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Digital Trends
31-07-2025
- Digital Trends
I bought a $180 mouse to play one PC game, and I'd do it all over again
Playing games isn't just about getting your hands on the best gaming PC — it's also about the peripherals. That's a lesson I had to learn the hard way over years of gaming and spending all of my budget (and then some) on my PC, and my PC alone. When I finally bought myself a proper gaming mouse, I went all out by spending $180 on a Razer Naga V2 Pro. I only ended up using it for one game, but I have absolutely zero regrets. I'd actually do it all over again. I've neglected my peripherals for years I'm a PC builder with nearly 20 years of experience. I've built many PCs over the years, and more often than not, I've gone over budget. What can I say, self-control is not one of my biggest virtues. Recommended Videos Overspending on the PC itself meant that peripherals were often an afterthought. I didn't have the money to spend on fancy mice and keyboards, all because all my money went toward getting one of the best graphics cards or a better processor. For years, I didn't mind — after all, having high frames per second (fps) is more important than having a killer mouse or a fancy headset. I got by with cheap peripherals for a long time, but eventually, I decided to stop spending money on cheap mice that performed poorly and broke all too quickly. I decided to start scaling up on my peripherals. I accumulated several mice through my initial testing. It took me four until I found one I was completely happy with, and that was the $180 Razer Naga V2 Pro. I bought it with a very specific game in mind, but I thought that over time, I'd end up loving it for other titles, too. That never happened, and I have zero regrets. The Razer Naga V2 Pro blew me away — eventually I've had this mouse for around a year now, and I love everything about it. But when I first got it, I came close to sending it back and asking for a refund. There wasn't anything inherently wrong with the Razer Naga V2 Pro. Rather, it was my own lack of familiarity with MMO mice that made me hesitant to start using the Naga. Having a total of 12 buttons on the side plate was intimidating, but I knew I liked the idea of it, so I've committed myself to giving it a proper try. My game of choice was World of Warcraft Classic. I no longer play the retail version of WoW, which would've justified the expense a little bit more, but as WoW Classic evolves, more and more keybindings are needed to keep up with the robust toolkit each class receives. For a game such as this, the extra keybinds provided by the Razer Naga can make a big difference in gameplay. Instead of using Shift or Control modifiers to support each new bind, I could just click different buttons right underneath my thumb. I was excited to try the mouse for myself, but when it first arrived, setting it up was a chore. I had to re-think each and every keybind, and then somehow get used to the new way to use each spell and ability. But the real chore was still ahead of me. I play multiple characters, so for each class, I had to redo the whole keybinding process in an unexpected way — I had to reorganize my keybinds in a way that I'd remember across many different characters. This resulted in a major cleanup across the board, where I tried to bind each mouse button to something that'd do roughly the same thing for each class. Spoiler alert: It wasn't completely possible, but I tried my best. Many months later, I'm more than happy with the result, but it took a lot of getting used to. I could never go back, but … After a year with the Razer Naga V2 Pro, I have to say that there's no way I could go back to not having this mouse now. My WoW gameplay is built around relying on this mouse, and giving it up would be a nightmare. With that said, I also can't imagine going through all the key-binding trouble for any other game. It takes time to set up and even more time to get used to, and as I don't play any other MMOs, I simply don't own games that would truly benefit from such an obscene amount of programmable mouse buttons. In fact, I do most of my gaming on an Xbox controller, bar WoW. If I do use a mouse, I still use the Naga (and I don't even bother swapping to a different side plate), but I don't assign all the keys to the mouse. As a result, I've essentially spent $180 to play one game. As I said before, I have absolutely zero regrets. None whatsoever. I just wouldn't do it in any other game. I consistently go back and make tweaks in my keybinds for WoW Classic: Mists of Pandaria, but I'm not going through that hassle for any game I love any less than a whole lot. It's just not worth it. With that said, if you have more time or patience than I do, you could very well make the most of the Naga in other titles. If you can see yourself needing a mouse with that many buttons, you absolutely can't go wrong with this one, so I heartily recommend checking it out on Amazon. It's $175 right now, and I'd buy it again in a heartbeat if my current one broke.
