2025 winners of the Australian PC awards: all team experts calculate is better than the rest

Maintaining the pace of technology and trends in the world of PC is our work. We do it because we love these things and because we love to share what we learn with you. So, the joy of meeting with our colleagues, locked in a room with ‘Do not bother’ attached to the door for two days to discuss the year it has been and choose what shines the brightest is more or less the highlight of our technological year.

Equipment Techradar gathered our friends from APC, PC player and PowerPlay PC For this task, as we always do. We discussed every part of technology and equipment that we had seen in 2024, not always according to the beginning, but the well reasoned debate led us to be sure that the winners here really deserve.

In 25 categories that cover everything important within a PC, and what connects to it, came 173 finalists and, from that, 25 winners. Here they are, the harvest cream during the year, the best we believe there is. Maybe he already has something we liked here, and maybe he is looking for something new, in any case, we hope that this list will be inspiring and useful.

Congratulations to all humans behind the scene in all companies covered here. You are doing a great job, keep it up!

(Image credit: future)

What are the Australian PC awards?

Our prizes cover all the main categories that affect a PC, as well as our special awards:

Excellence Award: Presented to the person, product or technology that advanced the PC more than any other in 2024.

Gold Prize: For the best general company that operates in the PC space by 2024. This list includes each of the finalists in all other categories, and has been carefully considered by our expert judges panel.

And, of course, there must be balance with all things, which leads us to this year Epic Fail Prize. May the saddest failure win!

Winners of the 2025 Australian PC Awards

THE YEAR IN REVISION: BASE PLATES

After a great 2023, the manufacturers of motherboard passed 2024 expanding their offers for AMD Zen 5 and the CPUs of 14th generation of Intel. On October 24, the long -awaited Intel Arrow Lake (Core Ultra Series 2) was launched, along with a new set of chips and plugs. While Intel’s CPUs were a disappointment, the Z890 chipset introduced some exciting updates, such as a higher speed of RAM and additional PCIe 5.0 lanes.

The advantages of updating to a new motherboard were a bit attenuated by the new LGA 1851 plug and the lack of a promise that it would continue to be compatible with the future CPUs. On the positive side, most existing LGA 1700 coolers are still adjusted. Despite this, manufacturers of the motherboard took a step forward, with a range of excellent Z890 boards available in the launch, even if not many people wanted to update.

We also saw many manufacturers launch truly ultra high models, as well as some interesting innovations, such as connected motherboards. Even affordable boards received additional attention, with many budget models that offer specifications that compete well in the lower middle range.

Best Base Plate Manufacturer

Very praised

All finalists

Best Value Base Plate

Very praised

All Finalists

Best Premium Base Plate

Very praised

All Finalists

The year in review: GPU ؜

2024 was a very quiet year, with the two main actors who did not launch a new graphic architecture, we are sentenced to update and minor updates. And that is what we obtained from Nvidia in the form of update RTX 4000 Super Series. The 4080 Super really did not improve the performance, but at least it helped the prices of the very expensive part that it replaced. With Supers 4070 / you barely pushing the highest bar, made the update feel a bit of boredom.

AMD did not work much better with only the launch RX 7600 XT and RX 7900 GRE. The GRE at least caused customers to think about their reasonably convincing price-reflection ratio.

Instead, it was Intel who breathed fresh air to the ecosystem at the end of the year with the launch of its Battlemage architecture in ARC B580. Offering a solid performance of 1440p and an excellent price, it was quickly announced as the Savior of GPU of entry level that we have been waiting for. Although their defects about the driver and the lack of availability soon spoiled their reputation and, ultimately, made our choice for winner more difficult than would otherwise be.

Best graphics card manufacturer

Very praised

All Finalists

Best graphics card

Very praised

All finalists

The year in review: CPUS

It was an occupied year for the new CPU. We had a very exaggerated launch for the Snapdragon X Elite of Qualcomm, which came out, offering unprecedented levels of battery duration, but ultimately, the driver’s support and incompatibilities soon took all the good press they received. AMD had a large sphere of a moment with its Ryzen 9000 series desktop chips that for Joe’s average did not offer much more than the 7000 series. Not to be left behind in the disappointment department, Intel launched its Core Ultra 200 series, one of the few in which there have been performance regressions compared to the previous offers.

