Welcome to the PC Gamer hardware section

Like a liquid-cooled phoenix rising from the ashes of a beige Pentium III desktop tower, PC Gamer hardware coverage is back! Okay, the truth is, we’ve been covering hardware in the magazine for more than a decade, but the hard stuff has never had as much of a presence online as we’d like. We’re changing that with our new site, rebooting and overclocking our coverage of all things PC hardware.

First things first: here are the big stories you should check out right now.

We’ve got big plans for covering everything that makes PC gaming our favorite hobby. That starts with more reviews and benchmarks of the components you need to know about: graphics cards, CPUs, SSDs. In addition to those individual reviews, we’re building up living, frequently updated guides to help you spend your money more efficiently, so you’re only buying the best of the best.

And those are just the basics. Look forward to a range of gaming PC builds, from modest budget-priced rigs to insane monstrosities like the Large Pixel Collider. News about PC gaming tech. Videos of us building PCs and trying out new gear. Advice on how to maintain your PC (hint: don’t vacuum it) and what software to use to keep it running smoothly.

Our hardware section isn’t exclusively for veteran PC gamers, either. If you’re new to PC gaming, we’ll be here to help guide you through our favorite hobby. You’ll be having fun tinkering before you know it.

That's about it. I'm Wes Fenlon, our new hardware editor (you've probably seen me around the site for awhile, but I'm moving over from features to give hardware more love). Regular readers will still see Dave James' name pop up beside new reviews and benchmarks. Expanding our hardware coverage is a big initiative for the new PC Gamer, and I'd love to hear what you want to see more of.

Let me know by sending an email to wesley [at] pcgamer.com. I'll be listening!

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.

When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).