2025 Australian PC Awards -Winners – All gear experts rain better than the rest

Keeping up with tech and trends in the PC world is our job. We do it because we love these things and because we love to share what we learn with you. So the joy of gathering with our colleagues who are locked away in a room with ‘not disturbing’ tapestry to the door for two days to discuss the year that has been, and pick what shone the brightest is basically the highlight of our tech year.

Team Techradar Overall our friends from APCAt PC gamer and PC PowerPlay To this task that we always do. We discussed every bit of technical and gear we had seen in 2024, did not always agree first, but well -founded debate led to us being absolutely sure that the winners here really deserve.

Across 25 categories that cover everything important inside a PC and what connects to it, we came with 173 finalists and from there 25 winners. Here they are, the cream of the crop for the year, the best we expect there to be. Maybe you already own something we liked here and maybe you are looking for something new – no matter what we hope this list is inspiring and useful.

Congratulations to all people behind the scenes of all the companies covered here. You’re doing a great job – Keep it up!

(Image Credit: Future)

What are the Australian PC prices?

Our prices cover all the most important categories that affect a PC, as well as our special prices:

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

Gold Award: For the best total company operating in the PC Square for 2024. This list includes all finalists across all the other categories – and has been carefully considered by our expert panel by Judge.

And of course there must be balance with all things that lead us to this year Epic Fail Award. May the most gloomy failure win!

Australian PC Awards winners 2025

The year in review: motherboard

After a large 2023, the motherboard manufacturers spent 2024 expanding their offer to AMD Zen 5 and Intels 14. Gen CPUs. On October 24, the long -standing Intel Arrow Lake (Core Ultra Series 2) launched with a brand new chipset and outlet. While Intel CPUs themselves were a disappointment, the Z890 chipset introduced a few exciting upgrades, such as increased RAM speed and extra PCI 5.0 tracks.

The benefits of upgrading to a new motherboard were somewhat tempered by the new LGA 1851 plug and the lack of a promise that it would remain compatible with future CPUs. On the plus side, most existing LGA 1700 coolers still fit. Despite this, motherboard manufacturers stepped up, with a number of excellent Z890 boards available at launch – though not many people would upgrade.

We also saw many manufacturers launch really ultra -high models as well as some interesting innovations, such as back -tied motherboards. Even the affordable boards received extra attention, with lots of budget models that offer specifications that compete well in the lower middle area.

Best motherboard manufacturer

Very praised

All finalists

Best value motherboard

Very praised

All Finalists

Best Premium Motherboard

Very praised

All Finalists

The year in Review: GPUs ؜

2024 was a very quiet year when the two main players did not launch a new graphics architecture, we are doomed to update and less updates. And that’s what we got from Nvidia in the form of the RTX 4000 Super Series Refresh. The 4080 super did not really improve the performance, but at least helped price for the then very overpriced price it replaced. With 4070 / TI SUPERS that hardly pushes the bar higher, it made it update a small Ho-Hum.

AMD didn’t make much better with just RX 7600 XT and RX 7900 GRE launch. GRE at least got customers to think with its reasonably compelling price-to-performance relationship.

Instead, it was Intel that breathed fresh air into the ecosystem at the end of the year with the launch of its battlemage architecture in the ARC B580. Offering Solid 1440p —Deown and excellent pricing was quickly reported as the entrance level GPU Subjects we have been waiting for. Although its driver overhead -deficiencies and lack of accessibility soon destroyed his reputation and ultimately made our choice for the winner more difficult than it would have.

Best graphics card manufacturer

Very praised

All Finalists

Best graphics card

Very praised

All finalists

The year in Review: CPUs

It was a busy year for new CPUs. We had a very hyped-up launch for Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite, who came out and swung with unprecedented level of battery life, but ultimately carried driver support and incompatibility soon away all the good press they received. AMD had a big fizzle of a moment with his Ryzen 9000 series Desktop Chips, which for the average Joe did not offer much more than the 7000 series. In order not to be surpassed in the disappointment of the disappointment, Intel launched his Core Ultra 200 series, one of the few where there have been performance fractions compared to previous offers!

