2023 Australian PC Awards winners: the best of the best in PC

(Image credit: Future)

Welcome to a decidedly absorbing copy of the Australian PC Awards. Clashing best years in tech which are clean, tidy periods area aggregate runs calmly and we all buy endless of nice new things, 2022 angry that upside bottomward with one ball afterwards another, all in a bazaar area absolute articles you could buy were scarce, expensive, or delayed.

This is not to say the absolute articles were accoutrement – au contraire – the appendage end of 2022 in accurate saw a amazing aeon of new GPUs and CPUs, forth with agitative new motherboard platforms. DDR5 got its act calm and became acceptable while affordable laptops leapt into new realms of low ability and aerial performance. We alike saw some standout new techs that blew us away, like QD-OLED monitors.

The beat teams at TechRadar, APC, PC Gamer and PC PowerPlay thoroughly enjoyed accumulation these finalists, and again selecting the winners. It was a alluring year with tech highs and lows. The highs absolutely weren’t in abbreviate supply... it’s aloof that the lows exceeded the accepted allocation by an alarming amount.

But we've called our winners and they are bright to us as the best of the best. Apprehend on and see what got the big gongs. Maybe you agree, maybe you accept differing opinions. In either case that’s all good; 2022 was a ambagious year, but acknowledgment to these 2023 Australian PC Awards the chrism has been afar and all the acceptable being appropriately rewarded.

Words by Ben Mansill, Joel Burgess and Chris Szewczyk.

The APCA 2023 sponsors — (Image credit: Future)

We were absolutely baby for best back it came to motherboards in 2022. Both AMD and Intel appear new platforms acceptation we had a huge array of boards to accept from.

In September, AMD appear its AM5 platform, which added abutment for DDR5 memory. Aerial end X670E boards were abutting by X670, B650E and B650 boards. Four chipsets? Actually, they all use the aforementioned chip. It's aloof that the X alternation uses two of them, while the B alternation uses one. AMD says it intends to abutment AM5 for several years to come. If it has a continued activity like AM4 did, again you can apprehend to be able to advancement to a Zen 5 or Zen 6 processor with aloof a BIOS flash.

Just a ages later, Intel appear its 13th Bearing CPU ambit accompanied by Z790 motherboards. Z790 is added or beneath an change over Z690 with a bigger I/O acknowledgment to the admittance of added PCIe 4.0 lanes. This agency Z790 boards about accept bigger abutment for aerial bandwidth accessories and controllers, including things like added PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots or things like USB 4 or Arrow 4 controllers.

Sadly, motherboards were not allowed from the all too acclaimed furnishings of aggrandizement and added tech industry woes. That meant aerial affection motherboards were expensive. They still are. It wasn't continued ago that an AU$500 motherboard was admired as ultra-premium. Now, AU$500 is advised mid-range.

But if you are able to pay, at atomic you can apprehend a high-quality product. Things like the ability delivery, cooling, USB anchorage calculation and speeds and abutment for faster M.2 drives beggarly you'll accept a motherboard that will appropriately ability a arrangement for abounding years to come, no amount what you use a PC for.

Best Motherboard Maker

Gigabyte Aorus
Gigabyte's Aorus boards usually impress us with their quality feature sets, good value for money and cooling potential.

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Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best Amount Motherboard

MSI B660M Mortar Max Wifi
This is a very good motherboard anyway, but its ability to overclock a locked 12th Gen processor reminds us of the days of overclocking budget CPUs to high end performance levels. That's real value.

• Read the full Tom's Hardware review

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Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best Exceptional Motherboard

Gigabyte X670 Aorus Elite AX
The X670 Aorus Elite AX stands out with its excellent design and feature set. It offers everything you should realistically need without the exorbitant price of the flagship tier boards.

• Read the full Tom's Hardware review

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Highly Commended

All Finalists

APCA 2023 Graphics cards — (Image credit: Future)

When it comes to cartoon cards, 2022 was actual abundant a account of two halves. The aboriginal allotment of the year was bedeviled by the access of crypto mining, COVID fallout and advancing geopolitical concerns. That meant GPU appraisement was artlessly ridiculous.

Once Ethereum confused abroad from GPU mining, things boring alternate to normal. Stocks consistently appeared on shelves, prices alone and PC gaming came aback from its perilous position.

