Jacob Fox

Jacob Fox

Hardware Writer

Jacob got his hands on a gaming PC for the first time when he was about 12 years old. He swiftly realised the local PC repair store had ripped him off with his build and vowed never to let another soul build his rig again. With this vow, Jacob the hardware junkie was born. Since then, Jacob's led a double-life as part-hardware geek, part-philosophy nerd, first working as a Hardware Writer for PCGamesN in 2020, then working towards a PhD in Philosophy for a few years while freelancing on the side for sites such as TechRadar, Pocket-lint, and yours truly, PC Gamer. Eventually, he gave up the ruthless mercenary life to join the world's #1 PC Gaming site full-time. It's definitely not an ego thing, he assures us.

Latest articles by Jacob Fox

Four gaming PCs on a custom PC Gamer Prime Day background.
I've had my hawk eyes trained on gaming PC deals every day and here are my six favorite prebuilts this Prime Day

By Jacob Fox Published

Prime Day There should be something for most PC budgets here.

Prime Day
IEM, mouse, and gaming monitor for competitive gaming on a Prime Day PC Gamer background.
As a Counter-Striker who's tried a bunch of competitive FPS gaming peripherals and monitors, let me show you the best I've found this Prime Day

By Jacob Fox Published

Prime Day From one wannabe pro to another.

Prime Day
An Andromeda Insights AMD Spectra gaming PC on a custom PC Gamer Prime Day background.
If min-maxing gaming performance sounds good to you, check out this glass cannon AMD RX 9070 XT rig

By Jacob Fox Published

Prime Day When frame rates are to you sweet nectar, what's not to love?

Prime Day
A HyperX Cloud Alpha Wireless gaming headset on a custom PC Gamer Prime Day background.
The legendary 300-hour battery HyperX Cloud Alpha Wireless is still going strong at its lowest ever price for Prime Day

By Jacob Fox Published

Prime Day This old timer is still giving it to the new blood.

Prime Day
A Thermaltake LCGS NE gaming PC on a custom PC Gamer Prime Day background.
If you've been aching to upgrade your gaming PC, you'd really struggle to match this RTX 5070 Prime Day machine with a DIY build

By Jacob Fox Published

Prime Day Keep it rollin', Thermaltake.

Prime Day
A screenshot of the listing of most-played games on the Epic Games Store, as of January 2024.
Epic says the 'ground-up rebuild' of its launcher offers 5-6.5x improved performance, and the Epic Games Store is getting a big redesign

By Jacob Fox Published

News Slides out of Unreal Fest promise "5x faster cold start (average)" and "6.5x faster systray restore to library (average)" as Epic works on making its store suck less.

10 Comments
News
ASML EUV machine with internals exposed
The US is worried China could have a top-spec chipmaking machine despite export restrictions, but the machine maker ASML denies it

By Jacob Fox Published

News All I know is you can't hide a 150+ ton EUV machine in MY house.

News
Holding a Razer Viper V4 Pro gaming mouse
Apparently some of the best gaming mice aren't staying at the right DPI when moved slowly

By Jacob Fox Published

News 'DPI downshift', they call it.

News
Photos from FCC ID 2AES4-1013, teardowns of the left Steam Frame controller from Valve.
We now have teardown pics of the Steam Frame controller and it looks like it could be pretty repairable

By Jacob Fox Published

News It could follow in the Steam Controller's footsteps.

News
A close-up photo of a pair of Micron and SK Hynix DDR5 DIMMs, showing the memory modules on black/green PCBs on the left. On the right, Apple CEO Tim Cook wipes a tear during his final Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) at Apple Park in Cupertino, California, on June 8, 2026.
'Price increases are unavoidable' says Tim Cook, proving even Apple isn't impervious to the global memory shortage

By Jacob Fox Published

News "We’re willing to use our balance sheet to help be a part of the solution."

