Nick Evanson

Nick Evanson

Hardware Writer

Nick, gaming, and computers all first met in the early 1980s. After leaving university, he became a physics and IT teacher and started writing about tech in the late 1990s. That resulted in him working with MadOnion to write the help files for 3DMark and PCMark. After a short stint working at Beyond3D.com, Nick joined Futuremark (MadOnion rebranded) full-time, as editor-in-chief for its PC gaming section, YouGamers. After the site shutdown, he became an engineering and computing lecturer for many years, but missed the writing bug. Cue four years at TechSpot.com covering everything and anything to do with tech and PCs. He freely admits to being far too obsessed with GPUs and open-world grindy RPGs, but who isn't these days?

Latest articles by Nick Evanson

SanDisk and BiWin SSDs on a Prime Day background
October Prime Day SSD deals

By Jess Kinghorn Last updated

Prime Day 2026 We're looking for the best SSD deals to weather the memory crisis.

Prime Day 2026
Crucial and WD_Black SSDs
Best cheap SSD deals today

By Jess Kinghorn Last updated

Deals Add more storage space to your PC for less with one of the deals I've spotted.

Deals
Lenovo Legion and Razer Blade 16 gaming laptops on a blue background.
Best gaming laptops 2026: We've reviewed the best gaming laptops of this generation and these are our favorites

By Dave James Last updated

Portable powerhouses From our own extensive testing, rigorously benchmarking 60+ machines over the past two years, these are the best gaming laptops you can buy today.

Portable powerhouses
The PowerA LucidSound LS500 and Razer BlackShark V3 wireless gaming headsets float in a red gradient void. The PC Gamer recommended badge sits in the top righ corner.
Best gaming headsets in 2026: I'd bet my ears on these headphones

By Dave James Last updated

Quality cans Treat your ears to some audio treacle with the best gaming headsets.

Quality cans
The Wooting 80HE and Gamakay NS68 on a grey background with the PC Gamer logo in the top right.
Best gaming keyboards in 2026: we've tested the latest Hall effect, mechanical, TKL, 60% and more

By Jacob Ridley Last updated

Keyed in The best gaming keyboards, according to our testers.

Keyed in
A photo of an Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus processor, resting on an Intel-branded box with a colorful pattern
Intel quietly bumps the price up of the best CPUs it's made in years to 'reflect current market dynamics'

By Nick Evanson Published

News Fortunately, the Arrow Lake Refresh chips are still worth the extra money.

News
A close-up of the blue LED strip on the front of the Steam Machine
Valve's aim for a console-like experience with its Steam Machine lands a little too close for comfort as one of the first cases of 'Red Line of Death' comes to light (Update: The machine survived)

By Nick Evanson Published

News The issue eventually resolved itself.

News
A stock photo of a computer motherboard with multiple memory slots filled with DRAM DIMMs for High Performance Computing (HPC)
Meta's solution to the global memory shortage is to use DDR4 in a DDR5 server, with a custom chip making the impossible possible

By Nick Evanson Published

News Alas, this solution won't work for gaming PCs. Not yet, at least.

News
A screenshot of a Valar Atomics promotional video, showing an employee holding an Nvidia DGX Spark, ready to be powered by a nuclear microreactor.
Nuclear reactor start-up targeting AI energy demands showcases its tech with an Nvidia DGX Spark, though the website demo needs its own power plant

By Nick Evanson Published

News HTGR does brrrr. CPU in PCs running the demo goes brrrr-er.

News
Gun fight in the parking lot
With 32 GB as a minimum and 64 GB as the recommended amount, Cinder City's RAM requirements are all kinds of wrong in today's AI-mangled memory market (update: phew, it's a mistake)

By Nick Evanson Last updated

News But hey, at least an RTX 4060 is good enough to meet the recommended GPU specs. Wait, what?

36 Comments
News
A close-up photo of the CPU power sockets on an MSI MEG Z890 Ace motherboard
Intel's mega-core Nova Lake desktop processors look all but confirmed to have sustained full boost power limits at least 220 W higher than Arrow Lake

By Nick Evanson Published

News There's no other reason why a Z990 motherboard would have three CPU power connectors, after all.

News
A collage of three different gaming monitors, against a colorful background, with the phrase 'Deals' and a PC Gamer logo on the sides
Great gaming monitor deals are like buses: You get none for ages, then three turn up at once

By Nick Evanson Published

Deal Each one has something to tempt you, be it the price tag or blistering speed.

