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

The CES 2025 logo, in the lobby of the Venetian Suites conference facility at the 2025 show with the crowds below.
CES 2026: all the upcoming releases and announcements a PC gamer should know about

By Jacob Ridley Last updated

CES 2026 A taste of the year ahead.

CES 2026
A rendered image of an AMD Zen 5 Granite Ridge processor, with the heatspreader removed to show the dual CCDs and single IOD.
AMD and partners confirm Ryzen CPU with dual 3D V-Cache chiplets is coming but gamers are unlikely to see the benefit

By Jacob Ridley Published

CES 2026 Even AMD had its doubts about the utility of such a chip.

CES 2026
AMD Ryzen CPU with PGA pin configuration on gradient background
AMD may resurrect some older CPUs to help users dodge the worst of the RAM crisis

By Jacob Ridley Published

CES 2026 David McAfee says it's something AMD is "very actively working on" but hasn't confirmed yet.

CES 2026
MSI Stealth 18 HX AI gaming laptop
Intel and Samsung team up to cut OLED power consumption by up to 22% with HDR content

By Jacob Ridley Published

CES 2026 Hey, if it means better battery life for laptops, I'm in.

CES 2026
A Be Quiet! cooler at CES 2026.
Be Quiet! keeps the 'consumer' in CES with new PC components including a dashing new Dark Rock 6 cooler

By Jacob Ridley Published

CES 2026 Be Quiet! has its eyes on the prize.

CES 2026
Asus Zephyrus ROG G16 with dual screens.
The latest ROG Zephyrus gaming laptop sports two screens and a unique way to play local co-op

By Jacob Ridley Published

CES 2026 I'm debating how long it'd take for the novelty to wear off.

CES 2026
The new Sandisk Optimus branding on various SSDs.
The names of some of the most popular SSDs are changing so their new owner Sandisk gets the glory

By Jacob Ridley Published

News Bye, bye, WD Black.

News
Valve's new and improved Steam Controller during a visit to Valve's HQ in Bellevue, Washington.
Forget what you heard, there's plenty of PC hardware to be excited about in 2026

By Jacob Ridley Published

Coming up... RAM, Shmam. These are things to get genuinely excited about this year.

Coming up...
Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro
I know I'll get rinsed by rising costs somewhere when building a PC but my favorite product this year was one of a few things that didn't ask for more money

By Jacob Ridley Published

Gear of the Year Let's give it up for affordable all-in-one liquid coolers.

8 Comments
Gear of the Year
Personal Pick: RV There Yet
I almost learned something in RV There Yet? but I was too busy smoking cigarettes and driving over big rocks

By Jacob Ridley Published

🏆 Best played with friends. And cigs.

🏆
An SK Hynix Platinum P51 drive installed inside a gaming PC.
This neat Windows registry trick boosts NVMe SSD performance up to 80% but it's only officially available for enterprise users

By Jacob Ridley Published

News Random IOPS could increase by up to 80% for servers, says Microsoft.

News
LG UltraGear 32GS95UE
Goodbye text fringing: LG's new RGB Stripe panel might solve one of the last remaining issues with OLED gaming monitors

By Jacob Ridley Published

News And it's fast at 240 Hz.

11 Comments
News
A photo of a 128 GB Crucial DDR5-6400 CUDIMM kit.
Micron says memory shortages will persist beyond 2026 but 'more memory is essential' for the 'AI experience'

By Jacob Ridley Published

News *Collective groaning noise*

8 Comments
News
A Meta Quest 3S, alongside a Quest 3 and Quest 2, on a stack of PC Gamer magazine.
Meta puts third-party VR headsets using Horizon OS on indefinite pause 'to focus on building the world-class first-party hardware and software needed to advance the VR market'

By Jacob Ridley Published

News There goes that, then.

News
Arctic MX-7 thermal paste over a gradient background.
Arctic's new MX-7 thermal paste looks seriously good and I'm already regretting buying a ginormous tube of MX-4

By Jacob Ridley Published

News There's a new paste in town.

News
PhysX effects enabled in Batman: Arkham City, with a man stood in fog and surrounded by papers.
I've tested PhysX now that it's sorta supported on the RTX 50 series and I'm more convinced than ever it's a feature worth fighting for

By Jacob Ridley Published

Physexcellent PhysX matters, ya know.

Physexcellent
PODGORICA, MONTENEGRO - MARCH 23: Police officers escort Do Kwon after he served sentence in prison for document forgery on March 23, 2024 in Podgorica, Montenegro.
Crypto boss sentenced to 15 years over 'epic, generational scale' fraud that lost over 40 billion dollars

By Jacob Ridley Published

News A so-called stablecoin collapsed back in 2022.

News
SEPTEMBER 29: A view of the Oracle Data Lounge sponsored by Oracle Data Cloud at Times Center Hall during 2016 Advertising Week New York on September 29, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Rob Kim/Getty Images for Advertising Week New York)
Oracle will shop around for AI chips after adopting a policy of 'chip neutrality'… but of course it'll still buy the latest Nvidia GPUs

By Jacob Ridley Published

News AMD sales team, assemble!

News
Google's AI Mode interface.
Google is under investigation in the EU to find out whether it imposes unfair terms on content creators for AI

By Jacob Ridley Published

News We'll have a look, course we'll have a look.

News
Black Friday listing image with Secretlab chair featured
Black Friday gaming chair deals 2025

By Jacob Ridley, Shaun Prescott Last updated

Deals Be seated in comfort.

Deals
Arctic's Xtender PC case on a white desk with various parts being installed to build a functional gaming PC.
I build loads of gaming PCs and this is the first to make me regret my decisions with my own personal rig—here's what you need to build it yourself

By Jacob Ridley Published

Chilly Tinted glass makes everything look better.

Chilly
Image of a Cougar gaming chair taken at Computex 2023
Five things I always tell people before they buy their first gaming chair

By Jacob Ridley Published

Saddle up I've been testing gaming chairs for eight years, and here's what I always tell people looking to buy one.

Saddle up
Thermaltake View 390 Air chassis on a desk. We're building a PC into it for testing and comparison with other PC cases.
Thermaltake View 390 Air review

By Jacob Ridley Published

Score: 80% Let there be light!

Score: 80%
Valve's new Steam Machine during a visit to Valve HQ in Bellevue, Washington. The Steam Machine is a compact living room gaming PC.
How much is that Steam Machine in the window? Let's talk potential pricing for Valve's new living room gaming box

By Jacob Ridley Published

Steam Savings We don't know the price of the Steam Machine—but we can take a pretty good guess.

98 Comments
Steam Savings
Valve's new and improved Steam Controller during a visit to Valve's HQ in Bellevue, Washington.
How grip sensing was added to the new Steam Controller is a 'typical Valve story' involving a passionate employee moving desks

By Jacob Ridley Last updated

News One Valve employee essentially made it happen.

9 Comments
News
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