If you're serious about gaming, you need a good pair of headphones. And if you want to communicate to your team, you're going to need a mic too. But that doesn't mean you have to drop a ton of money on something that will address both issues. So to find out which headset does the best job of marrying these two functions for less than $150, we pitted five popular gaming peripheral makers in a battle to see which is best.

One of the most personal choices for any desktop setup is the mouse. When you’re looking for a great quality gaming mouse, you’re more than likely going to be looking at it’s sensitivity – but you also want to grab something that looks great, is weighted correctly for your use and is designed with ergonomics in mind.

Over the past few months, I’ve been roadtesting some of the best gaming mice you can find and here are my recommendations.

Damn, these cans are so comfortable.

Kingston and their gaming-centric HyperX brand expanded into the mechanical keyboard market with the Alloy FPS last year and the reception was wholly positive. The slimmed-down board was designed in conjunction with professional gamers and it firmly had them in mind when crafting a product that was sturdy, reliable and portable. Now, HyperX have taken things in a slightly different direction with the Alloy Elite.

This is the HyperX Alloy FPS, a mechanical gaming keyboard. It consists of a steel frame, a printed circuit board, a plastic base, 104 Cherry MX Brown switches with red LEDs and the corresponding keycaps. It doesn't do a lot, but it does what it's made to do very well.