
I test gaming devices for a living — here are 7 peripherals I recommend right now
While you don't need much beyond a gaming machine and a low-latency monitor or TV to really get starting with gaming, you can seriously enhance your experience with the right accessories.
I'm a tech journalist and a lifelong gamer, so I'm always testing the latest gaming gear. To that end, one of my goals is to help readers — and fellow gamers — find peripherals, such as the best gaming monitors, best PC game controllers and best gaming headsets out there.
And since it's Gaming Week here at Tom's Guide, I wanted to devote an article to serve that purpose.
If you own one of the best gaming PCs or consoles like the PS5 and Xbox Series X, I can help you find the best gaming gear. Below are the seven gaming peripherals I recommend to help take your gaming to the next level.
The Alienware AW3425DW QD-OLED is a worthy successor to my beloved Alienware AW3423DWF. This updated model now offers a faster 240Hz refresh rate and a lower 0.03ms response time for smoother gaming. It also has a more space-saving design thanks to its flat stand. You get all that with the same 34-inch 1440p QD-OLED curved display we've come to love. The fact that this monitor is $799 makes it a must-have for any gaming setup.
The SteelSeries Arctis Nova 5P is compatible with PS5, Nintendo Switch, PC, Android, iOS and Meta Quest. Sound quality is incredible, and the 360° spatial audio makes games feel more immersive. With intuitive controls, an elastic headband and adjustable memory foam earcups, the Arctis Nova 5P is extremely comfortable. It also boasts an outstanding battery life of up to 60 hours, and a 15-minute charge gives you about 5 hours of playing time. Note that you'll need the Arctis Nova 5X to use with your Xbox.
The Scuf Valor Pro packs many features you'd expect from Scuf, including an ergonomic design, responsive controls, remappable buttons and custom face plates. Though it lacks wireless connectivity and customization software, its relatively low cost for a pro controller makes it enticing.
This 55-inch Furmax gaming desk is perfect for both work and gaming. It's spacious enough to accommodate your peripherals and even a medium-sized desktop. The desk has a sturdy build that can hold up to 140 pounds. Best of all, it's easy to assemble and relatively affordable for all it provides.
The Corsair K65 Plus Wireless is an excellent 75% gaming keyboard thanks to its smooth switches, sound-dampening and programmable RGB lighting. It's also hot-swappable for good measure. Though we wish it had an aluminum frame and more distinguishing features, its $159 price tag is cheaper than the competition.
The Logitech G Pro X Superlight 2 is an incredible mouse for gaming, boasting a maximum DPI of 32,000 and a 4,000Hz polling rate so you never miss a shot. It's a no-frills mouse without any RGB lighting, a premium matte finish, and a light-as-air construction. It builds on its predecessor's strengths and delivers the ultimate gaming experience for the competitively-minded.
The Secretlab Titan Evo is one of the best gaming chairs available. Not only is it well-built and exceedingly comfortable, but it also comes in multiple sizes and materials that accommodate all buyers equally. Though it's more expensive than its competitors, it occupies the top of our best gaming chairs list for a reason. It's just that good.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Tom's Guide
an hour ago
- Tom's Guide
Exclusive: Oura VP hints at a future where ‘complementary wearables' assist your smart ring
There's no brand better associated with smart rings than Oura. Although the finger-based wearables market is barely ten years old, to get a sense of where it might be headed in the next decade, I chatted with Jason Russell, vice president of consumer software products at Oura. As part of a Tom's Guide special report on the future of wearable tech in the year 2035, my conversation with Jason ranged from harvesting body heat for device power to "integrating complementary wearables" beyond the smart ring into the brand's portfolio of helpful, holistic tech. While the Oura Ring 4 is the best smart ring you can buy in 2025, what I hoped to hear from Jason is what a theoretical Oura Ring 10 might look like. Fortunately, his predictions don't disappoint. You can find an edited version of my interview below, and for more insights into the wide world of next-generation tech, visit our In the World in 2035 hub to peer into the crystal ball and see the future of transportation, AI, robots, television, and more. Jason Russell: We expect to see longer battery lifespans in the next decade. Hardware improvements like advanced sensor technology will have a significant impact, while software enhancements — including more efficient signal paths and the ability to disable unused sensors — will also contribute meaningfully. Flexible batteries and body-powered energy harvesting are also compelling areas of future exploration. Flexible batteries have the potential to conform better to their device, enabling new form factors and comfort without sacrificing power. Body-generated energy — through thermoelectric, kinetic, or even bio-voltaic sources— is still early-stage but interesting. The challenge is achieving sufficient power density in a small, wearable footprint. