HWM+HardwareZone.com Tech Awards 2015: Editor's Choice - Part 2

Honoring the very best in tech

In the last few weeks, we published the results of our Readers' Choice polls, and Part 1 of our Editor's Choice articles, which focuses on the best in consumer electronics products, like digital cameras, smartphones/tablets, 4K TVs, and headphones. In this second and concluding part, we turn our attention to the best in computing products such as PC components, notebooks, and routers. Also featured in this article are the winners of our Innovation awards category, which is set up to recognize innovative products and cutting-edge technologies that emerged over the past year.

But before that, here's a highlight video and some pictures of the awards ceremony that took place on April 10:

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For your convenience, here are the video skits that we screened at our Tech Awards 2015 event, which you can also find them on our HWZ TV channel:-

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Best Desktop CPU

In early June 2014, Intel launched its 'Haswell Refresh' processors and the top-of-the-line CPU was the Intel Core i7-4790K. This quad-core, 28nm-based processor has a base clock of 4.0GHz, which can be boosted to a high of 4.4GHz, albeit this is based on the performance of a single core. The chip features processor packaging in the form of next-generation polymer thermal interface material (NGPTIM), which allows for better cooling with existing solutions, and thus resulting in higher clock speeds. Also, the new chip is equipped with additional capacitors at the back of its packaging to smoothen power delivery to the die. This Intel Core i7-4790K is the successor to the Intel Core i7-4770K.

The AMD camp didn't have an equivalent desktop CPU from its FX series, and its most powerful desktop CPU is the AMD FX-9590 CPU, with a base clock of 4.7GHz, and it features an improved Piledriver microarchitecture. However, this AMD processor was launched in 2013. As a result, we had to field the its current, top-end APU, the AMD A10-7850K.

It might seem a bit of a mismatch, but our criteria as per every other year has been to compare products launched only within our qualification period. To even up the odds, we used a discrete graphics card in our testing.

Nominees: 

• AMD A10-7850K
• Intel Core i7-4790K

And the winner is...

From our previous experience, AMD's representative managed to triumph over the outgoing Intel Core i7-4770K in graphics computing benchmarks; however, this was due to the inherent strengths of the Open Heterogeneous Systems Architecture (HSA) of the AMD chip. This time round, we paired the AMD A10-7850K with the ASUS Strix NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 OC Edition graphics card to determine its performance in a typical gaming PC rig. In return, we compared its results with a rig powered by the Intel Core i7-4790K, again using the same graphic card. It isn't unexpected that the Intel Core i7-based system pulled ahead by a winning margin in the range of 12 to 17%, with regards to the Fire Strike Extreme and Fire Strike Ultra test results.

The Intel Core i7-4790K also pulled way ahead by a wide margin for CPU intensive tasks. In a nutshell, in order to build a well-rounded desktop system or a high performance system, the Intel Core i7-4790K leads the way. The winning Intel processor features the LGA1150 CPU package and is compatible with all Intel Series 9 and Series 8 motherboards.

For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end.

Best Motherboard for Intel

According to Intel, its current 9 series chipset has two additional new features, which distinguishes it from the previous 8 series. The 9 series chipset showcases the Intel Rapid Storage Technology (RST) for PCI Express Storage, and Intel Device Protection Technology with Boot Guard. The first improvement is the upgrading of Intel RST to support storage devices over PCIe 2.0 lanes. This upgrade to the Intel RST allows the usage of two PCIe 2.0 lanes, for a maximum bandwidth of 10Gb/s. As a result, SATA Express and M.2 connectors can be found on Intel 9 series boards. That said, the latter is currently more popular. But we can expect motherboard manufacturers to spruce up their 9-series boards with more features, especially the Intel Z97 ones. As such, we rounded up the high-end Intel Z97 boards for this category that are suitable for performance computing as well as appealing to the gamers at heart.

Nominees: 

• ASRock Fatal1ty Z97X Killer
• ASUS Maximus VII Formula
• ECS Z97-Machine
• Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming G1 WIFI-BK
• MSI Z97 Gaming 9C AC

And the winner is...

For the SYSmark 2014 benchmark that packs a variety of productivity and content creation tasks, the top three boards were the ASRock Fatal1ty Z97X Killer, the ASUS Maximus VII Formula, and the Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming G1 WIFI-BK, with the Gigabyte board leading the pack. When it came to the gaming benchmark, it was ASUS Maximus VII Formula that led the way. When it came to scrutinizing these boards in our overclocking tests, only two boards stood out as we managed to operate our Intel Core i7-4970K CPU at a high of 4.8GHz on air-cooling; they were the ASRock Fatal1ty Z97X Killer and ASUS Maximus VII Formula.