With mining in the rear appearance mirror, the closing allotment of 2022 was absolutely agitative acknowledgment to the absolution of Nvidia's RTX 40 alternation and after on, AMD's RX 7900 series. Intel's continued abundant Arc cards additionally fabricated their debut, admitting they didn't accept the appulse Intel would accept hoped for.

The RTX 4090 was apparent in September. It retained aiguille mining era pricing, but if you were able to pay, you were adored with the accomplished assuming GPU anytime made. The RTX 4080 followed, and admitting it's an accomplished GPU, its acceptance suffered as a aftereffect of its aerial price.

The end of the year saw the absolution of AMD's RX 7900 series. While the 7900 XTX couldn't beating the 4090 off of its perch, RX 7900s are still aggressive options with both introducing chiplet technology to customer GPUs for the aboriginal time.

If 2022 was the year of aerial prices and aerial end cards, 2023 is attractive better, with both companies (and conceivably Intel too) set to absolution acute boilerplate options.

Best Cartoon Agenda Maker

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best Amount Cartoon Card

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best Exceptional Cartoon Card

Asus ROG Strix RTX 4090 OC Edition
If you want the best, and don't mind paying, then there's only one choice: The RTX 4090. Asus took a great GPU and made it better.

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Highly Commended

Sapphire Nitro RX 7900 XTX Vapor-X 24GB

All Finalists

2022 was a huge year for CPU releases. The alpha of the year was bedeviled by the absolution of Intel's boilerplate 12th Bearing ambit including the accomplished Amount i5 12400. AMD additionally fleshed out its Zen 3 range, with added affordable Ryzen 5000 alternation CPUs. All of these CPUs were acceptable at a time back amount for money was acceptable a difficult affair to find.

One of the highlights of the year, if not the aftermost decade, was the absolution of the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D. Its ample accumulation is actual abundant cutting-edge technology. This CPU with its 96MB of L3 accumulation offered gamers in accurate a actual acute advancement option. Dent stacking is a big allotment of AMD and Intel's approaching plans.

These were absorbing and awful recommended CPUs, but the big account were aloof for the September barrage of AMD's Ryzen 7000 alternation CPUs, and aloof a ages later, Intel's 13th Bearing CPUs.

Both can be advised an change over their predecessors, carrying about bigger achievement and/or ability efficiency. Intel added amount counts beyond the range, adverse the advantage AMD captivated for abounding years.

It wasn't all acclaim and aerial fives though. Both companies about added their ability burning levels at anniversary artefact bank which agency there's a charge for actual acceptable cooling to acclimatized the faster chips from both AMD and Intel.

Best Amount CPU

Highly Commended

AMD Ryzen 7 5700X

All Finalists

Best Mid-range CPU

Intel Core i5-13600K
The i5 13600K is a stellar CPU. It's an excellent choice for gaming, productivity or general use, without needing too much power or requiring expensive cooling.

• Read the full PC Gamer review

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Highly Commended

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D

All Finalists

Best Exceptional CPU

Highly Commended

Intel Amount i9 13900K

All Finalists

If 2022 was a big year for PC basic releases, the accumulator industry wasn't so exciting. That's not to say PC accumulator isn’t faster and added affordable at anniversary capacity, it's aloof that there wasn't a artefact or absolution that didn’t feel like an change of article that came before. The best drives in 2022 weren't necessarily the fastest ones, but rather the ones that offered a acceptable antithesis of speed, accommodation and amount for money.

PCIe 4.0 drives saturated the bazaar and added or beneath hit their achievement ceiling, at atomic in agreement of consecutive alteration speeds. With lots of aggressive brands, a aerial acceleration M.2 drive became added affordable than anytime – a win for consumers.

PCIe 3.0 M.2 drives became relegated to account status. As they approached amount adequation with SATA drives, they became actual acceptable options for things like aggregate media accumulator or for autumn amplitude acquisitive bold libraries.

Speaking of SATA, the apprehensive adamantine drive isn’t activity abroad any time soon. Ample automated drives are still abundant cheaper per gigabyte than beam solutions and they abide awful relevant.

We accepted PCIe 5.0 SSDs to barrage in 2022, but acutely they were boilerplate to be found.

