BEST OF COMPUTING
BEST OF CONSUMER ELECTRONICS
BEST OF COMMUNICATIONS & SERVICES
BEST OF GAMING
BEST OF COMPUTING
Best CPU Brand AMD
Winner Winner, Ryzen Dinner! AMD has edged out Intel in our Readers’ Choice poll for Best CPU Brand. The company has been gaining share on Intel since 2019 beginning with their Ryzen 3000 series chips, growing from 20% to 45% in the past three years, and then finally taking the crown in 2022 with 51% of total votes. This is a testament to the strengths of the current-gen Ryzen 5000 series CPUs. Even as you read this, AMD has just released the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, before the next-generation Ryzen 7000 series is slated for launch in the later part of 2022.
Best Motherboard Brand ASUS
Can anyone beat ASUS in the PC DIY scene? Last year, we talked about how ASUS’ share actually dropped from 62% to 54% in this category, even though it was still pretty much a landslide win for the brand. Still, it showed that users were willing to diversify into some of the smaller, niche brands such as EVGA, Biostar and ECS. This year however, ASUS’ share rose back up to 59%, eroding the votes from the aforementioned smaller brands.
Best SSD Brand SAMSUNG
Samsung continues to be the fan favourite of HardwareZone readers taking 33% of overall votes counted. SSDs don’t see too much shakeup in terms of product offerings, so this is quite a stable category. We see very similar voting trends each year with some minor movement down the line, such as Seagate and Intel switching places for 3rd and 4th spots. Sandisk gained 2% from last year, eroding Samsung’s share just slightly, but unless a major shift happens in the SSD industry, we would likely see Samsung back again next year for their 9th win.
Best External Storage Brand SEAGATE
Unlike the Best SSD Brand category, the Best External Storage Brand category is still quite hotly contested. Seagate may have managed to win this award for the 4th time running now, with 26% of total votes, but the top four brands are pretty close in the running. WD, Sandisk and Samsung have 20%, 19%, and 18% of votes respectively. Standards advancements such as USB4 and Thunderbolt 4 should provide improved performance for such devices in the next few years. We’re also seeing a greater trend in personal computing getting even thinner and lighter, which should give new use cases for external storage.
