Skip to main content

The ReSpec newsletter is here: your weekly breakdown of the tech behind PC gaming

Jacob Roach sitting behind a ReSpec logo.
Corey Thompson / Digital Trends

The world of PC gaming moves fast. New titles are constantly being developed and discovered, game-changing hardware launches that could affect your next PC upgrade, and news breaks that can alter the stakes for some of the biggest PC companies in the world.

We’re so invested in this corner of the tech industry that we’re launching a newsletter, and it’s called ReSpec. Once you sign up, you’ll get your very own weekly breakdown of the tech behind PC gaming — delivered right to your inbox each Friday morning.

The newsletter will include three stories from the week. It could be a breakdown of a recent announcement, a conversation that took place over social media, or something else entirely. The goal is to bring you three stories that are grounded in what’s happening in the world of PC hardware that go beyond a simple product announcement.

Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming
Check your inbox!

But this isn’t just a place to regurgitate the week’s news in your inbox — you can expect my own analysis, opinions, and context, just in a bite-sized package.

In addition to the main stories, we’ll have the Min Max section, which is a place to talk about what I’ve been up to over the past week. It could be an interesting app that you should check out, or maybe a hidden gem on Steam that’s worth picking up. It’s a footnote to turn you on to something you may not have known about or provide short updates on what I’ve been up to.

That’s the setup of the newsletter we’re starting with, but it’s not the final form. We’ll continue working on the format and consider adding more sections, so if there’s something you want to see, you can find my email by clicking my byline above.

So, you might be wondering — what makes me so qualified to write this newsletter? Well, PC gaming is what I live and breathe — I write about the topic day in and day out here at Digital Trends before logging off to go and play games on my PC. I think about it constantly, and I live it constantly, not only understanding the products and dynamics essential to reporting on the topic, but also understanding what it’s like to actually play games on a PC.

This meeting of professional and personal passion is what led to the ReSpec newsletter. It’s also a way to expand our ReSpec column.

If you’re unfamiliar, I already write a biweekly column that goes deeper into the intersection between PC hardware and gaming. We’ve covered such topics as why Xbox’s Quick Resume feature hasn’t come to PC yet, the confusing and misleading marketing for laptop GPUs, how one solo developer changed the Steam Deck forever, and so much more. The goal of a ReSpec column is to go deep by investigating or closely analyzing a topic that isn’t widely covered. Column entries are big, and they take a long time to put together. These are in-depth features, consisting of sourced interviews and my own testing, that tell unique stories about the tech behind PC gaming.

But in the fast-moving world of PC gaming, there’s a lot being left on the cutting room floor. That’s where the ReSpec newsletter comes into play.

You’ll still get a full, fat ReSpec column every two weeks on Sunday mornings. On weeks when I’m publishing a column entry, I’ll take some space in the newsletter to provide a synopsis of what the column covers. You could consider it a sneak peek or a summarized version of the column — regardless, you’ll get the full scope of what ReSpec is covering in the newsletter before new columns go live.

We’re adding to ReSpec, not taking away anything. If nerding out about graphics cards, PC games, and squeezing every last bit of performance out of your rig sounds like your jam, make sure to enter your email and sign up for the newsletter.

Editors' Recommendations

Jacob Roach
Senior Staff Writer, Computing
Jacob Roach is a writer covering computing and gaming at Digital Trends. After realizing Crysis wouldn't run on a laptop, he…
How Hyte is tying your gaming PC together with a single cable
A gaming PC set up with Hyte Nexus Link.

I'm not much for PC hardware ecosystems. You usually have to make too many hardware compromises, robbing you of the choice that's inherent in building your own PCs. Hyte, the brand best known for cases like the Y40 and Y60, has a compelling option it has cooked up for CES 2024, though.

It's called Nexus Link, named after the Nexus software used for cases like the Hyte Y70. The idea is simple -- take all of the cables you'd use for power, lighting, sensors, and cooling and run it through a single connection. These devices are all managed through the Nexus software, allowing you to control lighting, fan speed, and more.

Read more
PC ports need to be better in 2024 — here’s how
A screenshot from Star Wars Jedi Survivor.

I've said it once, and I'll saw it again: 2023 wasn't a great year for PC gaming. We saw some excellent games, but most were marred by poor ports that exhibited performance issues, bugs, and other game-breaking problems. Even at the end of the year, though, things are looking up, and I hope that trend continues into 2024.

Rather than rehashing the performance issues we've seen on PC all year, I want to look forward. Here are the five things I want to see out of PC releases next year.
GPU decompression
Portal: Prelude RTX | RTX IO Off vs On Comparison – Cake Scene

Read more
A look back at the best (and worst) PC games I tested in 2023
Cyberpunk 2077 on the Samsung Odyssey OLED G8.

I test the performance and features of dozens of new PC games every year. It's usually just a way to round up some optimized settings for the latest games, but 2023 challenged that approach. It was a notoriously troublesome year for PC releases, but for as many busted ports that we saw, I tested just as many technical marvels.

If you want to push your PC to its limits with the most demanding PC games, here are the games you should play -- and the ones you should avoid. Just to be clear -- this isn't a comment on the content of the games themselves, but on how they performed on PC and implemented (or didn't) the latest features.
The best PC games I tested in 2023
Alan Wake 2

Read more