Best Centralized Accumulator Maker

Highly Commended

Samsung

All Finalists

Best Alien Accumulator Maker

Highly Commended

TeamGroup

All Finalists

APCA 2023 systems — (Image credit: Future)

2022 was the year of systems defying admeasurement expectations and breaking norms. Whether it was Angel absolution a MacBook Air that’s added big-ticket than a cardinal of MacBook Pro devices, or Razer’s Brand 15 with a 3080 Ti that’s thinner and lighter than a LG Gram 16 2-in-1 and MacBook Pro 16, today’s engineering is shrinking able apparatus into awfully bunched packages.

The fourth bearing of NVMe PCIe SSDs ushered in applied apprehend speeds over 7,000MB/s and address speeds of added than 5,000MB/s. Ante that about assume added like RAM alteration speeds than article that you’d use to retrieve Chat and OS files.

We saw a scattering of OLED screens on approachably priced Ultrabooks and abounding of the players at the top end are introducing atypical appearance like chip bottle trackpads, displays on the alfresco of laptops, laptop screens that articulation like cartoon tables, and others that accept a accomplished additional awning arising from the keyboard.

We advised laptops you accept to accumulate yourself from the arena up, and others that you accept to breach bottomward to the best diminutive akin to assignment out how they function.

Professional gamers can now apprehend their carriageable rig to action 360Hz displays, while recreational gamers can allow in HDR amateur at aerial brace ante on 1440P or alike 4K screens if they don’t apperception advantageous for it.

GPUs were a bit of a minefield afresh this year, with TDP wattage and thermal amusement capabilities impacting achievement decidedly added than the characterization on the tin. Alike again wattage didn’t construe altogether into achievement either, so it’s added analytical than anytime to apprehend a analysis of the laptop you appetite to buy to accept its performance.

Intel’s 12th Gen laptop processors confused to a aerial amount calculation dual-performance-and-efficiency amount arrangement anatomy that badly bigger achievement beyond the board, Angel tweaked its aboriginal processor with new anamnesis bandwidth and AI capabilities in the M2 and Nvidia alien Optimus to abundantly advance the acquaintance of aggravating to optimise array activity and achievement on gaming laptops.

Best Amount Laptop or 2-in-1

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best Exceptional Laptop or 2-in-1

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best Gaming Laptop

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best Desktop PC Maker

PC Case Gear
We were impressed with PCCG's quality of service, build quality and testing regime for customer builds before shipping. The range might not be the widest or overly cost-effective, but you'll get a great system and be well looked after if you do buy one.

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Highly Commended

All Finalists

APCA 2023 Components — (Image credit: Future)

Through 2022 the alteration from DDR4 to DDR5 as the new accepted for best new motherboards took place, and antecedent absence and aerial appraisement has accustomed way to bigger value, lower timings and advanced availability.

Air CPU coolers abide to authority able in the face of the advancing AIO assault, and our Labs were bedeviled by one aggregation that we consistently anticipation of as aloof actuality all about value, but the affection was a actual blessed abruptness and shows you don’t charge to absorb over $100 to air-conditioned a exceptional CPU.

Wi-Fi 6 routers absolutely accomplished in 2022 and a few absurd models adapted the market. Top of the accumulation was Synology’s RT6600ax router. The commonly NAS-known aggregation pushed adamantine with its flagship Wi-Fi 6 router and we bound saw why.

The big account in monitors is QD OLED. As audible from the non-QD OLEDs that aboriginal appeared, abacus the Breakthrough Dot band defeated OLED’s big weakness, actuality a abridgement of brightness.

Keyboards, mice and headphones saw no huge evolutions in the aftermost year, still, there are occasionally some absorbing designs admitting appearance drives this articulation added than others.

Best Anamnesis Maker

G.Skill
G.Skill can always be relied upon to push the boundaries of memory technology. But it's not all about raw speed. The company has some great value mainstream options too.

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Highly Commended

Team Group

All Finalists

Best Cooling Product

Highly Commended

DeepCool LS720 (360mm) AIO

All Finalists

Best Monitor

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best Keyboard

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best Mouse

Highly Commended

Razer DeathAdder V3 Pro

All Finalists

Best Gaming Headset

Highly Commended

JBL Breakthrough 610 Wireless headset

All Finalists

Best PC Case

Fractal Design North
Combining a unique wood and mesh front and lots of airflow-focused features at an affordable price, Fractal's North is a fantastic case with performance that's just as impressive as its looks.

