About
Min-maxing is a habit borrowed from RPG character sheets: put every point where it pays, waste nothing on stats that do not move the outcome. Applied to gear, it means finding the price where performance stops scaling. Most categories have a $20 to $60 product that lands within a few points of the flagship. Our job is to name it and show the math.
Every product on a sheet gets an MMX score, a street price and a value index. The copy stays out of the way. If a $19 set keeps 94% of a $320 set's score, that sentence is the review.
How the numbers work
| MMX score | Editorial bench, 0 to 100, scored within its channel. A 90 mouse and a 90 IEM are not the same thing. |
| $ / pt | Street price divided by MMX score. Lower is better. This is the column that ends arguments. |
| Value index | Points per dollar, scaled so the channel's best ratio equals 100. The yellow bar. |
Data status: v1 runs on demo pricing while live price feeds and affiliate programs come online. Scores are editorial and set before any link exists.
Independence
Picks are data-driven. Links may earn commission. Nobody pays for placement. Rankings are computed from score and price, then the links get attached. Never the other way around.