Shadowing Practice: The best (and worst) setup upgrades. - Learn English Speaking with Video

What gaming hardware actually makes a difference?

I've played on the best stuff out there, the fastest keyboards, the lightest gaming mice,

700 hertz monitors, but what actually makes your setup more responsive and fun to play on?

And what's just a waste?

I want to rank basically all of the stuff here that I test in order of importance, and I want to attack this from a kind of competitive gaming setup point of view,

since that's what most of this is targeted towards.

The very top of the list, I am putting your GPU.

If you want the most responsive feeling setup with the highest frame rate and the lowest latency, it all starts here.

If you're the guy with like an RTX 3060, but you've got like 20 different mouse pads, we have a problem.

It's interesting because for eSports gamers, I often see GPU upgrades pushed aside.

These games are easy to run, typically run on low graphics.

As long as you're getting like 240 frames, there's no more improvement to be made, right?

Well, what if I told you that even in these games, even at the lowest settings, you do actually get lower latency all the way up to an RTX 5090.

Even if you're only playing on a 240Hz monitor, having a GPU that can render 360 or even 500 frames per second,

what ends up being displayed on your monitor is a more recent frame, creating a lower latency experience.

That means enemies will appear on your screen sooner, and all of your inputs will feel closer to real time.

Now CPU bottlenecking is a real thing, we'll get to that in a minute, and some games do just have frame rate limitations,

but this is still the base and core of a good responsive setup.

This is both obvious and very underrated at the same time I think, because it's no surprise that a faster GPU is faster,

but I think a lot of people believe the performance is hard capped when that's not really the case.

Now I'm not telling everyone to go out there and buy an RTX 5090,

that is absolutely insane, but a powerful GPU is easily the biggest needle mover in having a low latency responsive feeling setup.

The next most important upgrade, in my opinion, is your monitor.

Again, before we even start talking about your inputs, you have to be able to see the game in its purest, lowest latency form, and the most important spec here by far is the refresh rate.

And believe it or not, there is visible improvement all the way up to 540Hz, 600Hz.

I've even tested 720 which looks mental.

I would say around 500 hertz, it really becomes impossible to discern the individual frames in the game.

You know, the game looks so smooth that enemy targets look like they're moving in slow motion, and you can see the tiniest details in character animations.

You never feel visually overwhelmed or that you have to refocus your eyes.

I would say, after testing a bunch of different monitors

that 360 hertz is kind of at that point where there is diminishing returns

and then 240 hertz anything below that you really are missing out on the benefits of high refresher gaming.

Now this does not mean that 540 hertz monitors are pointless.

I often see people calculate the latency difference of a single frame at 360 hertz

and 540 hertz and the difference is like under one millisecond.

And then they say that it's not possible to feel that difference.

And I would agree.

But a better way to think about gaming monitors is in terms of smoothness, simply the amount of frames that you're getting.

And even 540 versus 360, that's 50% more frames packed into the same second.

You are absolutely going to see and feel that difference.

And then at spot number three, I would actually put your keyboard.

I think this is kind of interchangeable, this spot, you know, between keyboard and mouse, but I thought about it a bit and I think keyboard is a little bit more important.

Specifically, upgrading from a mechanical one to an analog one.

That is like easily the next biggest buff that you'd make to your setup.

You want the time delay between pressing a key input and seeing that action on screen to be as short as possible.

Mechanical keyboards have actuation points that are roughly halfway down the switch, so there's physical latency from the physical travel when you start pressing and releasing the key.

And it's way longer than you think.

An analog switch on the other hand can activate and reset virtually instantly as soon as there is physical movement.

Now a wooting keyboard would be the top tier option here

but these days you can get your hands on this tech for pretty cheap.

The Fun60 from Monsgeek for example will only set you back 28 bucks

and is worlds better than any mechanical gaming keyboard on the market.

I've played on this one, it feels very responsive, I didn't encounter any glitches.

If any of you guys have one, maybe let me know how it's holding up.

I would still recommend the Wooting if you want the best calibration, build quality, and the most features.

Disclaimer, I have a custom case and keycap set with them, but still, after years of using and recommending the Wooting 60,

I do not see any other keyboard beating them on the total package.

If you know of any, please let me know.

But yeah, whether you're buying a Wooting, a Razer, a Monsgeek, or another well-tested analog board,

The speed of these over a mechanical switch is ridiculous and it's a night and day upgrade.

And then at spot number four, I would put your mouse.

This might surprise some of you since I made my own mouse and I've been working on it quite a bit.

You'd think I'd rank this a lot higher, but no, it's up there.

But in terms of actually improving your setup, improving the responsiveness and objective improvement of your inputs,

you're definitely better served by first reducing the latency as much as possible from your GPU, your monitor and your keyboard.