Deal
A cropped screenshot of a YouTube video by polymatt, showing the components of a handmade magnetic-core memory USB storage device
The maker calls it the 'world's worst USB drive' but to my eyes, it's far more impressive than any external SSD you can buy right now

By Nick Evanson Published

News So what if it only stores 64 bits? Each one is a little marvel of 1950s science and engineering.

News
A screenshot from a video posted on the Dave's Garage YouTube channel, showing a recreation of the original Windows Notepad
'No bloat, no telemetry, no nonsense.' Former Microsoft coding wizard makes an OG Notepad clone that's just 2,686 bytes in size

By Nick Evanson Published

News How about tackling File Explorer next?

News
A Steam machine sitting in front of a TV.
The latest SteamOS beta update includes a performance boost for GPUs with limited VRAM, though devices with iGPUs probably won't see any gains

By Nick Evanson Published

News But if the device is a certain Machine, then this is definitely good news.

News
AMD Strix Point APU chip, held in a hand, with the reflected light showing the various processing blocks in the chip die
AMD's next-gen Zen 6 CPU cores will come in a low-power compact flavour, which should help laptop batteries last even longer

By Nick Evanson Published

News Intel's Panther Lake has similar LPE cores, and they work a treat.

News
Zotac RTX 3060 12GB Twin Edge graphics card
New production runs of Nvidia's much-loved RTX 3060 finally hit the shelves in Europe, but the price just ain't right

By Nick Evanson Published

News Ignore how much VRAM it has; it's simply not worth 333 euros.

News
A promotional image of a dual-channel G.Skill Trident Z5 CK DDR5 memory kit
With the RAMpocalypse set to rage for years, memory kit makers are responding in one of two ways: Do nothing or go hell-for-leather

By Nick Evanson Published

News Neither response is what the PC industry needs right now.

News
A photo of SK Hynix's manufacturing plant in Chongqing, China
South Korea's president declares that it will invest over $580 billion in its AI chip industry, with Samsung and SK hynix coughing up most of the money

By Nick Evanson Published

News That's great and all that jazz, but can I have affordable DDR5 and SSDs again, please?

News
An image of a TP-Link Deco 7 Pro BE14000 mesh router set against a stylized blue background, with Prime Day and a PC Gamer logo on the sides
The biggest upgrade I did last year was setting up a Wi-Fi 7 mesh network and with this huge Prime Day deal, you can too

By Nick Evanson Published

Deal Save an enormous $200 on a three-node kit.

Deal
An image of an Asus ROG Falchion Ace 75 HE gaming keyboard against a stylized blue background, with Prime Day and a PC Gamer logo on the sides
With a huge 31% Prime Day discount, this Asus ROG gaming keyboard is a great deal for anyone wanting a fast and feature-rich button basher

By Nick Evanson Published

Deal It's not wireless but don't let that put you off.

Deal
A collage of PC components against a stylized blue background with Prime Day and a PC Gamer logo on the sides
With these Prime Day deals, you can build your own AMD Zen 5-powered RTX 5060 Ti gaming PC for less than $1,070—cheaper than any prebuilt system

By Nick Evanson Published

Prime Day Slap on an OS of your choice and you'll be good to go.

Prime Day
A collage of three different AIO liquid CPU coolers against a stylized blue background, with Prime Day and a PC Gamer logo on the sides
Rein the heat with three of the best AIO CPU coolers around, now all with massive discounts thanks to Prime Day

By Nick Evanson Published

Prime Day With savings up to $94, now is the perfect time to grab a new chip chiller.

Prime Day
A collage of different desktop PC memory kits against a stylized blue background, with Prime Day and a PC Gamer logo on the sides
You can't have a gaming PC without DRAM, so here are the cheapest DDR4 and DDR5 memory kits I've found in the Prime Day sales

By Nick Evanson Published

Prime Day There's no avoiding the RAMpocalypse but that doesn't mean you should pay more for memory than necessary.

Prime Day
An image of a Razer DeathAdder V3 Pro gaming mouse against a stylized blue background, with Prime Day and a PC Gamer logo on the sides
It's all the gaming mouse you'll ever need: Razer's DeathAdder V3 Pro is now under $67 in the Prime Day sales

By Nick Evanson Published

Prime Day We love the DeathAdder and you will too.

Prime Day
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