I Enjoy Touching All The Hardware Bits That Pass Through Pcg's...

Check out more of the year's best tech in our PC Gamer Hardware Awards 2025 coverage.

There's a lot I love about this job—particularly all of the opportunities I now enjoy getting to smear my sticky little mitts all over a wide range of hardware. Looking back on a year of hardware reviews, plenty of premium bits of kit didn't impress me much—especially when each penny has felt especially precious in recent years. So, setting the coveted category awards aside, it's definitely tricky to pick one techie thing that really spoke to me this year. That said, it's not like I don't have some cracking options to choose from for my personal pick.

Could it be the Razer Kraken Kitty V3 Pro, the kitty-eared gaming headset that's just as much a fashion statement as it is a really premium audio device? Or is my personal hardware pick the Be Quiet! Light Mount, the quietest gaming keyboard anyone at PCG towers has had the pleasure of tinkling the keys of? Nope, it's a gamepad you can buy for less than $30/£25.

"But wait," I hear you cry, "Haven't you reviewed two Pro controllers, both worth six to seven times that?" Yes, the wireless version of the Scuf Valor Pro and the Razer Raiju V3 Pro, respectively. Instead of sticking with either of these admittedly rather lovely review units, I went out and, basing my decision solely on the personal testimony of my fellow hardware team aficionados, I bought something with my own money. As such, my personal pick is the 8BitDo Ultimate 2C wireless controller for the simple reason that it offers something neither of those Pro controllers do: it comes in my preferred shade of purple.

Now, to be fair, our top pick for the best budget PC controller, the GameSir Nova Lite, costs five bucks less and also comes in a colourway described as a 'Dark Purple'—but let's be honest, that's a deep navy at best. The Ultimate 2C enjoys a pitch-perfect, all-over lilac colourway that pairs nicely with all of my other purple hardware, but colour acuity aside, there's plenty else to love about this similarly budget PC controller.

First things first, you're getting more banging buttons for those five additional bucks. These extra, remappable buttons take the form of the R4 and L4 bumpers along the top edge of the gamepad. Alongside the more standard shoulder and trigger buttons, plus the joysticks, they're all Hall effect too. Effectively banishing the spectre of stick drift isn't bad for 30 bucks.

Yes, alright, if you give it some welly on the handgr

Source: PC Gamer