
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

Wooting is adding knobs to its gaming keyboards and the good news is existing Wooting owners can knob themselves too
By Jacob Ridley published
Computex 2025 These new knobs actually replace a switch (or four) on existing Wooting keyboards.

AMD unleashes up to 96 cores of Zen 5 with its new Threadripper 9000 Series chips
By Jacob Ridley published
Computex Coming June 2025.

Hyte's ludicrous liquid cooler will soon be able to show entire system monitoring charts on its screen
By Jacob Ridley published
Computex This speaks to my nerdiest desires.

Hyte's latest case is a bold and colorful break from today's obsession with angular and understated
By Jacob Ridley published
Computex Computex is chocked full of colourful cases.

Corsair made a see-through PSU because everything looks better when you can see its innards... welp, that came out weird
By Jacob Ridley published
Computex I just mean translucent tech is cool, leave me alone.

The Corsair Air 5400 offers such a clever and unique approach to CPU cooling, I'm surprised no one did it sooner
By Jacob Ridley published
Computex This case has triple chambers, but not in the way you might imagine.

Asus just solved the biggest issue with its BTF graphics cards on most motherboards and in the process found a way to supercharge its GPUs over 600 W
By Jacob Ridley published
Computex Turns out, BTF cards won't work on non-BTF motherboards, but the newer versions will.

There are only 666 of this ROG Astral RTX 5080 Doom Edition being made and I'd go to Hell and back to get one if it wasn't $2,000
By Jacob Ridley published
Computex I'm about to rip & tear something over these darn high prices.

Asus is bringing two great features to ergonomic keyboards with its upcoming ROG Falcata
By Jacob Ridley published
Computex Hall effect and wireless connectivity.

I'm actually jealous of the workstation that gets to use this Maxsun graphics card containing two Intel Arc GPUs and 48 GB of VRAM
By Jacob Ridley published
Computex Dual-GPU cards might be dead for gaming but they're alive and well for AI inference.

Best CPU for gaming in 2025: these are the chips I recommend for gaming, productivity, and peace of mind
By Jacob Ridley last updated
Happy Cores Fire up your rig with the best CPU for gaming. More cores, more clocks, more of everything that matters.

Best wireless gaming keyboard in 2025: my top picks for cable-free typing delights
By Jacob Ridley last updated
Freedom Cut the cord with the best wireless gaming keyboards.

Arctic Freezer 36 review
By Jacob Ridley published
Top notch An all-round excellent air cooler.

Cooler Master Hyper 612 Apex review
By Jacob Ridley published
Apex Looks a million bucks, but costs a whole lot less.

The best desk lighting in 2025: my recommendations for key lights and lightstrips to illuminate your gaming set-up
By Jacob Ridley last updated
Light it up! Whether making your Twitch stream more professional or aiming for an ambient office environment, I've got the best lighting kits for your PC covered.

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.

Best PC joysticks in 2025: these are my top picks for everything from flight sims to space shooters
By Dave James last updated
Locked On The best PC joysticks take you to new heights.

Sennheiser HD 550 review
By Jacob Ridley published
Audiophile A great reason to start taking your gaming audio seriously.

Best VR headset in 2025: my top picks for stunning virtual reality experiences
By Jacob Ridley last updated
Jack In Immerse yourself in stunning game worlds with the best VR headset.

Corsair Frame 4000D review
By Jacob Ridley published
Frame it A compact case with a lot of hidden features and designed from the ground up for Corsair's own ecosystem.

MSI RTX 5060 Ti 16G Gaming Trio OC review
By Jacob Ridley published
Eep! The best of the lot but its price tag might be insurmountable.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB review (Palit Infinity 3)
By Jacob Ridley published
It's a Ti A good upgrade for anyone on an older graphics card and with plenty of overclocking potential.

Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti and RTX 5060 announced, starting from $299: 'We can work with our partners to get these out at reasonable prices, which we are doing'
By Jacob Ridley published
News Here's hoping Nvidia's new entry-level GPUs can stick to MSRP.

Semiconductors are exempt from Trump's massive 32% tariff on Taiwan though PC gamers will still feel the heat
By Jacob Ridley published
News President Trump says TSMC is "one of the great companies of the world" as he praises the chipmaker for investing in the US. But other companies are not so lucky.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.