Jacob Ridley

Jacob Ridley

Managing Editor, Hardware

Jacob earned his first byline writing for his own tech blog, before graduating to breaking things professionally at PCGamesN, where he was one half of a popular weekly YouTube show. Joining PC Gamer in 2020, Jacob is now managing editor of the hardware team, and you'll usually find him testing the latest components or building a gaming PC. He says he's determined to build a fort as big as a house out of case boxes. Jacob enjoys heading out of the office to report from floors, benches, and, if he's lucky, plush press rooms at the biggest tech shows, such as Computex and CES.

When he's not writing about components, you'll find Jacob trying to get away from the modern world as fast as possible by bike and pitching up camp in murky woods.

Latest articles by Jacob Ridley

Intel Arc B580 graphics card
Intel must also hate waiting for shaders to compile as it begins rollout of pre-compiled code from the cloud for faster load times

By Jacob Ridley Last updated

News A handful of games supported at launch, including COD: Black Ops 7 and Cyberpunk 2077.

News
V-color single working DIMM RAM with dummy DIMM included.
You know it's bad when RAM manufacturers launch dummy kits to make it look as though you have dual-channel memory when you actually don't

By Jacob Ridley Published

News Hey, dummy.

7 Comments
News
The Antec Flux Pro Noctua Edition on a desk with various parts disassembled.
Antec Flux Pro Noctua Edition case review

By Jacob Ridley Published

Score: 88% The only excuse you need for a Noctua build.

Score: 88%
The Wooting 60HE v2 with a split spacebar on a desk alongside the Wooting 80HE with a normal spacebar.
Split spacebars are surely the next big gaming keyboard trend

By Jacob Ridley Published

Amicable split Watch this space.

Amicable split
A PNY RTX 5070 Ti OC graphics card on a desk with a desk mat and pink light.
PNY GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16 GB OC review

By Jacob Ridley Published

Score: 80% A solid pick.

Score: 80%
The Thermaltake Minecube 360 Ultra ARGB Sync set up on an open test bench.
Thermaltake Minecube 360 Ultra ARGB Sync review

By Jacob Ridley Published

Score: 70% Four screens, good performance, high price.

Score: 70%
G-Wolves Lycan 8K mouse
This upcoming gaming mouse weighs just over 28 grams without poking holes in it

By Jacob Ridley Published

News That is actually very impressive.

News
A Meta Quest 3S, alongside a Quest 3 and Quest 2, on a stack of PC Gamer magazine.
Meta's new FrameSync feature aims to make VR a little less nauseating

By Jacob Ridley Published

News As performance demands grow for Quest headsets, Meta's updating its frame timing technique.

News
Ubuntu's user screen in the settings.
Resistance to operating system age checks coming from *checks notes* open source calculator and an OS that may just exclude Californians altogether

By Jacob Ridley Published

News Open source operating systems are wrestling with how to comply with age-checking bills.

7 Comments
News
The Yoti homepage on an iPhone.
Scientists warn against crappy age verification: 'if implemented without careful consideration… the new regulation might cause more harm than good'

By Jacob Ridley Published

News Scientists and researchers from respected institutions lay out the case against age verification as we're beginning to know it.

News
The Legion Go Fold Concept in horizontal mode.
Lenovo is going long with a foldable 12-inch handheld gaming PC concept

By Jacob Ridley Published

News Not sure what's weirder: the screen size or the tiny analogue clock displayed on the controller.

News
The Wooting 60HE v2 with the PC Gamer Editor's Pick logo in the top right.
Wooting 60HE v2 review

By Jacob Ridley Published

Score: 93% Its best yet.

Score: 93%
Kevin O’Buckley was senior vice president and general manager of Foundry Services at Intel. Now at Qualcomm.
Intel Foundry exec leaves to head up Qualcomm's semiconductor biz as Intel shake-up continues

By Jacob Ridley Published

News Intel has lost a few key execs over the past 18 months.

News
Two RTX 5060 Ti graphics cards lined up next to an RTX 4060 Ti.
Nvidia getting more serious about gaming on Linux and Arm: hiring engineer to work on 'native-speed x86-64 gaming on Linux/ARM64 platforms'

By Jacob Ridley Published

News Along with a few more job roles with similar remits.

7 Comments
News
The Pimax Crystal Super with the Micro-OLED and QLED optical engines.
Micro-OLED is the VR upgrade I've been waiting for

By Jacob Ridley Published

Mega OLED This is something worth shouting about for high-end tethered headsets.

Mega OLED
A still from a YouTube video showing a man with his mouth agape while using the Apple Vision Pro VR headset
Apple adds the Steam Frame's most anticipated feature, foveated streaming, to the Vision Pro

By Jacob Ridley Published

News That's a good idea, that.

News
A huge Asus RTX 5080 Noctua Edition GPU with a matching Noctua gaming PC.
Asus GeForce RTX 5080 Noctua OC Edition review

By Jacob Ridley Published

Score: 72% Big, chilly, and hella headroom.

Score: 72%
MSI power supply render showing it connected to a graphics card with a shield emblem.
MSI Afterburner and some PSUs can now pull an emergency power brake to prevent your graphics card going up in a puff of smoke

By Jacob Ridley Published

News More peace of mind, if you're willing to pay for the PSU.

News
Valve's new Steam Machine during a visit to Valve HQ in Bellevue, Washington. The Steam Machine is a compact living room gaming PC.
Here's what we think the Steam Machine will cost now that Valve's admitted 'limited availability and growing prices' have forced it to change plans

By Jacob Ridley Published

Out of Steam? Let's revise our optimistic guesses from last year now the memory crisis is in full swing.

14 Comments
Out of Steam?
Xbox Series X system-on-chip
AMD CEO suggests next-gen Xbox will launch in 2027—the premium console's chip is 'progressing well'

By Jacob Ridley Published

News Let's hope RAM prices clear up by then.

News
iBuyPower RDY Element 9 Pro R07 on a desk during the set-up process.
iBuyPower RDY Element 9 Pro R07 review

By Jacob Ridley Published

Score: 87% A great choice with a lot going for it.

Score: 87%
The Logitech G325 gaming headset on a headphone stand.
Logitech's new $80 gaming headset has an undercover mic so you don't feel like a donut wearing it out the house

By Jacob Ridley Published

News The G325 is hoping to be the headset for every occasion.

News
The Moltbook social media for AI.
Moltbook is like Reddit but only AI agents are allowed—though after spending hours trawling through threads, it looks more like a huge, unhinged roleplay server to me

By Jacob Ridley Published

News You'd have a better chance of an informed discussion in the chat window of a YouTube live stream than this.

News
Two ultrawide gaming monitors on a blue background with the PC Gamer Recommended label
Best ultrawide monitor for gaming in 2026: the immersive panels I recommend for PC gamers

By Jacob Ridley Last updated

Expansive It's time to go wide... ultrawide: these gaming monitors are wider, brighter, and faster than ever.

Expansive
A screenshot of some code in the cursed programming language.
'Slay, bestie' just some of the Gen Z slang used in programming language dreamt up by AI in a 'Ralph Wiggum loop' that its creator feared may be too powerful

By Jacob Ridley Published

News I don't know, man.

News
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