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. By 2035, it's plausible that wearables could integrate hybrid energy systems that passively recharge throughout the day, vastly extending runtime and reducing dependency on charging cycles. We foresee stretching the boundaries of biometric sensing via the ring while integrating complementary wearables that together enable an even more complete picture of your health. Russell: The Oura Ring 10 will likely reflect a major evolution in both form and function. Oura continually stretches the boundaries of what's possible in biometric sensing, comfort, and wearability, and that will continue to be true. With 20-plus PhDs on staff driving cutting-edge research in cardiovascular health, metabolic health, women's health, and much more, future rings will continue to demonstrate pioneering innovation beyond what we might imagine to be possible today. Beyond our hardware, we'll also see breakthroughs in the role we play in people's health journeys. As we've already demonstrated with our recent launch of our metabolic health partnership with Dexcom, we foresee stretching the boundaries of biometric sensing via the ring while integrating complementary wearables that together enable an even more complete picture of your health. Our members see Oura as a gateway to a much deeper understanding of their health, and you can see how Oura will expand on that promise as multiple streams of health data converge — biometric signals from the ring, metabolic insights from external sensors, even contextual data from your environment or behaviors. This unified view will enable richer, more predictive health intelligence, helping people not only understand their health in real time but also anticipate issues before they arise. Russell: Mental health and stress management will become even more proactive and personalized, and we'll see AI play a larger role in this management. For example, Oura Advisor currently uses an LLM algorithm to analyze and contextualize thousands of biometric data points to provide members with personalized guidance so that they can make informed decisions about their health. In a future state, we could see Advisor using long-term trend data to proactively identify potential health issues through fluctuations in things like stress, sleep, HRV, heart rate, and more. Additionally, we see Oura collaborating with the broader health ecosystem to enhance telehealth and clinical decision-making by leveraging real-time health metrics and trends with healthcare professionals. We see a world in which Oura can help support self-management, but also prompt proactive care interventions. Russell: Smart rings of the future, including Oura, will likely track a broader range of health metrics. In the last year alone, we have significantly expanded our product offering from our original pillars of Sleep, Activity, and Readiness to now include other key areas of health, such as stress, cardiovascular health, and metabolic health. As sensors become more advanced and miniaturized, the depth and granularity of data will also increase significantly. But the biggest shift will be in how insights are delivered: instead of just showing you the data, future insights could anticipate changes in your health, offer personalized, real-time guidance, and adapt to your unique physiology and goals, making the experience more predictive, proactive, and deeply personalized than ever before. Russell: Smart rings and wearables more broadly are evolving beyond traditional wellness tools and into more comprehensive healthcare devices. In the future, they could support clinical applications like remote patient monitoring, early detection of chronic conditions, or continuous tracking of biomarkers relevant to metabolic, cardiovascular, or hormonal health. Beyond tracking, they may enable secure sharing of health data with care teams, integrate with electronic health records, or even assist with medication adherence through real-time prompts. As these capabilities grow, smart rings will increasingly serve as a bridge between everyday life and clinical care, bringing healthcare out of the clinic and into the home. There's also a potential for smart rings to play a role in more ambient, personalized experiences, such as supporting better sleep or recovery by syncing with your environment, like adjusting lighting or sound to match your circadian rhythm. Follow Tom's Guide on Google News to get our up-to-date news, how-tos, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.