Digital Trends
27-07-2025
- Digital Trends
5 ways to upgrade your PC without spending a fortune
Without beating around the bush, PC gaming is expensive these days. Or, at the very least, it certainly feels like it is. With the prices of the best graphics cards still way too high, it might feel like you're stuck with your same old PC for the foreseeable future. Good news: It's not universally that bad. In fact, there are plenty of PC upgrades ranging from free to not-too-pricey that you can jump on today. I'm a PC builder with 20 years of experience, and here's what I recommend doing if you want to give your gaming rig a boost without breaking the bank. Better PC without spending a dime Short of your friends and family suddenly deciding to gift you PC hardware, you can't get any serious gains without spending money — but you can get some improvements. There are ways to boost your existing PC and make it run better, and some of those things can give you improvements in games. Recommended Videos This is especially true if you think that your PC seems to be struggling right now. Thermal throttling, crashes, and disappointing performance can often be addressed without upgrading the hardware — all you need is some good ol' PC troubleshooting. Start by cleaning up your PC, and by that I mean, get rid of all the random junk you've probably accumulated over time. (I know I have an alarming tendency to do that.) Uninstall unused programs, disable startup apps via the Task Manager to make your PC boot faster, and clear temporary files and cookies. Install one of the best antivirus programs and give your PC a thorough scan. Lastly, update all your drivers, including those from Nvidia and AMD. Optimize your settings, both for your PC and on a game-by-game basis. If your PC is getting old, scaling back in settings like View Distance, Projected Textures, or (duh) Ray Tracing can make a world of difference for your frame rates. If applicable, try out upscaling technologies from your GPU vendor, be it Nvidia's DLSS, AMD's FSR, or Intel's XeSS. Next, I recommend cleaning the actual hardware — a process that should be done once every few months, but often goes neglected for years. We have a detailed guide on how to clean your PC, so check it out. These won't make or break your performance, but are a good first step when you're in a pinch. And honestly, cleaning your PC can affect the temperatures in a major way, which translates to better performance. More (or faster) RAM How much RAM do you really need? There's an answer, I promise, and yet, my gut instinct is always to simply say 'more.' I always have an urge to buy more RAM, or at least faster RAM, and it's something I have to fight myself about regularly. Well, don't be like me — instead of debating, just do it. Get yourself a RAM upgrade. It's one of the cheapest ways to give your whole PC a boost — not just in gaming, but overall. Realistically, if you're already sitting at 32GB RAM, you don't need to double it. 64GB is reserved for enthusiasts and most of us don't need it, so if budget is tight, stick to your current RAM and try something else. But if you're under 32GB, that is the current sweet spot in a gaming PC, so buying extra might help your PC handle multitasking like a champ. In games, you'll likely see an improvement in loading times and overall performance. RAM speed and generation matters, too. If you're on an older motherboard, you most likely need to stick to DDR4 RAM. But if you're using an AMD AM5 processor, or an Intel 12th-gen and up CPU, you might be able to buy DDR5 — which opens up a lot of room for speed-based RAM upgrades. Older DDR5 RAM runs at 5,000MHz or less, but newer memory can easily go above 7,000MHz. Want DDR5 RAM? Check out this Crucial Pro DDR5-6000 32GB kit with reasonably tight timings. DDR4 RAM is cheaper, and you can snag 32GB of DDR4-3600 RAM from T-Group for $69. Better SSD? Yes, please! When it comes to storage, gamers can never have enough. I bought myself a 2TB SSD thinking I'd have plenty of room, and I was really wrong. I ended up buying an extra SSD just to store my games. If you don't have an SSD yet, then this is the single most impactful upgrade you can get — hands down. But, realistically, you're probably already using SSD storage. No worries, because you can still score a great upgrade for cheap. Upgrading from a SATA SSD to an NVMe drive is still going to feel like night and day. NVMe SSD to faster NVMe SSD won't feel as impactful, but you'll still shave off a few seconds from every loading screen and your Windows boot time. It helps, and SSDs are reasonably affordable these days. The drive I recently bought was the Lexar 2TBN NM790 with 7,400MB/s in read speeds, and I can heartily recommend it. If you want something smaller and cheaper, it's also available in 1TB for $68, so check it out. A new CPU could be a huge deal CPUs are impactful upgrades, but they're tricky. It's not like RAM or SSD, where you can pretty much pop them in and out of your PC at any given time. Every CPU is locked to a specific motherboard socket, which means that your upgrade path is limited to whenever the CPU vendor changes sockets. In the case of Intel, that happens often. You can generally expect Intel to switch sockets once every one or two generations. Meanwhile, AMD's AM4 platform has lasted for years, and the company still releases new CPUs made for those motherboards. The AM5 platform, on the other hand, is still new and likely not in need of upgrading. It's hard for me to give you a blanket recommendation here without knowing your motherboard, but I'll say this: Spending $100 to $200 on a new CPU might make more of a difference than you think. Most games rely on the GPU more so than the CPU, but even GPU-bound games benefit from a faster processor. The rest of your PC does, too. Have a look at our list of the best budget processors and pick the one that fits your motherboard. Steer clear of motherboard upgrades — that's neither easy nor cheap. Improve your cooling You may have followed my advice (in which case, thanks for making me feel useful) and cleaned your PC, but there's only so much you can achieve with a can of compressed air. Sometimes, you should just go ahead and upgrade your cooler to give your PC the (literal) breathing room that it needs. This will be an especially impactful upgrade if you currently have a stock cooler combined with a mid-to-high-end CPU. While stock coolers are meant to be good enough to handle the processor they come paired with, they don't quite have the power of a third-party CPU cooler. I've personally witnessed many PCs, including my own, that were completely transformed by a CPU cooler upgrade — and those aren't too pricey. When it comes to cooling upgrades, you have three options: Buy a third-party air cooler Buy an all-in-one (AIO) liquid cooler Stock up on some more case fans You can do two of those things at once, as case fans don't cost a whole lot. As far as air coolers go, I heartily recommend the Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE, which is just $37 on Amazon. It's versatile, so chances are it'll fit your motherboard, so make sure to double-check. Meanwhile, AIO coolers get a bad rep for being expensive, but you can get this 360mm Thermalright Frozen Notte model for just $55. Again, a pretty versatile beast, but do your research before shopping to make sure it'll suit your case. No matter which upgrade you go with, you might be surprised how a little investment can help your PC in a major way. While graphics cards are expensive right now, these upgrades can help you get by until things improve in that regard.
