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
The Steam Deck's budget price tag is the reason I still rate it nearly two years on
By Jacob Ridley published
Cheap enough PC gaming needed a budget champion and the Steam Deck filled that role at just the right time.
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2023) review
By Jacob Ridley published
OTT A stellar 14-inch gaming laptop brought back to Earth by an unnecessarily overpowered GPU.
For such a gorgeous game Alan Wake 2 runs surprisingly well on budget graphics cards
By Jacob Ridley published
Cheap thrills This incredibly pretty game scales down to cheaper GPUs pretty well, actually.
You can run Alan Wake 2 on a 10-series or older graphics card, but you definitely shouldn't
By Jacob Ridley published
Did I stutter? I've stuck a GTX 1080 in our test bench and I just cannot get anywhere close to passable performance.
Alan Wake 2 is a stunning example of what the future of PC gaming looks like—but only on Nvidia
By Jacob Ridley published
RTX Alan The RTX 40-series' features come together to make something beautiful in Alan Wake 2. I just wish it was something more players could experience for themselves.
After a month in beta Valve has released SteamVR 2.0 for the headset-wearing masses
By Jacob Ridley published
News The new virtual reality software brings VR back into the modern Steam ecosystem.
TikTok owner says it's still committed to VR after rumours swell of it ditching Pico headsets
By Jacob Ridley published
News Rumours of Pico's demise have been greatly exaggerated, ByteDance says.
WD and Kioxia merger on the cards to overtake Samsung as the world's main source of SSD storage
By Jacob Ridley published
News A deal could be struck as early as this month.
Intel Core i5 14600K review
By Jacob Ridley published
More i5 The best mid-range gaming CPU... returns with mildly higher clocks and price tag.
Intel Core i9 14900K review
By Jacob Ridley published
Same, same Fast, powerful, and just a bit boring.
Amazon Big Deal Days PC gaming deals
By Dave James last updated
Prime Day Deals The second Prime Day of the year is done, but there are still some deals lingering around like the sweet smell of capitalism.
Amazon Prime SSD deals
By Jacob Ridley last updated
Prime Day SSDs An SSD can do wonders for your load times and there are some great deals on these flashy wonders right now.
Amazon Big Deal Days gaming monitor deals
By Jacob Ridley last updated
Prime Day Deals Amazon's Big Deal Days is over now but there are still some tasty gaming monitor discounts lingering around.
Amazon Prime Day graphics card deals
By Jacob Ridley last updated
Prime Day Deals Were the Prime Day deals really a big deal? Allow us to elucidate.
You don't need an Amazon Prime membership to save cash on any of my favorite PC gaming products
By Jacob Ridley published
Deal No Prime membership? No problem. This article is filled with products I think are great and that don't require a pledge of allegiance to Amazon.
If this year's massive game installs are any indication it's time to invest in this $177 4TB SSD
By Jacob Ridley published
Deal This 4TB SSD was a good deal when I reviewed it last week. It's cheaper today, just $177.
The top 100 PC games
By Phil Savage published
Class of 2023 PC Gamer's annual list of the best games you can play on PC.
Intel's Arc A580 is a new $179 budget graphics card that looks mostly D.O.A
By Jacob Ridley published
News Why bother with the A580 when you can pick up the bigger, better Arc A750 for $190?
Suddenly Microsoft Paint rules: the new background removal tool is an impressive free alternative to Photoshop's premium version
By Jacob Ridley published
News Paint never dies.
Lexar NM790 4TB SSD review
By Jacob Ridley published
Make space Big storage, big performance, relatively small price.
The best bit about SteamVR 2.0 is no longer having to take your headset off every 5 minutes
By Jacob Ridley published
Higher reality Leaving the outdated interface behind, SteamVR is enjoyable and easy to use since its latest update.
2023's been such a ridiculous year for PC gaming that the major releases don't fit on a 1TB SSD
By Jacob Ridley published
More bytes Nearly half of 2023's major releases also recommend running on an SSD.
Valve launches SteamVR 2.0 beta with 'goal of bringing all of what's new on the Steam platform into VR'
By Jacob Ridley published
News Good sounds coming out of Valve this week for any virtual reality aficionados.