News
Aristotle (384-322 BC), Classical Greek Philosopher, A student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great, Statue of Aristotle at the Athens Academy, Athens, Central Greece, Attica, Europe.
All roads lead to philosophy, as this Wikipedia game proves

By Jacob Fox Published

News It's all footnotes to Plato, just as Whitehead said.

News
An Intel Core Ultra Series 3 chip held between two fingers
Intel's 18A-P chipmaking process has started risk production and promises 9% improved CPU performance for the same power

By Jacob Fox Published

News Or 18% less power consumption for the same performance.

News
An RTX Spark in-hand on the left, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on the right.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says we need to 'deal with social norms' surrounding AI but apparently that means 'just go engage it'

By Jacob Fox Published

News Oh, right, of course that's exactly what he has in mind. Use AI, got it.

7 Comments
News
PCs on a desk with the Ask PC Gamer icon
Five things I always tell people before they buy a new gaming PC

By Jacob Fox last updated

New PC Guide I bought my first gaming PC almost two decades ago, and here are the things I've learnt since then that I think you should know.

New PC Guide
A photo of a Team Group MP44 SSD, with its heatspreader label removed, showing the chips on the circuit board
Silicon Motion says 'the retail SSD market has almost disappeared' as NAND shifts towards AI servers and OEMs scoop up the drives that usually sit in our gaming PCs

By Jacob Fox Published

News Yet another day during the RAMpocalypse.

News
Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer still - bald man in sunglasses standing in front of an average-sized American pickup truck
One lone legend waiting for GTA 6 to launch has decided to make the game from scratch themselves: 'The goal: beat the real GTA 6 to launch'

By Jacob Fox Published

News Vibe code GTA 6? Sure, hold my beer.

News
The Pimax Crystal Super with the Micro-OLED and QLED optical engines.
There are stirrings in the VR industry that much better displays could be in the pipeline

By Jacob Fox Published

News Samsung is apparently leaning more heavily into Micro-OLED.

News
A Noctua NL-LC1 AIO liquid cooler at Computex 2026.
Noctua's AIO liquid cooler is here but hooo boy is it expensive

By Jacob Fox Published

News Featuring the best fans and a custom pump cover.

News
MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ handheld gaming PC
It looks like more handhelds will soon be able to run SteamOS if this MSI Claw gameplay test is anything to go by

By Jacob Fox Published

News A new beta lets the OS run on Intel handhelds.

News
A screenshot from the Gears of War E-Day gameplay trailer.
Gears of War: E-Day system requirements are here and it might be bad news for GTX 10-series cards and, well, storage in general

By Jacob Fox Published

News 130 GB is a whopper and a half.

16 Comments
News
An MSI Codex Z2 gaming PC on a custom PC Gamer Deals background.
For the first time in months, I've spotted an RTX 5070 Ti gaming PC for a genuinely reasonable price

By Jacob Fox Published

Deal Will Prime Day save us from the awful 2026 hardware market?

Deal
A Zowie XL286X+ gaming monitor
After gaming on pro-level panels I can tell you now that 360 Hz is the sweet spot for gaming monitors

By Jacob Fox Published

Refreshing And I just don't think I can go back to anything below 240 Hz.

Refreshing
An Alienware AW2525HM 320 Hz 1080p gaming monitor.
Alienware AW2525HM 320 Hz gaming monitor review

By Jacob Fox Published

Score: 85% An enticing option for competitive FPS gamers on a budget.

Score: 85%
Two gaming PCs on a custom PC Gamer 'Deals' background.
Retailers seem to be gearing up for Prime Day with these gaming PC deals for around $1,500, though I'm not sure which I'd pick

By Jacob Fox Published

Deal Nvidia or AMD, the perennial question.

Deal
A prototype AIO cooler from Hyte that has RGB and a transparent fan shroud.
Hyte's new prototype AIO cooler looks to pack funky RGB and transparent shrouds into an affordable package

By Jacob Fox Published

Computex 2026 This might make an interesting option for a themed budget build.

Computex 2026
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