
Jacob Ridley
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

Take the plunge into VR with the Quest 3S, the best budget headset, dropping to its lowest price with this Prime Day bundle
By Jacob Ridley published
Prime Day Key improvements over the Quest 2 without the price tag of the Quest 3.

This PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD is down to $80 for a terabyte—actually less than some PCIe 4.0 drives
By Jacob Ridley published
Prime Day Now we're getting serious speedy storage at excellent prices.

I bought this 140 W charger because it can charge everything all at once, including my laptop—now it's just $60 for Prime Day
By Jacob Ridley published
Prime Day The other reason I picked one up is I left my original laptop charger in a hotel room. Good stuff.

I'm surrounded by PC cases I've reviewed and these are the best PC case deals I'd go for this Prime Day
By Jacob Ridley published
Prime Day It's a great time to rehome your gaming PC.

Take advantage of the Prime Day PC deals to build your own RTX 5070 Ti gaming PC with better components and a price to match prebuilt systems
By Jacob Ridley published
Prime Day It's better if you build it yourself.

Walmart might have actually dropped the best Prime Day gaming PC deal: I give you an RTX 5080 rig with a 12-core Ryzen CPU wrapped up with a bow and a $1000 discount
By Jacob Ridley published
Prime Day That's one helluva Prime Day deal.

This Samsung ultrawide gaming monitor is at its lowest price ever at Amazon—it's less than you might think at just $260
By Jacob Ridley published
Prime Day That's some value for money.

Newegg's going toe-to-toe with Amazon over Prime Day gaming monitor deals, especially with this 280 Hz 27-inch screen at just $115
By Jacob Ridley published
Prime Day That's not bad on a budget.

Havn BF 360 PC case review
By Jacob Ridley published
Score: 90% Excellent airflow and stunning good looks.

Good news, SSD prices are coming down this Prime Day, with this $110 2 TB Lexar NM790 one of my favorite deals of the day
By Jacob Ridley published
Prime Day A trusty SSD that I use in my own PC.

I build multiple gaming PCs a month and this is my favorite so far this year—here's what you'd need to build it yourself
By Jacob Ridley published
Get the build Wood and gold.

This 2 TB PCIe 5.0 SSD with speeds up to 10,000 MB/s is only fractionally more than its slower PCIe 4.0 equivalent right now
By Jacob Ridley published
Prime Day Crucial's P510 is excellent value and even more so today with this deal just in time for Amazon Prime Day.

Worried about melty graphics cards? This seriously capable gizmo keeps power in check for more peace of mind
By Jacob Ridley published
News Ideally you wouldn't need to worry at all, but this Ampinel option looks like the next best thing.

Time is nearly up for Windows 10—but is your Windows 10 PC screwed?
By Jacob Ridley published
Win-goes Nah, you've still got time. Treasure it. Hold your PC close.

A bunch of Steam players just made the switch to Windows 11 as Windows 10's death date is now less than two weeks away
By Jacob Ridley published
News Welcome to Windows 11, gamers. It's, uh, fine?

SteelSeries unveils new high-end wireless gaming headset with a price tag that might be too dear for even my audiophile ears
By Jacob Ridley published
News Is $600 a new record for gaming headsets? It's gotta be up there.

$6.7 billion in bitcoin scored in 'single largest cryptocurrency seizure in the world'
By Jacob Ridley published
News A measly 61,000 bitcoins.

'Much of the value creation in the semiconductor industry is occurring outside the EU' says EU member states, and they want a fresh plan to claw some chips back
By Jacob Ridley published
News It'll take some serious cash or pressure to bring semiconductor production back to Europe, as the US is currently finding out.

Hyte X50 PC case review
By Jacob Ridley published
Score: 75% Pretty in pink (and assorted colours).

Steam now lets you check if you have Secure Boot enabled: the security feature we're all going to have to get to grips with for Battlefield, Call of Duty and more
By Jacob Ridley published
News Here's how to do it.

You can grab an RTX 5050 gaming laptop for as little as $699 with this Acer Nitro deal
By Jacob Ridley published
Deal That's not bad for Blackwell.

Corsair Frame 4500X review
By Jacob Ridley published
Score: 80% A fishtank PC case that can be quite affordable.

Best 4K gaming monitors in 2025: the ultra hi-res panels I highly recommend
By Dave James last updated
4K Vision The best 4K gaming monitor has all the bells and whistles an enthusiast could ever want or need.
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