For extreme overclocking, the ASUS board features CrossChill Copper hybrid-cooling solution, which allows its NexFET MOSFETs to be liquid cooled. Also, the CrossChill Copper heatsinks have fins designed for optimal heat dissipation. In terms of features, the ASUS Maximus VII Formula is comparable to the Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming G1 WIFI-BK. But the ASUS board is the only one to feature a pair of SATA Express connectors as it has a third-party ASMedia SATA Express controller. With its enthusiast feature set and high performance levels, the ASUS Maximus VII Formula is the best high-end Intel motherboard; and its reasonable price point of S$569 might sound high, but it's also justifiable when you add up all its feature options and capabilities. Here are select benchmark results from our shootout to support our findings:-

For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end.

Best Graphics Card

For the purpose of our Best Graphics Card title, we pitted the AMD Radeon R9 295X2 and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan Z, both of which represent the very best dual-GPU offering from both camps.

The two nominees for this categories are giants in their own rights. For the AMD Radeon R9 295X2, and the company has boldly gone to install a closed liquid cooling system for its reference card. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan Z from the green camp is an elusive card; not only was it beaten to the market by the AMD Radeon R9 295X2, it was also in such short supply that we failed to secure one for our testing. In the end, we had to use a pair of GeForce GTX 780 Ti cards in SLI configuration to simulate the Titan Z in operation. The GTX Titan Z has a pair of GK110 GPUs, each operating at a base clock speed of 863MHz, with a boost clock of 902MHz. The card had a whopping 12GB of GDDR5 video memory that is shared over a 384-bit memory interface per GPU. In comparison, the AMD Radeon R9 295X2 has a pair of fully-enabled Hawaii GPUs, paired with 8GB of GDDR5 video memory. The video memory is shared with each Hawaii GPU over a 512-bit wide memory interface.

Nominees: 

• AMD Radeon R9 295X2
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan Z

And the winner is...

The AMD Radeon R9 295X2 outperformed our simulated Titan Z card. Also, the AMD card has an impressive cooling system, which works quietly to keep the card's operating temperature at a manageable 68 degrees Celsius. Its red LED of the cooling fan is perfect for a PC chassis with a windowed side panel, allowing the system builder to rightly show off this winning card. Cooler, quieter, faster, and with better availability, AMD's nominee was our natural winner in this segment.

For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end.

Best Portable External HDD

If there is one thing we can count on every year is that hard disk drives can only increase in capacity. In the past year, we finally saw 2.5-inch form factor drives break the 2TB barrier. Normally, we would have just called in all the new 2TB portable external hard disk drives and called it a day. However, sensing that consumers these days are demanding more and more storage, companies such as Seagate and Western Digital have developed innovative ways to increase the capacity of portable external hard disk drives. To make the cut, this year’s nominees must have 4TB of storage and must be packaged as a single drive. Key considerations are performance, features, portability, and ease of use.

Nominees:

• Seagate Backup Plus Fast
• Western Digital My Passport Pro

And the winner is...

The Seagate Backup Plus is the winner because of its better overall showing in all categories. In terms of design, it is significantly thinner and lighter, which makes it more portable. And in terms of performance, it showed that it was not hampered by the lack of Thunderbolt connectivity as it was actually faster than its rival. Another consideration was Seagate’s useful and great Dashboard backup utility, which lets users quickly and easily schedule backups, and the fact that it works equally well on both PCs and Macs. Finally, it is also considerably more affordable. In short, if 2TB drives just don’t cut it for you, the Seagate Backup Plus Fast is the obvious step up.

For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end.

Best Solid State Drive 

2014 was an exciting year for SSDs. Thanks to falling prices, SSDs have never been more affordable and consumer adoption of SSDs is at an all time high. On the OEM side, we saw an increasing number of brands beginning to offer SSDs as standard equipment on their new machines.

This year sees eight drives competing for top honors. To make the cut, they must have been released or refreshed in the past year and must be their respective companies’ flagship model. Additionally, they must be offered in 240GB or 256GB capacities and support the SATA 6Gbps interface.

