HardwarePC Gamer’s biggest hardware stories of 2024: Elon Musk, the rise and rise of AI, brilliant builds, the humbling of big tech giants, orb pondering aplenty, and much moreWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
HardwarePC Gamer’s biggest hardware stories of 2024: Elon Musk, the rise and rise of AI, brilliant builds, the humbling of big tech giants, orb pondering aplenty, and much moreWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Dan Whittaker)
Jump to:January - MarchApril - JuneJuly - SeptemberOctober - December
Jump to:January - MarchApril - JuneJuly - SeptemberOctober - December
Gear of the Year(Image credit: Future)Check out more of the year’s best tech in ourPC Gamer Hardware Awards 2024coverage.
Gear of the Year
(Image credit: Future)Check out more of the year’s best tech in ourPC Gamer Hardware Awards 2024coverage.
(Image credit: Future)
Check out more of the year’s best tech in ourPC Gamer Hardware Awards 2024coverage.
It’s been one more full revolution around the sun and—guess what—we’re back here again. As we survey a year of ups and downs, it’d be impossible to recount every beat. Instead, we’ve let you call the shots. Below, we take a look back at the stories that piqued your interest, the headlines you just had to share, and wonder just where the time went over the last 12 months.
While I try in vain to avoid confronting the merciless passage of time, take a peep below at the biggest hardware stories of 2024.
News from January to March
(Image credit: Valve)
The top stories:
Talking about turning circles, February brought us big discs—specifically, the news that researchers at the University of Shanghai had craftedoptical media that can store a whopping 200 TB. When it comes to the file storage wars, these surprisingly stable, long-lasting discs spin to win.
Alright, to save us going around in circles, I’ll dispense with the puns. February also saw a surprising amount of candor from big tech CEOs. First, Mark Zuckerbergthrew Meta’s wristband into the neural interface ring, alongside the two cents that the company is exploring this route because he “wouldn’t want to use version one of [a chip you jack into your brain.]” On that point at least, we can agree.
Then, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger came right out and said,“I’ve bet the whole company on 18A.“It’s arguablynot been Intel’s year, and though the company more recently stated,“18A is powered on, healthy and yielding well,“a piece from South Korean outlet Chosun Daily suggests the bigger picture may not be so straightforward,claiming the yields are only 10%. Though Gelsinger has sincedeparted the company, he took to X to argue this wasn’t an appropriate way to frame the subject, writing, “Anyone using % yield as a metric for semiconductor health […]doesn’t understand semiconductor yield.”
The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals
Now, must we discuss Musk? As far as March is concerned, we must. After literally just covering how hard the chip game is, it’s perhaps understandable why the Tesla CEO is reluctant to wade in—though he was quick to assure thatTesla couldtotallydo it, guys. Tesla, the company promising big with self-driving carsthat may never materialise, that Tesla? Uh-huh. The year’s pendulum will swing back to Musk in due time, so let’s get on with the rest of March.
Valve’s contemplation of the Steam Deck OLED orbwas a brief bright spot (never believe me when I say I’m done with puns). But another story that turned heads in March was the broken promise ofSony’s PS VR2. An expensive niche on top ofan already pricey console, it’s perhaps no wonder Sony has struggled to shift their VR headsets. As you saw, they’re not the only ones, ahem,taking stockeither.
News from April to June
(Image credit: Apple)
The top stories:
Case in point as we get to April, Apple pumped the brakes onall things Vision Proin an alleged bid to course correct from overprojected demand. I can’t imagine reports about the$3,500 headset’s lacking build qualityhelped either. Pressing the pause button on production sounds almost sensible—psyche! In June, rumours began to surface that Apple were actually instead shifting gears to createa cheaper version of the mixed reality goggles. Doesn’t that just make your head spin?
Also making me queasy in April was the news of AI’s potential military applications—not so much gently dizzying as violent whiplash, I know. In a ‘test’ dogfight,an AI-controlled F16 fighter jet went head to head with a humanand, regardless of the actual victor in this demonstration, it doesn’t feel like there are any winners here.
