Pc Gamer Hardware Awards: 2025's Wildcards—the Best Of The Rest Is...

Wildcards keep us guessing every year, shedding light on the hardware hits that don't easily fit into a neat category elsewhere.

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

My favourite hardware award category is the wildcard by a wide margin. Each year, all bets are off for what to expect from these nominations, and every now and then you may even come face to face with some tech that makes you go, "They make those, now? What a time to be alive!"

Suffice to say, the wildcards are full of surprises, shining a spotlight on the hardware hits that otherwise don't neatly fit into another award category. Your best graphics cards and your best handheld gaming PC are all well and good, but the best gaming router is a decidedly more niche category that doesn't always enjoy quite the same amount of fanfare.

But don't worry, this year's category isn't two kind of good gaming routers and a gaggle of Mesh Wi-Fi devices—though, spoiler alert, the TP-Link Deco BE68 BE14000 does actually feature below. If you're wondering "But why?" or even "Wait, what exactly is a mesh Wi-Fi device anyway?" then read on—there's plenty more insightful surprises among this year's wildcard nominees.

TP-Link Deco BE68 BE14000For anyone unfamiliar with mesh Wi-Fi devices, the opening paragraph of Nick's TP-Link Deco BE68 BE14000 review breaks it down beautifully. He writes, "They're really just two or more 'routers' that can transfer data between themselves, allowing for a greater wireless coverage in your house. I say 'routers' because that's just one part of what's inside: you've also got a WAP (wireless access point) and a network switch."So, in short, they're great for extending the range and coverage of your existing at-home Wi-Fi network. If you happen to live in a historic building with who-knows-what in the walls killing off your download speeds, they're great—and the TP-Link Deco BE68 BE14000 impressed in particular thanks to not only its truly massive 8,100 square feet of coverage, but also because of its high transfer speeds and full Wi-Fi 7 spec.

With internet speeds and setups being so variable, this could be the hero you need… though unfortunately, its services come at a steep cost.Read our full TP-Link Deco BE68 BE14000 review.

Thermal Grizzly Der8enchtableOf all of our nominations, this is definitely the most 'out, standing in its field' of the wildcards. As Nick explains in his Thermal Grizzly Der8enchtable review, "It's simpl

Source: PC Gamer