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 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
Sabrent Rocket Q4 2230 2TB review
By Jacob Ridley published
Decked out A mighty capacity upgrade with some caveats.
Valve confirms plan to sell 'certified refurbished' Steam Decks
By Jacob Ridley published
News The refurbished Steam Deck program leaked earlier today on Steam, and has now been made official.
Baldur's Gate 3 FSR 2.2 upgrade likely to drop 'closer to September 6'
By Jacob Ridley published
News Improved upscaling for AMD, Intel, and non-RTX gamers alike.
NASA shouts at space, reestablishes contact with Voyager 2 spacecraft
By Jacob Ridley published
News Contrary to popular belief, screams can be heard in space.
Should you use DLSS or FSR upscaling in Baldur's Gate 3?
By Jacob Ridley published
FSR or DLSS? There are two easy ways to boost your Baldur's Gate 3 frame rate: DLSS and FSR.
Should you run Baldur's Gate 3 in DX11 or Vulkan?
By Jacob Ridley published
Select API That depends who made your graphics card. We've tested both APIs to make sure you're getting the most out of your hardware.
NASA mistakenly nudged Voyager 2 spacecraft's antenna causing the mother of all network connectivity issues [updated]
By Jacob Ridley last updated
News NASA temporarily loses touch with the Voyager 2 spacecraft after turning an aerial the wrong way.
Publishers thought they could take a bite out of Steam yet it's more dominant than ever
By Jacob Ridley published
Pulling away Many have tried, few have ever gotten close. Now, Steam has further cemented itself as top dog among storefronts and launchers.
GuliKit Electromagnetic Joystick Module review
By Jacob Ridley published
Drift free The best way to upgrade or replace your Steam Deck's thumbsticks.
Intel figures out how to make money again
By Jacob Ridley published
News Intel's Pat Gelsinger gets to deliver some good news during his tenure as CEO.
I want this to be the most important breakthrough for computing, fusion, and batteries… but my hopes may have already been dashed
By Jacob Ridley published
News We keep hearing whispers of the superconducting material dreams are made of but they often end up Flubber.
Behold, the 61.44 TB ruler drive capable of forming petabytes of storage in a single server
By Jacob Ridley published
News Only problem is you can't really stick one inside your PC.
Remnant 2's upscaling settings are more necessity than nicety and players aren't happy about it
By Jacob Ridley published
News The game's developers have confirmed they "designed the game with upscaling in mind."
AMD's Zen 2 chips have a security bug that's getting patched between now and 2024
By Jacob Ridley published
News Zenbleed shouldn't be left exposed for long, so you best keep an eye out for an upcoming AGESA fix for affected chips.
You can vote to get this massive song made with Counter Strike gunshots into CS:GO
By Jacob Ridley published
News Made by music maker Vengent with little more than in-game samples.
One of the biggest upgrades to texture load times in years just debuted in a free Portal mod
By Jacob Ridley published
News GPU decompression is here, and you can try it for free with RTX IO in Portal: Prelude.
Logitech wants what Elgato has: buys desktop controller maker Loupedeck
By Jacob Ridley published
News Razer confirms its Stream Controller, made in partnership with Loupedeck, will be unaffected.
Asus admits the ROG Ally's MicroSD card reader may run into thermal issues
By Jacob Ridley published
News "...under certain thermal stress conditions the SD card reader may malfunction," an Asus representative says.
AMD's Ryzen 5 5600X3D sounds like a killer budget gaming chip we could do without being limited edition
By Jacob Ridley published
News The $230 chip will be exclusive to Micro Center, and thus, also the US.
Faster GDDR7 memory coming first half of 2024 leaving plenty of time to be included in next-gen GPUs
By Jacob Ridley published
News Faster and more efficient GDDR7 is coming soon.
Lenovo Legion Tower 5i review
By Jacob Ridley published
Polished RTX 4070 | Core i7 13700F | 16GB DDR5 | 1TB SSD | $2,000
Magic: The Gathering finally gives me a reason to care about its least exciting cards
By Jacob Ridley published
Precious I didn't get the One Ring but these gorgeous Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth land cards are a sweet participation trophy.
Your gaming PC deserves an SSD in 2023
By Jacob Ridley published
do yourself a solid It's a good time to let the hard drive go.
The data suggests Britain's best years of electronics recycling are already behind it
By Jacob Ridley published
Wasteful But the raw numbers are hiding other trends behind Britain's plateauing recycling numbers, and an expert points to Covid and our changing attitudes to tech to provide answers.