Nominees: 

• AMD Radeon R7
• Crucial M550
• Intel SSD 730
• Kingston HyperX Fury
• Plextor M6 Pro
• SanDisk Extreme Pro
• Samsung SSD 850 Pro
• Silicon Power S80
  
   

And the winner is...

The three most critical components in an SSD are its controller, memory, and firmware. And Samsung is one of the few SSD makers in the world to have complete control over all three as it not only develops its own controller and firmware, it is also one of the world’s biggest producer of NAND memory chips. This puts Samsung in a very unique and enviable position.

The Samsung SSD 850 Pro might be very pricey, but it fully justifies its high price tag. To begin, it packs Samsung’s new groundbreaking 3D V-NAND, a new type of NAND memory specially designed to overcome the limitations of existing 2D planar NAND flash to enable higher capacity SSDs for the future. This new NAND technology promises improved performance and endurance, which the SSD 850 Pro delivers in spades. Not only is the SSD 850 Pro the fastest drive we have ever tested, it is also backed by a 10-year long warranty, which is currently the industry’s longest. Furthermore, the SSD 850 Pro is backed up by Samsung’s excellent Magician utility that makes it easy to monitor the drive’s status and security settings, update firmware, and optimize performance. All in all, the SSD 850 Pro is the most well-rounded drive we have reviewed and thus worthy of our best SSD award.

*Note: Prices and ratings listed are accurate at the time of evaluation.

For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end.

Best Gaming Notebook

2014 saw the release of NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 900M series of cards. As expected, these new mobile GPUs offered a leap ahead in performance capabilities, both in games and other aspects. What was unexpected though was how NVIDIA managed to improve the mobile GPUs so much that the gap in performance between the desktop and mobile graphics cards weren't as noticeable as before. In fact, for some of the machines nominated in this category, their performance exceeded many desktops.

Last year was a banner year for gaming, with a variety of mobile notebooks launched from some of the biggest names in the business. To make the grade for this category, the notebooks have a 17-inch screen and a high-end discrete graphics engine. The notebooks were then judged on performance, portability, features, and its value to determine the winner.

Nominees: 

• Aftershock Titan V2.1
• Aorus X7 Pro
• ASUS ROG G751JT
• MSI GT72 2QE Dominator Pro

And the winner is...

Last year saw the first emergence of the Aorus name, Gigabyte's new gaming brand. While Gigabyte has been in the hardware business for a while, the company's fame has mainly come from their line of excellent motherboards and graphics cards. Gigabyte could've easily leveraged its name but instead opted to create a brand new identity solely focused on cutting edge gamer gear such as their notebooks, keyboards and mice.

The Aorus X7 Pro is nearly the perfect gaming machine. It has a 17-inch Full HD (1,920 x 1,080) display, an Intel Core i7-4870HQ (2.5GHz, 6MB cache) processor, 16GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M in SLI, and a 512GB (256GB x 2, RAID 0) SSD with 1TB HDD for storage. Those specs allow the Aorus X7 Pro to run any game, from Tomb Raider to Shadow of Mordor, on the highest graphical settings at 1080p resolution.

As with any gaming notebook, the Aorus X7 Pro also comes with a variety of connectivity options. It has both USB 3.0 and 2.0 ports, an HDMI as well as a mini-DisplayPort to output to monitors at higher resolutions. It uses Killer network connectivity to deliver the best online gaming it can, reducing latency concerns. Best of all, it was one of the lightest 17-inch gaming machines we've reviewed, weighing in at only 3kg. All of these combined to make the Aorus X7 Pro the definitive choice if you're looking for the ultimate mobile gaming machine.

*Note: Prices and ratings listed are accurate at the time of individual product evaluation.

For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end.

Best Business Notebook

Business notebooks have evolved from chunky black computers into sleek thin beauties, with lightning fast boot times, and full day battery life, all while retaining productivity and security features. But which of these enterprise Ultrabooks will emerge as leader of the herd? For this category, we looked at 13.3 to 14-inch notebooks, powered by an Intel 'Haswell' processor and running on Microsoft Windows 8.1. As we were considering enterprise-class notebooks, all of them must, at minimum, be equipped with a TPM chip for security. Additional security features such as fingerprint scanners and sandboxing software were considered plus points. 

Nominees:

• Dell Latitude e7440
• HP Elitebook folio 1040 g1
• Lenovo X1 Carbon Touch
• Toshiba Portege z30t

And the winner is...

