Now more than ever, Australians need expert guidance to help navigate the world of technology. Choosing tech you can trust is critical in this fast-moving world, where products and pricing are evolving rapidly. For anyone that uses a PC – be it a desktop, laptop or tablet, and whether that’s for gaming, creating or productivity – any investment in new gear today needs to be well informed.
To meet that need, the team has expanded the annual TechRadar Australian PC Awards to include more major tech products than ever before. Now covering 40 categories, the experts that actually test the gear have rated the products and services from the past year and singled out the very best of the best.
From PCs and all the essential components that go inside them, to everything that connects to a PC including monitors, keyboards, mice and headphones, through to exciting new tech like handheld gaming PCs and essential services like the best NBN for every type of user – we’ve highlighted the devices and services we reckon Australians should consider above the rest.
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What’s new this year?
To cover every base that matters to you, we’ve added 13 new categories to the TechRadar Australian PC Awards!
Among these are all-new Internet awards, covering the best NBN provider for Budget, High-speed and Gaming, as well as the best NBN provider overall. The Australian TechRadar team has enormous experience in testing and rating the best NBN deals on offer, and the winners they’ve picked will bring you the performance and value you expect.
We’ve also gone deep into adding more monitor categories, as this is one of the most popular PC products on TechRadar and the pace of change in display tech is incredible. Now, we have awards for the best in Everyday monitor, alongside Gaming and screens for Creators and Professionals.
We’ve added more components to the Awards too, and refined a few existing awards to be more relevant today.
Antivirus and complete Security Suites is another new addition. Once again, the TechRadar team knows its stuff and covers PC, Mac and mobile security year-round.
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Our mission is to help you choose the best gear and services for your life, whether for business or pleasure, and we reckon we have more experience and expertise than anyone else to do just that! These Awards leverage the combined knowledge of the Future Publishing network, which brings together the experts in every area that of technology that matters.
Here they are – The TechRadar 2026 Australian PC Awards finalists!
Where possible, we’ve linked to the most relevant online coverage from across the Future network for each finalist, to help you find out more about why we like them so much.
(Image credit: Future)Finalists: Best motherboard makerFinalists: Best AMD motherboardFinalists: Best Intel motherboard
(Image credit: Future)Finalists: Best graphics card makerFinalists: Best budget graphics cardFinalists: Best premium graphics card
(Image credit: Future)Finalists: Best budget CPUAMD Ryzen 200 seriesAMD Ryzen 5 9600AMD Ryzen 5 9500FAMD Ryzen 7 7500X3DAMD Ryzen 5 5600FIntel Core Ultra 5 Processor 245Intel Core Ultra 5 Processor 235Intel Core Ultra 5 Processor 225Intel Core Ultra 5 Processor 225FIntel Core Ultra 5 Processor 235UFinalists: Best mid-range CPUAMD Ryzen 7 9700FAMD Ryzen Al 7 350Intel Core Ultra 7 Processor 265Intel Core Ultra 7 Processor 265HAMD Ryzen Al Max 385Finalists: Best premium CPUAMD Ryzen Al Max+ 395AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3DAMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 9995WXAMD Ryzen 9 9955HX3DIntel Core Ultra 9 Processor 285Intel Core Ultra 9 Processor 285HX
(Image credit: Future)Finalist: Best internal storage makerFinalists: Best external storage makerFinalists: Best NAS
(Image credit: Future)Finalists: Best budget laptop or 2-in-1Finalists: Best premium laptop or 2-in-1Finalists: Best gaming laptop
(Image credit: Future)Finalists: Best desktop PCFinalists: Best handheldFinalists: Best tabletFinalists: Best retailer for PC enthusiasts
(Image credit: Future)Finalists: Best memory makerFinalists: Best air cooling productFinalists: Best AIO cooling product
(Image credit: Future)Finalists: Best monitor makerFinalists: Best productivity monitorFinalists: Best gaming monitorFinalists: Best creator/pro monitor
(Image credit: Future)Finalists: Best keyboardFinalists: Best mouseFinalists: Best gaming headsetFinalists: Best caseFinalists: Best router
(Image credit: Future)Finalists: Best NBN Provider: OverallFinalists: Best NBN Provider: BudgetFinalists: Best NBN Provider: High-speedFinalists: Best NBN Provider: GamingFinalists: Best Security Suite
(Image credit: Future)
For the person, product or technology that advanced the PC more than any other in 2025.
Finalists: ExcellenceGabe Newell: Not selling outAI everywhere: For better or worse…Intel Arc B-series (Battlemage): An actually competitive GPU alternative to Nvidia and AMDAMD Radeon RX 9000 series: Made mid-range GPUs interesting againValve: Steam OS is advancing Linux gaming in huge strides. Microsoft is worriedAMD Strix Halo: One of the best mobile chips in yearsMSI: Project Zero made cable-hiding stealth boards a successNvidia: Never gave up on CUDA, now it drives most AIARM: Slowly but surely taking on every kind of processingQD OLED: High refresh rate, high PPI, falling cost
(Image credit: Future)
The company that impressed us the most, overall, over the past year
Finalists: Gold
Every company that has a product or service that was selected as a finalist in this year’s Awards is automatically in the running for the prestigious Gold Award.
In addition, the editorial team may give the Gold Award to a company that is not a finalist here, but that we feel deserves the big prize. The Gold winner – along with all other TechRadar 2026 Australian PC Awards winners – will be announced on March 15th!
(Image credit: Future)Finalists: Epic failApple: Apple Intelligence is the gift that keeps on not givingAI: Overpromising and under-delivering for the consumer, causing the RAM apocalypse. AI slop. Grok deepfakes. And more…Borderlands 4: Game runs poorly but Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford said it’s “pretty damn optimised”, “Use DLSS. It’s great”.Cloudflare outage: Wiped many websites and services offline. Too much of the internet is dependant on it!Intel: Still hasn’t properly dealt with Raptor Lake issuesMemory shortage and price surge: AI driven insanityMeta AI stage fail: Zuck’s glasses failed to work live on stageMicron/Crucial: Abandoning consumers at their time of needMicrosoft: Multiple windows update fails, Agentic AI integration, efforts to kill Windows 10, including updates that brick your SSD!Nvidia: RTX 5000 series launch, melty connectors 2.0, crappy drivers, outrageous pricingOptus 000 outages: People died, nuff said