAAH So, I'm a HDR guy now.

A classic KSP2 explosion.

Kerbal Space Program 2 has been spamming your Windows registry with junk since launch, but a fix is being tested right now

By Dave James published

news The developer is now aware of the issue and is currently testing a fix it will release as a hotfix update.

Samsung LPCAMM module render

Samsung's new low power, high performance memory range could be a serious boon for compact gaming laptops

By Dave James published

News The ickle upgradeable memory modules offer higher performance than traditional SO-DIMMS with most of the benefits of soldered-on memory.

Ray Reconstruction in Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.0

I've tested Nvidia's latest ray tracing magic in Cyberpunk 2077 and it's a no-brainer: at worst it's just better-looking, at best it's that and a whole lot more performance

By Dave James published

Nvidia's DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction feature fits perfectly with Cyberpunk 2077's 2.0 added realism.

Bare Nvidia GPUs

Whether or not Nvidia really has a chiplet-based RTX 5090 'under investigation' its GPU future has to be multi-chip

By Dave James published

News Rumours suggest it hasn't yet approved a GB101 chiplet version, but that the bulk of Nvidia's next-gen gaming cards will still be monolithic GPUs.

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