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Hot on the heels of the KitGuru Editorial Awards, we have just completed counting on the very first KitGuru Reader Awards! We want to thank the army of readers who took the survey – we very much appreciate the time you spent telling us your favourite products.
Since we launched KitGuru six years ago, we've been paying careful attention to the kind of hardware our audience cares about. With over 316,000 of you telling us what you love/hate over on Facebook, we looked at all of the options and decided to add in a smart spread of categories that should satisfy all of you.
And we added some new options – including sections for wearable technology as well as tablets, VR and more options for motherboards.
Methodology
On 17th November, we explained how the nominations would work, with voting in stages. KitGuru readers chose the nominees – and then voted on the best products in each category. Full details here.
Voting
From 1st December through to 20th December, KitGuru readers racked up votes on the products that they had nominated. Details here.
To make it easier to present the results, we have divided into broad categories like ‘Central Processing' for CPUs and motherboards.
We hope you enjoy reading all about YOUR selections – don't forget to let us know what we should do differently next time over on Facebook!
Central Processing covers your choice of CPU, cooler and motherboard – the kind of choices you might make when buying a bundle for a new build. While it's easy to add in a second graphics card, double your memory or buy a peripheral in the future, your choices in this category will normally last for the lifetime of your system.
The big dividers here are (a) the size of your chassis and (b) your preference when it comes to the type of cooler you want to use – air or liquid.
These are YOUR choices – so there's no editorial commentary from us. For latest pricing info on any of these products, just click on the image…
So much of what we do involves staring at a screen driven by a GPU. Graphic artists want purity of colour, while gamers will often trade serious cash for a slightly faster refresh rate. This group of winners is all about pushing the edge when it comes to visual appeal. ‘Best GPU' means the overall best processor, whereas the AMD and nVidia awards have been given to the best ‘actual cards'.
The fundamental building blocks break down along the same lines as the motherboards: Size. Each reader will have their own subtle combination of features that is perfect for their requirements and budget. We all find ourselves balancing aesthetics with how easy a given chassis is to integrate.
Then there's the power supply. Following your posts on Facebook shows that KitGuru readers are spending more and more on getting the right PSU – improving efficiency and increasing stability all the time. Here are KitGuru's reader's choices.
In the same way that a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link – so a turbo charged system is only as fast/safe as it's memory and storage will allow. We included a voting option for optical drives, mechanical hard drives and even external hard drives – alongside favourites like system memory and NAS. So which memory and storage options are most favoured by KitGuru readers?
We have two sets of products that could appear in the ‘Peripherals' section: Traditional and wearable. This section is for keyboards, mice and headsets. Later on you'll find another section for the more gadgety kind of external device, like VR headsets and fitness trackers. We put routers and sound cards into this section as well, even though a router is a group device and a sound card is normally installed internally. For now, here are the kind of peripherals you will want if you are gaming or communicating.
Even the most hardcore of enthusiast will almost certainly end up buying one kind of ‘complete system', even if that ‘system' is a smartphone. In KitGuru's Editorial Awards, we focused more on business products, but with our reader's choice of tablet – gaming is clearly important even when you're mobile or doing the couch-slouch. Here are the complete systems you rated highest.
Having covered the more traditional peripherals like keyboards and mice, here's a nod to the future. We asked you to tell us which wearable/peripheral technology was coolest and this is what you told us you love.
We asked for your opinions in 3 areas: Best product overall, best new technology and which product is best for overclockers. Here is the KitGuru reader's list of the best of the best.
What a great overview of our reader's thoughts and opinions!
We would love for you to share your ideas on what you loved/hated with this first Reader Awards article – and that's what social media is for.
With over 316,000 fellow KitGuru readers online, we encourage you to head over and share your views – HERE.
KitGuru Says: Remember, KitGuru was a founding member of the European Hardware Association – so all of your votes have now been added to the European Hardware Community Awards – the results of this massive survey will be announced shortly!
Recently I installed the BD drive wow!! Excellent display chiefly 3D effect is awesome