Right, let me get off my soapbox, and instead dive into some PC guts. Building your own desktop tower offers many trials and tribulations, asNick’s in-depth feature goes to show. Picked up two fans because you thought they’d fit in your case, only to realise you forgot to factor in the radiator? Mate, we’ve all been there, and there’s no shame in a bit of on-the-fly problem solving as even the most experienced PC tinkerer will tell you.
You know what else is tricky?Building a GPU from scratch—the more you know. As interesting as self-taught hardware engineer Adam Majmudar’s pursuit of hardware knowledge is, this is a back-to-basics approach that’s definitely not for the faint of heart.
From worst case scenarios to straight up facts, no hardware is safe from hackers—least of alla virtual machine instance of Windows XPin this here year of our gourd, 2024. Without even clicking on an ill-advised link, a YouTuber merely left the internet-connected virtual machine unattended for 10 minutes, only to find a suspicious process running in Task Manager. After catching a whiff of Windows XP’s blood in the water, the virtual machine became a feeding frenzy for hackers.
Anyway, speaking of mosh pits I wouldn’t want to be caught in the middle of,big tech is forming a megazord to beat Nvidia at its own AI game. AMD, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco,andBroadcom are joining forces to forge a new interconnect standard that can compete with Nvidia’s NVLink interconnect tech for AI accelerator chips. What I wouldn’t give for some mighty morphin' folks with attitude right about now…however, we’ve got a fair few AI stories to get through still, so I’ll check mine for the time being.
To badly paraphrase a certain memeified boyband song, that was definitely May. The hits continued into June, with Intel coming in swinging with the claim that their optical interconnect chiplet technology is such a leap that it’slike going from horse-drawn carriages to cars and trucks.It’s not been the company’s year, but you could say that Intel is very much still in the running.
News from July to September
(Image credit: Nvidia)
The top stories:
July began with a hopeful vision of the future for anyone who has ever had to contend with a miserable download speed. Engineers at Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technologyachieved a data transmission speed of 402 TBps. That’s like downloading Baldur’s Gate 3 quicker than you can mentally conjure that pale elf’s visage.
Don’t jump for joy just yet, Astarion fans though; while the test didn’t use much specialised equipment—the researchers were able to achieve that impressive speed over 50 km of the same optical fibre you could pick up yourself—even a top of the line rig would still present a serious hardware bottleneck. Guess we’ll just have to make do with ponderingLas Vegas' massive Nvidia-powered orbinstead.
The orb alongside theever encroaching threat of subscription-based hardwarehardly leaves one glowingly optimistic about the future. But it wasn’t all dystopic deployment of tech this year. For instance, our readers loved this story about anopen source, 3D printable laser-hacking tool, with August offering plenty more weird and wonderful builds to boot.
From small creator creativity, to big tech backtracking, remember when Apple removed the headphone jack from the iPhone 7? Remember those ridiculous USB-C to aux adapters? Well, after eight years,the jack is back for the iPhone 16—and our most widely read hardware story from September.
Perhaps pointedly, I’m following up with another head-turning headline from when Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang claimed,“We can’t do computer graphics anymore without artificial intelligence.“Okay, in the context of graphical gains, perhaps I’m being needlessly grumpy about AI—computing one pixel and inferring the other 32 with AI upscaling is definitely a big win when it comes to limiting the load on your GPU.
News from October to December
(Image credit: Bloomberg (Getty Images))
The top stories:
October offered plenty more servings of humble pie. First, eagle-eyed visitors to the official Nintendo museum noted that interactiveSNES game exhibits may be being emulated on PC. Considering how hard Nintendo tends to goafter developers that try to emulate their hardware, this was at best a hypocritical look.