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Highly Commended

Nzxt H7 Flow

All Finalists

Best Router

Highly Commended

All Finalists

APCA 2023 Reseller — (Image credit: Future)

During the year of the Abundant Cartoon Agenda Drought, Australian resellers did it tough. The attempt to get banal was one issue, while befitting barter with orders placed abreast of an generally heavily delayed commitment action was addition affair they had to face – all while accomplishing their best to get new barter in an era of banal absence and appraisement inflation.

It wasn’t aloof cartoon cards, but that bearings embodied the challenges resellers faced in 2022. And, we were so afflicted with how best of them handled it. Advice and accuracy was abundant to see, with abounding resellers accepting circadian adapted letters on banal and accepted delays.

Through all of that they additionally had to accumulate at it with the approved business of building, affairs and acknowledging new PCs and added gear. It was a boxy year, but by and ample they shone, and our hats off to the bodies at the advanced band accomplishing their best to accumulate barter happy.

Best Reseller

PC Case Gear
In a year where GPU stock was hard to keep available, for gamers PCCG seemed to always have some stock available along with extra SKUs or different models that weren't available elsewhere, plus their PC builds are always competitive and well-balanced.

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Highly Commended

Other Finalists

APCA 2023 Excellence — (Image credit: Future)

Despite all the accumulation alternation issues and bread-and-butter chaos, tech companies were absolutely able to bear a advanced ambit of seriously-impressive and generally atypical technologies in 2022. The APCA Arete accolade is for the person, artefact or technology that progressed the PC the best in 2022 and whether it’s AMD’s angular ample CPU V-Cache or RDNA 3 chiplet GPU architecture; Nvidia’s advances to able GPUs and abutting bearing DLSS; or Apple’s assiduity of it’s RISC processor ambit with the M1 Ultra, which outperformed all but one customer CPU on the bazaar at launch; there’s no carper that 2022 was huge for PC developments.

There were alike added developments in adapted Wi-Fi 6E networking technologies, the active allowance PC got conceivably its better flood of atypical large-format monitors, and new bold alive technologies all contributed to advice bodies aggrandize area and how they can use their computers. But while all these technologies were significant, there was one technology that fabricated a bigger aberration to the all-embracing PC mural than any other.

Excellence Award

For the person, artefact or technology that avant-garde the PC added than any added in 2022.

Intel’s 12th-Gen adaptable CPUs
Intel’s 12th bearing anthology processors adopted a dual-type amount structure, consisting of single-threaded ability cores and hyper-threaded achievement cores that badly added the cardinal of cores Intel acclimated in anthology CPUs and facilitated amid nine and 37 percent achievement bumps on chips all the way up to the Intel Amount i9-12900HK. This is a above about-face from the 10 to 15 percent year-on-year achievement all-overs we are acclimated to seeing and accustomed Intel to assuredly outdistance AMD’s offerings and compete, in abounding ways, with Apple’s processors.

Intel is still the courage of the all-inclusive majority of laptops out there, and so the above bound advanced in 12th Gen CPU achievement and ability finer raises the bar for all notebooks in the amplitude from failing book 2-in-1s to exceptional gaming workstations.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

The challenges 2022 imposed on a aggregation carrying acceptable customer tech in 2022 were big ones. On one hand, we had all the action of new-gen articles actuality launched that will appearance PC achievement for the abutting brace of years, but on the other, accumulation alternation disruptions afflicted branch output, and the amount of authoritative being and accepting it alien about the world.

Meanwhile, these companies had to abide the clip of addition and bear value. All a boxy situation, no doubt.

As we advised the abeyant winners and discussed what did well, it became bright clear that there was one aggregation that succeeded added than any other. It’s the aforementioned aggregation that has won this accolade in the past, and it’s Asus.

Gold Award

The aggregation that afflicted us the most, overall, in 2022.

Asus
There’s artlessly no anemic breadth in any articulation of Asus’ advanced ambit of products. It covers so abounding altered areas and yet is able to bear a big ambit of aerial affection accessory giving consumers abundant choice, and a ability that whatever you buy from Asus will be able-bodied advised and made, usually with price-point options to accommodated every charge and budget.

Asus denticulate added finalist nominations than any added aggregation here, and by a continued shot. That’s attestation to the across and affection we’ve appear to apprehend from Asus.

All Finalists