Intel did it better with its launch of the Arrow Lautop series that offers good performance, better IGPU elevations and a great battery life, although AMD’s new APPO tended to impress a little more in general.

Apple, of course, continued to the new M4 series, although it seems that Apple developers are running out of vapor compared to everyone else.

The profits on the previous generations of this year seemed very small and quite disappointing in general, with a great duration of the battery and energy use improvements that seem to be the main name of the game this year.

Best value CPU

Very praised

All finalists

The best medium range CPU

Very praised

All finalists

Best CPU Premium

Very praised

All finalists

The year in review: storage

Maintaining their safe data while you can access them quickly is the rhythm that drums constantly. Despite having been available for a couple of years, the new PCIE 5.0 standard is still behind PCIE 4.0 in popularity. The newest units of GEN 5 are still expensive compared, heat remains a problem, which leads to heat dissipators often impractically large or even active cooling, and for most PCIE 4 people it is quick enough. Help maintaining the price of competitive gene is the growing market for SSDs updated by the PlayStation 5 user.

There are still hard drives, which is all we can say about them. In mid -2024, Seagate debuted a 24 TB unit, which is intended for the company and the use of NAS. Speaking of NAS, for the second year executing these awards, it does not include a NAS category. Once we would see several new consumption products every year, but the scene is desolate now, which we interpret as previous models capable of doing work at home perfectly properly, and a change of focus to the company for large players like Synology and Qnap.

Best internal storage manufacturer

Very praised

All finalists

Best external storage manufacturer

Very praised

All finalists

The year in review: Systems

After a slow start, 2024 turned out to be an exciting year for laptops, with a range of new CPUs and redesign of products that felt really fresh and innovative. The Snapdragon X Elite impressed with its performance, but fought to sell, while the last Ryzen 9 ai chips were deliciously powerful but tended to run hot on thin portable computers. In a happy surprise, the CPU Mobile Lunar Lake of Intel made their way in some of our favorite laptops of the year.

We saw delicious 120 Hz OLED screens on very affordable machines, USB4 and Thunderbolt are standard rates, but the update RAM is increasingly rare. Perhaps feeling the pressure, Apple finally said goodbye to 8 GB of RAM, which makes 16GB the default value for MacBooks, and, perhaps the most surprising, prices did not increase. Meanwhile, Microsoft built some excellent laptops and 2 in 1, but its heavy impulse for co -pilot+ was painful to see.

Portable games computers saw few hardware changes during 2024, with the same GPUs and slightly updated CPUs, but impressed thanks to improved screens, refined cooling systems and a great value of the 4060 medium range models. On the desktop front, the systems faced challenges of the fluctuating prices of the GPU, and many owners of the 13 and 14th CPUs were found lamenting not opting for the AMD. The PC of Mini Desktop gained popularity, largely thanks to the AMD CPUs, and even Apple joined the fun with the MAC Mini equipped with M4.

The best value portable computer or 2 in 1

Very praised

All finalists

The best premium portable computer or 2 in 1

Very praised

All finalists

Best game laptop

Very praised

All finalists

Best desktop and developer PC manufacturer

Very praised

All finalists

The year in review: components and peripherals

This is, with much, the largest category in these awards, and is understandable. During the year we saw a resurgence in the popularity of the CPU air coolers, driven by several new coolers that are very close to AIO liquid coolers to a price fraction, and are much less a violin to install.

The monitors continue to be a seedbed of innovation, with QD OLED leading the way. Choice in screen size and the appearance relationship continues to expand. Ultra -game screens fill the market now, with 49 -inch screens of most manufacturers.

The keyboards continue to offer more, for more money, with super premium models that now regularly exceed the AU $ 500, and the DIY Kits boards also gain ground.

Case trends are firmly moving towards the ‘Aquarius’ style, which uses a front glass panel, a design popularized by HYTE and collected by almost any other case manufacturer. Wood is also the new great aspect, and we are well with that.

Wi-Fi 7 continues to collect steam, although the price still maintains the routers out of reach of many houses. The support of the motherboard for Wi-Fi 7 is now common, so we hope it helps to boost more Wi-Fi routers at lower prices.

Best memory manufacturer

Very praised

All finalists

The best cooling product

Very praised

All finalists

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