Then, it was Microsoft’s turn. When the Windows 11 24H2 update rolled out earlier this year,Jacob was far from a fan of Recall’s inclusionjust for a start. Then, theblue screens beganfor those using certain Western Digital SSDs, and I also wrote about astartling audio bug resulting from the update. The issues continued past October, with Microsoft electing tohalt the update’s rollout on machines with certain Ubisoft titles installed. As of December,Ubisoft has since fixed some of the issuesaffecting players of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and Star Wars Outlaws—though problems may still persist if you have either Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Valhalla, or Origins installed.
But the year wasn’t yet done cutting giants of tech down to size, with the US Department of Justice filing a number of recommendations for remedying Google’s monopoly over search. These included but were not limited tothe proposed selling off of Chrome and a five year ban from re-entering the browser arena. These suggested remedies could have far-reaching repercussions, but until a judge rules on which courses of action to take some time next year, we can’t yet say for certain how the chips will fall.
But don’t you worry—there was still plenty of room for a little schadenfreude in November, as it turns outPS5 Pro scalpers are struggling to shift their hastily bought hardware. Hear that? It’s the tiniest violin you ever did hear.
Alright, let’s end this retrospective on the stories we can all agree are wins, like this amazing family home “optimized for LAN parties.” Costing in the region of a seven-figure sum, Kenton Varda and Jade Wang “built the house from scratch starting from an empty lot,” and the project’s final form really is a thing to behold (in fact, hundreds of thousands of readers did just that).
With the pipedream of one’s perfect PC gaming paradise in our rearview mirror, let’s close out our look-back on something a little more achievable: a good deal on a graphics card. On very rare occasions, a cheap card on Amazonisn’ttoo good to be true asthis lucky Reddit user picked up a RTX 4070 Super for $40.Unlike the contents of that box, we can all agree this story rocks.
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More about hardwareIf you’re trying to convince me your ‘companionship’ robot is ‘lifelike’, maybe don’t rip her face off in the demo videoIs the new RTX 5070 really as fast as Nvidia’s previous flagship RTX 4090 GPU? Turns out the answer is yes. Kinda.LatestCruel is a frantic run-and-gun shooter where you boot cultists out of windows in a cursed apartment block that wants you deadSee more latest►
More about hardwareIf you’re trying to convince me your ‘companionship’ robot is ‘lifelike’, maybe don’t rip her face off in the demo videoIs the new RTX 5070 really as fast as Nvidia’s previous flagship RTX 4090 GPU? Turns out the answer is yes. Kinda.LatestCruel is a frantic run-and-gun shooter where you boot cultists out of windows in a cursed apartment block that wants you deadSee more latest►
More about hardwareIf you’re trying to convince me your ‘companionship’ robot is ‘lifelike’, maybe don’t rip her face off in the demo videoIs the new RTX 5070 really as fast as Nvidia’s previous flagship RTX 4090 GPU? Turns out the answer is yes. Kinda.
More about hardware
If you’re trying to convince me your ‘companionship’ robot is ‘lifelike’, maybe don’t rip her face off in the demo videoIs the new RTX 5070 really as fast as Nvidia’s previous flagship RTX 4090 GPU? Turns out the answer is yes. Kinda.
If you’re trying to convince me your ‘companionship’ robot is ‘lifelike’, maybe don’t rip her face off in the demo video
If you’re trying to convince me your ‘companionship’ robot is ‘lifelike’, maybe don’t rip her face off in the demo video
Is the new RTX 5070 really as fast as Nvidia’s previous flagship RTX 4090 GPU? Turns out the answer is yes. Kinda.
Is the new RTX 5070 really as fast as Nvidia’s previous flagship RTX 4090 GPU? Turns out the answer is yes. Kinda.
LatestCruel is a frantic run-and-gun shooter where you boot cultists out of windows in a cursed apartment block that wants you deadSee more latest►
Latest
Cruel is a frantic run-and-gun shooter where you boot cultists out of windows in a cursed apartment block that wants you dead
Cruel is a frantic run-and-gun shooter where you boot cultists out of windows in a cursed apartment block that wants you dead
Cruel is a frantic run-and-gun shooter where you boot cultists out of windows in a cursed apartment block that wants you dead
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