Jacob Ridley

1 week ago | pcgamer.com | Jacob Ridley

Last year, I reviewed a new liquid cooler with a screen on it. It's called the Hyte Thicc Q60, and it comes with a 5-inch screen powered by an ARM chip and running Android. I had two main thoughts at the time: 'this is a novel idea' and 'this is absolutely ridiculous'. Little did I know that a year later, I'd be walking around the showfloor at Taiwan's top tech show, Computex 2025, and the majority of the companies I would visit would be a liquid cooler with a screen plonked on the top.

1 week ago | pcgamer.com | Jacob Ridley

We've come a long way with liquid coolers. The first generation was known for being loud and at risk of causing a puddle in your PC. While the latter is a slightly unfair reading of the upcoming tech at the time—a leak was uncommon and my ancient Corsair H100i is still going strong—the first part isn't. Older liquid coolers make a lot of noise, and a big part of that was the peculiar and noticeable whine of the pump running at full speed.

1 week ago | pcgamer.com | Jacob Ridley

A fabric-covered PC case would usually spell disaster and yet I'm all over Tryx's new chassis. It's called the Tryx Flova and it's covered head-to-toe in a breathable fabric. Breathable being the key word there. The front panel of the Flova is actually coated in the stuff, which means any fans you might have sat behind it are going to be pulling air through it. That's likely to cause some degradation to performance—even a fine dust filter will impact airflow—but Tryx has thought of an alternative.

1 week ago | pcgamer.com | Jacob Ridley

This year's Computex tech show in Taipei was filled with new and lavishly designed PC cases. Some big, some small, some in the shape of cats with swords from popular videogames. Yet one stood out to me more than most, and that's the Havn BF 360. Available in black and white, Havn has stuck with a design not that dissimilar to the Havn HS 420, which was the brand's first case and our pick for the best PC case right now.

2 weeks ago | pcgamer.com | Jacob Ridley

When you think of Cherry, you think of the Cherry MX switch or the fruit. I'm talking about the former today, as the company behind the world's most renowned mechanical switch tells me it's in a 'new era' with its latest, the Cherry IK. Move aside, mechanical. Cherry IK are analogue induction switches and, speaking to Gunnar Schreck, Cherry global product manager, at Computex 2025, I'm told they're more reliable, flexible, and somehow cheaper to manufacture than mechanical.