My RTX 3080 now spends most of its life switched off, and that’s exactly how I want it. For years, I’ve wanted my mini PC to game like a desktop without bringing back a desktop’s heat, noise, and footprint, and USB4 finally makes that practical. Ugreen’s LinkStation eGPU Dock puts a full-size graphics card on the end of a single cable, and after a few weeks of plugging it in only when it’s time to play, it’s become my favorite PC gaming accessory.

Computers have improved drastically year over year. With these changes, we've also lost some things along the way. Many of them are just legacy connectors and features that we honestly don't have much use for in mainstream PCs in 2026, like bulky parallel ports or floppy disk drives.

I'm a PC builder with so much love for humongous desktops, but even my love gets tested at times. I recently tried a really high-quality GEEKOM mini PC, which made me re-evaluate the whole concept of owning those things, and how they can pretty much replace an actual desktop on many fronts.

One of the most commonly repeated SSD tips is not to fill your drive all the way up to full. It makes perfect sense, and even manufacturers will tell you to leave 10-20% empty, so you should probably listen to them.

I've been pretty transparent about the fact that the best PC upgrade is one that costs exactly zero dollars. But aside from that? The next-best thing is using stuff you might already have lying around to give your PC a bit of a boost. If you keep most of your old hardware, chances are you'll have one (or some) of these in a drawer somewhere, and they could come in handy when you least expect it.

PC building has never been more popular, and one of the most common pieces of advice for first-time builders is to leave room for future upgrades. After all, there's no need to replace your entire PC when you can swap out a few key components and keep using it for years to come.