About PC Games Hardware

PC Games Hardware

PC Games Hardware (PCGH) is the monthly German computer magazine for gaming hardware, published by Computec Media in Fürth since 6 October 2000. As the sister magazine of PC Games, it addresses the PC gamer with editorial articles and interviews on PC hardware components and game engines: news and advance reports, test reports and buying advice, installation and overclocking tips, game tests with regard to their hardware requirements, and case modding. The editor-in-chief is Thilo Bayer; the ISSN is 1616-6922. The reach was 0.35 million readers (AWA 2009). The website is pcgameshardware.de — the daily hardware portal in cooperation with the PC Games online presence.

Overview

PC Games Hardware is a German-language monthly magazine for PC gaming hardware, published by the Fürth-based Computec Media. It appears monthly, addressing the PC gamer who wants to know what his hardware can do: the graphics cards, the processors, the mainboards, the memory, the SSDs, the monitors, the peripherals. The programme: the news and advance reports on PC hardware components and game engines; the test reports and buying advice on the individual components; the tips for the installation and operation of hardware, operating systems and games plus the overclocking of processors; the test reports on current computer games with regard to their hardware requirements with configuration tips for different system specifications; and the case modding — the art of the customised PC case. The news and advance reports keep the enthusiast current: the product launches announced, the architectures explained, the roadmaps interpreted — the hardware future previewed. The test reports are the magazine's core competence: the components benchmarked under controlled conditions, the frame rates measured, the temperatures logged, the noise recorded — the verdicts that the buying decisions follow. The buying advice translates the tests into the purchase: the price-performance winners, the upgrade paths, the complete-system recommendations for the budgets. The installation and operation tips serve the practical side: the assembly, the driver installation, the BIOS settings, the troubleshooting — the PC built and maintained. The overclocking is the enthusiast's sport: the processors and graphics cards pushed beyond the factory specifications, the cooling solutions compared, the stability tested — the free performance unlocked. The synergies with the sister magazine PC Games: PCGH editors writing articles that appear in the PC Games hardware section, the PC Games game tests supplemented by the more detailed hardware-requirements tests in the PCGH, and the cooperation in the online presence. The synergy's logic: the hardware competence concentrated in the PCGH editorial team, the game competence in the PC Games team — each serving the other's readers. The game test's hardware supplement — the "can your PC run it" box — is the most visible synergy: the review's verdict plus the technical requirements, the gamer's two questions answered together. The editor-in-chief is Thilo Bayer.

History

PC Games Hardware appeared for the first time on 6 October 2000 — the spin-off of the PC Games hardware coverage into its own monthly. The timing was the PC gaming's golden age: the 3D-accelerator wars, the GeForce versus Radeon, the processors' gigahertz race — the hardware enthusiast's era that demanded its own magazine. The Computec Media house — the Fürth games publisher — gave the new title the PC Games brand's authority and the editorial synergies: the game tests' hardware supplements, the shared online portal. The reach of 0.35 million readers (AWA 2009) documented the title's position in the German computer press. The logo change in March 2020 modernised the brand. The magazine's 25 years — 2000 to 2025 — span the hardware's revolutions: the single-core to multi-core, the HDD to SSD, the Full HD to 4K, the rasterisation to ray tracing — the PCGH testing them all. The 2000 founding year's hardware — the Pentium III, the GeForce 2, the 128 MB RAM — is the museum piece against the 2025 test bench: the 24-core processors, the ray-tracing graphics cards, the 32 GB memory. The 3D-accelerator wars' aftermath — the NVIDIA versus AMD duopoly — structured two decades of the magazine's graphics-card tests. The processors' core race — the dual-core, quad-core, the Ryzen's disruption — structured the CPU coverage. The storage revolution — the SSD's victory over the hard disk — changed the PC building's priorities. The display evolution — the CRT to LCD to high-refresh-rate to 4K — changed the gaming's visuality. Through each revolution the monthly's method held: the benchmarks, the measurements, the verdicts. The editor-in-chief Thilo Bayer leads the hardware editorial team.

Coverage and Content

The magazine's programme is the gaming PC's complete technology. The news and advance reports: the PC hardware components and the game engines — the graphics cards' launches, the processors' architectures, the engines' capabilities. The test reports and buying advice: the individual components tested — the benchmarks, the measurements, the verdicts — with the buying advice for the upgrade decisions. The installation and operation tips: the hardware, the operating systems and the games — the drivers, the settings, the troubleshooting — plus the overclocking: the processors pushed beyond the specifications, the cooling, the stability. The game tests' hardware angle: the current computer games tested with regard to their hardware requirements — the frame rates measured, the configuration tips for different system specifications — the "can my PC run it" answered scientifically. The case modding: the customised cases — the windows, the lighting, the water cooling — the PC as the craft object. The modding community — the workshops, the competitions, the galleries — is the hardware culture's artistic wing: the PC not as the appliance but as the expression. The magazine's modding coverage — the builds presented, the techniques explained — serves the readers who see the computer as the project. The journalism is the hardware press's: the benchmarks, the measurements, the buying advice — the enthusiast's monthly.

Organization and Ownership

PC Games Hardware is published by the Computec Media GmbH in Fürth — the games and IT publisher whose portfolio includes PC Games, buffed, Gamezone.de, Golem.de, Linux-Magazin, N-Zone and play⁵. The editor-in-chief is Thilo Bayer. The commercial model is the hardware magazine's: the subscriptions and the kiosk sales, the hardware industry's advertising — the graphics-card manufacturers, the processor makers, the peripheral brands — and the online portal's digital advertising. The PC Games synergy — the shared editors, the cross-published articles, the joint online presence — is the house's efficiency: the hardware competence serving both magazines. The ISSN is 1616-6922. Detailed current circulation figures are not publicly confirmed in the sources available.

Digital Presence

The magazine's website is pcgameshardware.de — the daily hardware portal with the news, the tests, the buying advice, in cooperation with the PC Games online presence. The forum community — the hardware enthusiasts' discussions — extends the monthly into the daily exchange. In the German hardware-press landscape PC Games Hardware occupies the gaming-hardware pole: alongside the general computer magazines and the online hardware portals, the Fürth monthly is the gamer's hardware authority — 25 years from the 2000 founding, the benchmarks and the buying advice, the case modding and the overclocking, monthly in print, daily online, for the PC gamer who wants to know. The gaming-hardware specialisation — the magazine that tests for the frame rates, not the office applications — distinguishes the PCGH from the general computer press: the gamer's priorities (the graphics performance, the low latency, the cooling) against the office user's (the reliability, the manageability). The print monthly's survival in the online hardware-portal age — the YouTube benchmarks, the Reddit discussions — testifies to the format's value: the curated, measured, comparable test — the month's hardware in the verified overview.