The Lenovo X1 Carbon won us over with its superior display, slim proportions, and overall solid performance. Its WQHD display gives it a high pixel-per-inch count that is great for both reading documents and maximizing screen real estate, with excellent viewing angles for group meetings and presentations. Its setup also minimizes your need for an extra dongle or adapter; when required to project to a larger screen, it has both mini-DisplayPort and HDMI terminals, and you can also insert a microSIM card for 4G connectivity.

*Note: Prices and ratings listed are accurate at the time of individual product evaluation.

For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end.

Best 2-in-1 Notebook

Tablets or notebooks? With 2-in-1 notebooks, you don’t have to choose. As its name suggests, 2-in-1 notebooks are convertible notebooks that can “transform” into a notebook or tablet. Most of these devices have hinges that are engineered such that the display can be flipped around, whereas some others eschew the keyboard entirely for a more portable form factor.

For this category, the nominees have to be launched in the previous year and must be powered by at least an Intel Core i5 or the newer Core M processor. Additionally, it must have a 13-inch touch-enabled display.

Nominees:

• Acer Aspire R13
• ASUS Transformer Book Flip TP300
• Dell Inspiron 13 7000
• Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro
• Microsoft Surface Pro 3

And the winner is...

The Microsoft Surface Pro 3 is our undisputed winner in this category thanks to its groundbreaking design, outstanding portability, and overall versatility. It might have taken Microsoft some time, but they finally got it right. The Surface Pro 3 can indeed double up effectively as a tablet and a bona fide notebook. We like its ultra-high resolution display plus the fact that it can be spec’ed with a variety of processors for performance that matches premium Ultrabooks. It’s not perfect, of course, and we are still miffed by the fact that Type Cover is an optional accessory and that the device only has a single USB 3.0 port. However, in light of its achievements, we are willing to overlook those two points, because the Surface Pro 3 is one of the few 2-in-1 convertibles that works with very little compromises.

*Note: Prices and ratings listed are accurate at the time of individual product evaluation.

For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end.

Best AIO Color Inkjet Printer

While laser printers still lead the way in terms of print speed and throughput, today’s inkjets are no slouches either. Volume of print notwithstanding, nothing quite beats an inkjet when it comes to printing photos and graphics. And when you add more functions like scanning, copying and faxing, an all-in-one (AIO) inkjet printer can be a very useful addition to home and small businesses. We put three such inkjet multi-taskers to the test, basing them on specific criteria: besides print, copy, and scan, they must also do fax and cost under S$500.

Nominees:

• Brother MFC-J2720 InkBenefit
• Epson L555
• HP Officejet Pro 8620

And the winner is…

The Brother MFC J2720 may not be the fastest in terms of print speed, but it’s still pretty close to the HP Officejet Pro 8620, making it reasonably fast. Print quality is good, with sufficient color saturation and details in color documents. Paper handling is the best among the three, as the printer comes with two paper trays and can handle up to 500 sheets of paper right out of the box. The best part is that it can even handle A3 paper, something the other two printers are unable to do and it's not much bulkier either.

For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end.

Best Business Projector

Getting a bright projector is important if you’re buying it as a presentation tool. So for this business projector category, we requested for projectors with a minimum brightness of 3,000 lumens. We also narrowed down to those designed for conference room and classroom use, and which are priced no more than S$1,500. While they can either be using 3LCD or DLP tech, they all must have at least a WXGA native resolution (that is, 1,280 x 800 pixels) and wired networking support.

Nominees:

• Canon LV-WX300
• NEC M322W
• Panasonic PT-LW330

And the winner is...

The integrated active lens cover, the super-flexible 1.7x zoom lens, the USB Viewer function for presentations sans a computer, two HDMI inputs, variable audio output, the provision of mobile apps for wireless communication - these features aren’t new to NEC’s data projectors, but collectively, they continue to set its M series apart from the competition. For nerds, the M322W’s use of a DLP engine (instead of 3LCD) can be a stumbling block, but thankfully, we found the difference to be small. If anything, it’s more than made up for by the excellent data quality, useful software features, and ease of use. If we’ve any gripes, it would be its large size, which renders it less suitable for those who place portability above all else. Also, a 3,500-hour lamp life under normal use is a tad on the low side.

