Jacob Ridley

Jacob Ridley

Managing Editor, Hardware

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

A photo of a 128 GB Crucial DDR5-6400 CUDIMM kit.
Micron says memory shortages will persist beyond 2026 but 'more memory is essential' for the 'AI experience'

By Jacob Ridley Published

News *Collective groaning noise*

8 Comments
News
A Meta Quest 3S, alongside a Quest 3 and Quest 2, on a stack of PC Gamer magazine.
Meta puts third-party VR headsets using Horizon OS on indefinite pause 'to focus on building the world-class first-party hardware and software needed to advance the VR market'

By Jacob Ridley Published

News There goes that, then.

News
Arctic MX-7 thermal paste over a gradient background.
Arctic's new MX-7 thermal paste looks seriously good and I'm already regretting buying a ginormous tube of MX-4

By Jacob Ridley Published

News There's a new paste in town.

News
PhysX effects enabled in Batman: Arkham City, with a man stood in fog and surrounded by papers.
I've tested PhysX now that it's sorta supported on the RTX 50 series and I'm more convinced than ever it's a feature worth fighting for

By Jacob Ridley Published

Physexcellent PhysX matters, ya know.

Physexcellent
PODGORICA, MONTENEGRO - MARCH 23: Police officers escort Do Kwon after he served sentence in prison for document forgery on March 23, 2024 in Podgorica, Montenegro.
Crypto boss sentenced to 15 years over 'epic, generational scale' fraud that lost over 40 billion dollars

By Jacob Ridley Published

News A so-called stablecoin collapsed back in 2022.

News
SEPTEMBER 29: A view of the Oracle Data Lounge sponsored by Oracle Data Cloud at Times Center Hall during 2016 Advertising Week New York on September 29, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Rob Kim/Getty Images for Advertising Week New York)
Oracle will shop around for AI chips after adopting a policy of 'chip neutrality'… but of course it'll still buy the latest Nvidia GPUs

By Jacob Ridley Published

News AMD sales team, assemble!

News
Google's AI Mode interface.
Google is under investigation in the EU to find out whether it imposes unfair terms on content creators for AI

By Jacob Ridley Published

News We'll have a look, course we'll have a look.

News
A close-up image of a gaming chair against a colorful background, with a set of Cyber Monday and PC Gamer logos on either side
Cyber Week 2025 gaming chair deals

By Jacob Ridley Last updated

Cyber Week Rolling through Cyber Week and the gaming chair deals beyond...

Cyber Week
Black Friday listing image with Secretlab chair featured
Black Friday gaming chair deals 2025

By Jacob Ridley Last updated

Black Friday Black Friday has passed but the Cyber Monday gaming chair deals are taking over.

Black Friday
Black Friday listing image with a Silicon Power SSD featured
Black Friday SSD deals 2025

By Jacob Ridley Last updated

Black Friday Black Friday is over, but if you're looking for the ultimate storage upgrade, it's over to the Cyber Monday SSD deals.

Black Friday
Arctic's Xtender PC case on a white desk with various parts being installed to build a functional gaming PC.
I build loads of gaming PCs and this is the first to make me regret my decisions with my own personal rig—here's what you need to build it yourself

By Jacob Ridley Published

Chilly Tinted glass makes everything look better.

Chilly
An image of a white Thermaltake PC case on a yellow and red background with the words Black Friday.
I was surprised just how good this compact PC case is, considering its low price, and now it's only £30 for Black Friday

By Jacob Ridley Published

Deals That's a chunky 25% discount on a case that never cost much to begin with.

Deals
Image of a Cougar gaming chair taken at Computex 2023
Five things I always tell people before they buy their first gaming chair

By Jacob Ridley Published

Saddle up I've been testing gaming chairs for eight years, and here's what I always tell people looking to buy one.

Saddle up
Thermaltake View 390 Air chassis on a desk. We're building a PC into it for testing and comparison with other PC cases.
Thermaltake View 390 Air review

By Jacob Ridley Published

Score: 80% Let there be light!

Score: 80%
Valve's new Steam Machine during a visit to Valve HQ in Bellevue, Washington. The Steam Machine is a compact living room gaming PC.
How much is that Steam Machine in the window? Let's talk potential pricing for Valve's new living room gaming box

By Jacob Ridley Published

Steam Savings We don't know the price of the Steam Machine—but we can take a pretty good guess.

98 Comments
Steam Savings
Two of the best PC joysticks, the Thrustmaster Warthog flight stick alongside a Logitech G X56 HOTAS, on a two-tone grey background
Best PC joysticks in 2026: 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.

Locked On
Valve's new and improved Steam Controller during a visit to Valve's HQ in Bellevue, Washington.
How grip sensing was added to the new Steam Controller is a 'typical Valve story' involving a passionate employee moving desks

By Jacob Ridley Last updated

News One Valve employee essentially made it happen.

9 Comments
News
Valve's new Steam Machine during a visit to Valve HQ in Bellevue, Washington. The Steam Machine is a compact living room gaming PC.
Valve recommends sharing your game library on microSD card between Steam Deck, Steam Frame, and Steam Machine: 'They're fully interoperable, just bring it along with you'

By Jacob Ridley Published

News Saves downloading them all again.

News
Valve's new and improved Steam Controller during a visit to Valve's HQ in Bellevue, Washington.
Valve announces the Steam Controller and it's genuinely good: 'we knew we needed to make this controller'

By Jacob Ridley Last updated

News The new Steam Controller is a smart way to play PC games on the sofa, stealing the Steam Deck's clever controls.

28 Comments
News
Valve employees, left-to-right, Steve Cardinali, Gabe Rowe, and Clement Gallois, at the Valve offices in Bellevue
Valve on viral marketing and leaks: 'Everybody assumes we have some sort of like grand plan... and it's literally just somebody fat fingering something'

By Jacob Ridley Published

News You're probably thinking about this sort of stuff a lot more than Valve is.

News
We're using Valve's new VR headset, the Steam Frame, at Valve's HQ in Bellevue, Washington.
Foveated streaming is the genius tech behind Valve's Steam Frame and its seamless wireless gaming performance

By Jacob Ridley Published

News Making wireless VR truly possible.

News
Hands-on with Valve's new VR headset, the Steam Frame, during an interview at Valve HQ in Bellevue, Washington.
Valve is all over Arm: SteamOS launching for Arm alongside the Steam Frame, new FEX translation layer for x86 and Arm, and Arm games are coming to Steam

By Jacob Ridley Published

News Now Arm is Valve's best friend.

News
Valve's new Steam Machine during a visit to Valve HQ in Bellevue, Washington. The Steam Machine is a compact living room gaming PC.
Valve believes its new Steam Machine could open up a whole new world of SteamOS desktops: 'Put it on, say, something that's running an RX 9070 XT, you would be good to go'

By Jacob Ridley Published

News "We're really interested to see what other companies do with the form factor."

7 Comments
News
Hands-on with Valve's new VR headset, the Steam Frame, during an interview at Valve HQ in Bellevue, Washington.
Valve wants you to know that the Steam Frame is not the Index 2: 'we're trying to do something new with this'

By Jacob Ridley Published

News It's still a good upgrade from an Index, however.

9 Comments
News
The Steam Deck alongside Valve's three new products: the Steam Machine, Steam Frame, and Steam Controller.
Valve announces three new products: the Steam Frame, Steam Machine and Steam Controller

By Jacob Ridley Published

News Good things come in threes?

24 Comments
News
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