// PC GAMER — GAMING
This arse cushion is the biggest upgrade I've made to my gaming setup in 2026, which says a lot about where we're at right now
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Like many of you, I love upgrading my PC and anything to do with my gaming setup. And in my privileged position as a PC Gamer hardware writer, I often get my hands on the latest gear for the purposes of review.
But in terms of what I've spent my own cash on this year, and my own personal possessions, the biggest upgrade I've made to my gaming setup in 2026 is this cushion:
Despite appearances, this is not for legitimate medical reasons. I am afflicted with a bony arse, a critical lack of junk in my personal trunk. And gaming chairs these days have a tendency to be hard as rocks, which leave my cheeks feeling sore after a long day.
So, I gave in and bought a cushion. It's magnificent, and has improved my comfort levels at least ten-fold in comparison to the firm seat of my steely-buttocked gaming chair. It also cost me £40, because the UK listing came with a lumbar support cushion that I swapped out for one I already owned.
Which also makes it one of the most expensive upgrades I've bought this year. Because 2026 has been the year of stupendous price rises across many sectors of the PC gaming hardware market, and I haven't been able to open my wallet wide enough to pay for component upgrades. So, for the most part, I've stuck with my rig as it is.
I'm lucky enough to own a good gaming PC already, and it doesn't struggle with the games I want to play. I'm also not averse to a dose of DLSS or frame generation to help boost the frame rate in the really demanding stuff. But I have to wonder how many people are out there, like me, waiting out this pricing storm. And how long we'll wait for, before we decide to bite the bullet and pay up for a component upgrade.
Still, when 64 GB of decent DDR5 costs well north of $800, I'm really not looking to upgrade from my 32 GB kit, bought for $100 or so three years ago. My SSD is a 2 TB model, which cost me $130 at around the same time. I'd love a 4 TB drive—but when the good ones cost upwards of $400 a pop, I really can't justify it.
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Graphics cards? If I needed one right now, I'd be buying an RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB or an RX 9070 GRE, the two of the last GPUs still available for somewhat sensible money relative to their performance. Both represent good value given what's going on with GPU pricing at the moment, and I highly recommend them. But I can't believe how far we've fallen, when Nvidia's current "mid-range" option, the RTX 5070, costs $779.