Tom's Guide
12 hours ago
- Tom's Guide
Forget Verizon — one of my favorite cheap carriers is bringing back family plans
As the person responsible for evaluating the best phone carriers at Tom's Guide, I find that there's a lot to like about Visible, the Verizon-owned wireless service that offers lower-cost coverage on its parent company's network. But if there's a knock against Visible, it's the carrier's lack of family plans offering discounted rates when you add more lines. That's about to change later this month, as Visible announced a new Inner Circle program that allows groups of people to save money on their monthly cell phone bills. Best of all, the people included in your Inner Circle plan don't even need to be family members — anyone can link together their Visible data plans and reap the benefits of lower rates. Starting August 21, customers can pool together up to seven lines at Visible on a single account, with Visible offering discounts on its two premium plans for accounts with two or more people. With Visible Inner Circle, you can save $5 on the cost of either a Visible Plus or Visible Plus Pro plan, two unlimited data offerings that normally cost $35 and $45 a month, respectively. The standard Visible unlimited data plan keeps its $25/month cost, even on Inner Circle plans. Regular monthly cost Monthly cost with 2 or more Visible Inner Circle accounts Plan details Visible plan $25 $25 Unlimited data Visible Plus plan $35 $30 Unlimited data with no speed caps, fastest 5G service Visible Plus Pro plan $45 $40 Unlimited data with no speed caps, fastest 5G service, 4k video streaming The potential to lower the price of the Visible Plus plan via Visible's new family plan offering seems especially intriguing, since I consider Visible Plus to be the best unlimited data plan you can get right now. The regular $35 rate is already pretty low for unlimited data — it's a fraction of what you'd pay for comparable plans at AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon — and Visible stopped putting a cap on the amount of high-speed data you can enjoy with Visible Plus. Even modest savings of $5/month through Visible Inner Circle make a great plan already more appealing. Visible says that Inner Circle members can mix and match different plans. In this scenario, I could have three other people in an Inner Circle group, with one of us subscribed to the standard plan, while two others pay for Visible Plus and the fourth signs up for Visible Plus Pro. The first person would pay $25/month, the Visible Plus subscribers would pay $30 each for their service, and the Visible Plus Pro subscriber would pay $40. Visible Inner Circle family plans: Available August 21 @ VisibleStarting August 21, you'll be able to pool up to seven different lines of data in an account, with $5 monthly discounts on Visible Plus (normally $35) and Visible Plus Pro (normally $45) unlimited data plans. Each account can handle its own billing and manage its own account, giving you greater flexibility than more traditional family plans. Besides the discounted rates, the other noteworthy thing about Visible Inner Circle is the ability to add anyone — not just family members — to your family plan. That means anyone from roommates to distant relatives can pool their wireless plans together. Even though the accounts are connected, billing can be assigned separately, with each member of your Inner Circle responsible for their own plan. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. It all sounds very similar to the old Visible Party Pay program the carrier offered half a dozen years ago, where accounts could be grouped together for significant discounts. Visible dropped its Party Pay program as it expanded to offer more plan options, so it's good to see a similar program return, even if the per-line discounts are more modest this time around. The ability to create family plans that aren't necessarily restricted to family members will make the new Visible offer appealing to some customers when it debuts next week. That said, the best family cell phone plans I've found offer more significant discounts the more lines you add. For example, a four-line plan at Total Wireless — another Verizon-owned carrier — reduces the per-line cost of unlimited data to $27.50, totaling $110 per month. Still, in this day and age, flexibility counts for a lot, and Visible's soon-to-launch Inner Circle program certainly offers that to a wider audience than just immediate family members.


Tom's Guide
13 hours ago
- Tom's Guide
National Public Data is giving out your address and phone number — here's how to stop them
Though it has been dormant for most of the year, the website National Public Data has reemerged with new owners. As reported by PCMag, the website was well known for a major data breach that occurred last year in which millions of Social Security numbers were leaked online, resulting in a barrage of lawsuits against the former site owners, Jericho Pictures. The breach exposed at least 272 million Social Security numbers and 600 million phone numbers and after the lawsuits were filed, the site went dormant until recently when it went live again as a people finder site. Although there is nearly no information about the new owners of the domain aside from it being registered to a Florida-based VPN service called 'Perfect Privacy,' it's acting as a free search engine to let people search for information on others. The new National Public Data lets users look up anyone's personal information including addresses, phone numbers, birthdates, relatives, location, age, workplace and criminal records – all for free. While the new site claims to have no affiliation with the previous owners, they're also not very forthcoming about where they're gathering their data aside from stating that it's being collected 'from publicly available sources including federal, state and local government agencies, social media pages, property ownership databases and other reliable platforms. After the data is in our hands, we verify and filter it to make sure it is indeed accurate and up-to-date.' Now, just because they may be getting the data from legitimate sources and verifying it doesn't mean that you want them to have it or be make it readily accessible and easy to find online. If you would like National Public Data to remove your data from its site, you have that option as there is an opt out form you can use to delete your profile data. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. When PCMag tried it, they reported that it seemed as though their data was immediately removed from the site. However, it does appear that many users would likely be unaware of this option, which makes it easy for sites like this to continue posting their information online. Additionally. there are certainly data removal services like Incogni that can help you delete your online data as well as identity monitoring services that can help you monitor where you data appears online. Follow Tom's Guide on Google News to get our up-to-date news, how-tos, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.