Digital Foundry: The Best Gaming Hardware of 2025

The State of Gaming Hardware in 2025

This episode of the Digital Foundry podcast provides a comprehensive retrospective of the gaming hardware landscape over the past 12 months. The team dives deep into the evolution of handhelds, CPU performance, and the latest graphics card releases from NVIDIA and AMD.

Gaming Handhelds: Innovation and Challenges

Handhelds have emerged as a significant growth area, defined by powerful chips like Strix Halo and the Nintendo Switch 2. Key insights include:
• The GPD Win 5 demonstrates that high-performance, Strix Halo-powered devices are viable, delivering performance levels remarkably close to a PlayStation 5 while maintaining a handheld form factor.
• The ROG Ally X excels in ergonomics but continues to be hindered by the inherent inconsistencies of the Windows experience, leading many users to prefer SteamOS alternatives like Bazite.
• The Lenovo Legion Go S claims its spot as a leading recommendation for users seeking a seamless, out-of-the-box SteamOS experience without the need for manual configuration.
• The Nintendo Switch 2 continues to impress with incredible efficiency and the tactical use of Tiny DLSS, making modern AAA titles playable under 10 watts despite its modest hardware specs.

Processing Power and CPU Milestones

In the CPU space, the market saw a lack of exciting releases for standard users, with one glaring exception:

"The Ryzen 9 9950X3D delivered pretty much the same performance as the 9800X3D... it's an actual Halo product."

• The Ryzen 9 9950X3D stands out as the ultimate hybrid CPU, offering top-tier performance for both demanding productivity tasks and high-refresh-rate gaming.
• The team notes that the high-end desktop market has essentially folded into the consumer segment, leading to persistent struggles with constrained PCIe lanes.

Graphics Cards: Blackwell and RDNA 4

Graphics hardware saw two major architectures this year, though both had their share of market-related turbulence:
• NVIDIA Blackwell (RTX 50-series): While the RTX 5090 is an "unstoppable beast," the rest of the lineup often felt like a transitional bridge. Drivers were inconsistent at launch but improved over time, and the cards are finally becoming competitive at MSRP.
• AMD RDNA 4: This generation saw AMD finally provide a modern alternative to DLSS via FSR 4. The RX 9070 XT is highlighted as a strong Ray Tracing performer, though the team expresses disappointment regarding its availability and the lack of RDNA 4 in mobile/handheld segments.

Looking Ahead to 2026

As the team prepares for CES, they highlight expectations for Intel’s Panther Lake and potential updates from the handheld space, while voicing concern about the global memory supply crunch potentially impacting future hardware pricing and device memory capacity.