Intel did better with its Arrow Lake Laptop Series launch, which offers good performance, better IGPU lift and great battery life, although AMD’s new APU tended to impress a bit more generally.

Of course, Apple continued to iter with the new M4 series, though it seems that Apple’s developers are running out of steam compared to everyone else.

The gain over previous generations this year seemed very small and rather disappointing in the big

Best value CPU

Very praised

All finalists

Best Mid-Range CPU

Very praised

All finalists

Best Premium CPU

Very praised

All finalists

The year in Review: Storage

Keeping your data secure while you can access them quickly is the beat that drums steadily and in the future. Despite being available for a few years now, the fast new PCIE 5.0 standard is still behind PCIe 4.0 in popularity. The newer Gen 5 drives are still expensive for comparison, heat remains a problem – leading to often impractically large cooling plate or even active cooling – and for most, PCIe 4 is massage fast enough. Helping to keep Gen 4 SSDS-Price competitive is the ever-growing market for PlayStation 5 user-upgraded SSDs.

There are still hard drives, which is about everything we can say about them. In the middle of 2024, Seagate debuted a 24TB drive intended for corporate and NAS use. Speaking of NAS – for the second year running these prices, does not include a NAS category. Once in time, we would see more new consumer NAS products every year, but the scene is deserted now, as we interpret as former NAS models that are able to perform homework perfectly adequately, and a shift in focus to enterprise for the big 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 number of new CPUs and product designs that felt really fresh and innovative. The Snapdragon X elite impressed with its performance, but struggled to sell while the latest Ryzen 9 AI chips were wonderfully powerful, but tended to run hot in slim laptops. In a happy surprise, Intels Lunar Lake Mobile CPUs found their way into some of our favorite laptops of the year.

We saw lovely 120Hz OLED screens on even very affordable machines, USB4 and Thunderbolt are standard price, but upgradable RAM is still less frequent. Maybe the pressure was finally felt goodbye to 8 GB of RAM, which made 16 GB to the standard for MacBooks – and perhaps most surprisingly they did not raise prices. Meanwhile, Microsoft built some good laptops and 2-in-1’s, but its powerful push for copilot+ was painful to look at.

Gaming laptops so few hardware changes over 2024 with the same GPUs and slightly upgraded CPUs, but impressed thanks to improved screens, refined cooling systems and great value from the Mid-Range 4060 models. On the desk front, Systems faced challenges from fluctuating GPU prices, and many owners of 13 and 14. Gen Intel CPUs found themselves where they did not choose to choose AMD. Mini Desktop PCS gained popularity, largely thanks to AMDS CPUs-and even Apple joined the fun with the M4 Equipated Mac Mini.

Best value laptop or 2-in-1

Very praised

All finalists

Best Premium laptop or 2-in-1

Very praised

All finalists

Best game laptop

Very praised

All finalists

Best stationary PC manufacturer and dealer

Very praised

All finalists

The year in review: components and peripheral units

This is by far the largest category in these prices, and understandably. Throughout the year we saw a resurgence in the popularity of CPU air coolers, powered by several new coolers that come extremely close to liquid AIO coolers at a fraction of the price -and are much less of a violin to install.

Monitors continue to be an Arnested for Innovation, where QD OLED is a leader. Screen size choices and aspects continue to be expanded. Ultrawide game screens are filling the market now, with 49in screens that appear from most manufacturers.

Keyboards continue to offer more, for more money, with super premium models that now regularly exceed the AU $ 500, and DIY kit boards are also winning space.

Case trends are moving to the ‘Aquarium’ style, which uses a glass front panel, a design popularized by the cute and is picked up by almost any other case maker. Wood is also the new cool look and we are good with it.

Wi-Fi 7 continues to pick up steam, although pricing still keeps routers out of reach for many homes. Motherboard support for Wi-Fi 7 is now common, so we hope it will help the drive against multiple Wi-Fi routers at lower prices.

Best memory producer

Very praised

All finalists

Best cooling product

Very praised

All finalists

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