So again, if you're the guy with like 15 different mice, you're $1,000 deep into finding the right one, you've been trying different shapes, trying to improve your aim,

you legitimately might have better aim if you just upgraded your GPU or your monitor and reduced your actual end-to-end latency.

The problem though, for everything else I've listed on this list, there is pretty much a best clear option.

The best GPU is a 5090, the best monitor probably 540Hz OLED.

The best gaming mouse is kind of for you to figure out.

Generally lighter mice are easier to aim with, they respond quicker to your hand and arm movements

and they're easier to be more precise with micro movements

but they also become more compromised in terms of shape and grip style the lighter you go.

My recommendation as a general end game is to use the lightest mouse that you can grip comfortably.

I don't believe there is a cutoff point where you stop feeling the benefits of lower weight.

I've used mice as low as 14 grams

and I can tell you it feels way more in sync with my hand inputs than anything else.

Heavier mice are going to filter out a lot of those small movements and inputs because they need more force to move.

If you have bad or shaky aim that can actually be a good thing until you get better.

And then next up we've got your CPU

and the best way to think about your CPU in terms of gaming is the exit of a funnel.

So your GPU is pouring in all of the frames and your CPU has to let them pass.

The stronger your CPU is, the wider the exit of that funnel and the more frames get passed, the higher the performance.

This is absolutely not how it works, by the way.

In fact, it's kind of the reverse of this, but in terms of visualizing the CPU as a bottleneck, this is pretty accurate.

A Ryzen 3600 in CS2, for example, has no performance increase at all between an RTX 3060 and a 5090.

That is pretty insane.

Then we upgrade to a 5800X 3D, we get some good scaling up to a 4070, but then it's bottlenecked again.

A 7500X 3D opens up things a bit more, and a 9850X 3D even more still.

So just upgrading your CPU is not going to net you a massive performance gain alone, especially if you're only upgrading between one or two generations,

but the faster that the GPU is that's paired with it, the more important this becomes.

When we look at the same benchmark but with now GPU usage, we can see just how much the GPU is being held back.

The weaker your CPU is, the earlier you'll see GPU utilization start to drop off

and this is a really good way to see if your system is CPU bottlenecked.

Download something like Nvidia FrameView and take a look at GPU usage.

If it's below like 90% and the game doesn't have a frame rate limit, then that indicates a bottleneck.

Now, something I find really interesting about this graph is where the 9850x3D is paired with the 5070.

It actually beats the 5800x3D and 7500x3D when those are paired with a 5090.

So how can this be?

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A 5070 setup beating a 5090 setup.

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After all, I said the GPU was the most important thing.

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Well, actually, it still is.

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Although the frame rate is bottlenecked, PC latency actually keeps improving.

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Although the GPU can't push out as many total frames because it's held back by the CPU, it can still render them faster and get it to your display quicker.

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So upgrading your GPU no matter what always results in a lower latency experience, but in terms of improving total frame rate, CPU can still be very important.

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Mousepads are next on the list.

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In terms of a serious gaming setup, I would put them somewhere in the middle.

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Some people use the same mousepad their entire life, others have a mousepad addiction.

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This is easily the most it depends part on this list because there is definitely no one best mousepad.

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Currently I'm testing out the new Razer Atlas Pro which seems pretty good.

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I'm also a big fan of the Skypad 4 by Wallhack

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which is my staple and I do think if you mostly play tracking based games, again personal opinion, glass mousepads with a nerdy gaming sleeve is an extremely consistent

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low-friction aiming setup that's basically as close to raw input as it gets.

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There are a million mousepad brands out there.

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They're all selling, you know, pretty similar stuff.

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Finding the texture and glide and resistance that you play the best on is important, but also try not to overthink it

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because there is a lot of stuff out there that is just more than good enough.

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Then getting towards the back of the list, I would put your headphones.

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If you wonder why I don't really review much audio gear anymore.

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This is pretty much why.

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In terms of actually improving the responsiveness and enjoyment of your setup, maybe this is more of a personal opinion and experience thing.

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I can't sit here and say I've tried multiple thousand dollar audio setups.

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Is it fun to try different headphones?

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Are there differences in levels of soundstage and comfort?

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Absolutely, but nothing I've tried has turned me into a gaming god or a bot.

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In fact, one of the worst gaming headsets that I've tried, the HyperX Clouds, is one of the most popular gaming headsets used by pro players, so I guess that says a lot.

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Quick mention on RAM or memory, this goes towards the back of the list as well.

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Definitely not worth prioritizing given the ridiculous prices at the moment.

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I don't have any recent testing to show you on memory speeds, but every time I've tested it in the past, I've been disappointed in the tiny differences of performance.

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If you're on an AM5 platform, I would grab a 32 gig, 6,000 megahertz kit and call it a day.

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But yeah, if you're looking to improve your setup, these are the things where I would focus the most time, energy, and budget.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing Practice: The best (and worst) setup upgrades. - Learn English Speaking with Video

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