The Panasonic PT-LW330 is also a pretty good choice. With its high brightness, sharp text, and vibrant colors, it rarely puts its foot wrong in our data projection tests. Of course, to hit the lower price point, it's missing some of the NEC M322W's features. For example, it doesn’t support a wireless connection, and the lens has a fairly limiting 1.2x zoom ratio. The newer Epson EB-W28 isn't featured here as it didn't make it in time for our testing cut-off date.

For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end.

Best Wireless 802.11ac Router

Last year we saw a major new development in home networking, the arrival of the first 802.11ac Wave 2 routers. Briefly put, 802.11ac Wave 2 promises faster overall performance thanks to its higher maximum theoretical throughput and the inclusion of support for MU-MIMO (Multi-User Multiple-Input Multiple-Output). To make the cut for this year’s Tech Awards, the router must be launched in the previous year and must be an AC2400 class router, capable of supporting up to 1,733Mbps on its 5GHz band.

Nominees:

• ASUS RT-AC87U
• Linksys E8350
• Netgear Nighthawk X4

And the winner is...

Impressively, ASUS has established a reputation for making fast routers in a short span of a few years and its latest flagship, the RT-AC87U router builds on this tradition by offering a strong combination of performance and features. On the performance front, the RT-AC87U consistently exhibited high speeds across all of our tested ranges and over both 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. And it has a rich feature set, boasting technologies such as Adaptive QoS and AiProtection. We also like that it has built-in cloud storage functionality via its AiCloud 2.0 feature. Furthermore, we like its aggressive and highly angular design, which is very fitting for a router packed with all the latest router and networking technologies. Here's a snapshot of results from our performance testing:-

For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end.

Innovation Awards

Four Innovation awards were also given out this year, with the aim of recognizing innovative products and cutting-edge technologies that have emerged during the eligibility period. The winners are Apple, Casio, Intel, and LG.

Apple iMac with Retina 5K display

Apple has always been one to push the boundaries of what is possible with technology and its new iMac with Retina 5K display did just that. Mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets have had high pixel density displays for years now, and it is refreshing to see Apple offer it on their desktop iMac systems. In true Apple fashion, they decided to go all out and fitted a 5K resolution display on their iMac. To put this into perspective, know that 5K resolution actually has 80% more pixels than 4K. That is a lot of pixels. Despite the cutting-edge display, Apple has also managed to keep the machine thin and light. And perhaps most impressive of all is that all these are achieved while keeping costs relatively reasonable - the Retina 5K iMac only costs slightly more than standalone 5K display monitors.

Additional read: Review.

Casio Exilim EX-FR10

With its rugged looks and unconventional design, you may be tempted to think of the Exilim EX-FR10 as an action camera, and it certainly can be used as such, with its assortment of supported mounts and straps. Casio however, prefers to think of it as a freestyle camera, meaning you can literally use it for any purpose and occasion. While lens-style cameras aren’t new, having a modular camera that’s controllable (with live-view) while being mounted literally anywhere certainly is. Add to that features like interval shooting, make-up mode and in-built image stabilization, and you certainly have one interesting camera.

Additional read: Shooting experience with the Exilim EX-FR10.

Intel Edison

The Intel Edison module features a 22nm Intel SoC that includes a dual-core, dual-threaded Intel Atom CPU at 500MHz and a 32-bit Intel Quark microcontroller at 100MHz. Pairing this SoC with accompanying development platforms like the Arduino breakout kit, will allow for rapid prototyping of products that may be successfully enmeshed to the Internet of Things. For developers and tinkerers, it's their toolkit to productize their ideas. According to Intel, your imagination is the only barrier between you and your invention, and Intel Edison will enable you to bring forth your best!

Addition reads: Related Intel Edison articles.

LG 65EC970T 4K OLED TV

The EC970T has a 3,840 x 2,160-pixel panel that offers four times as many pixels as a 1080p set. But being a 4K TV alone isn't enough to land our Innovation Award. Not even if the panel is curved, which the EC970T is. The most impressive feat of LG's current flagship is that it's a curved 4K TV that uses OLED technology. From a technical perspective, this in theory will give the TV an upper hand in areas of color, black level, motion, and contrast when pitted against other 4K TVs that rely on LED backlighting. Being the sole maker of large OLED panels these days, it's no hyperbole to say that the EC970T can only come from LG.

Additional read: Local launch announcement.

References

For a full list of content related to the HWM and HardwareZone.com Tech Awards 2015 event, you can refer to the following links:

• Tech Awards 2015: Readers' Choice Results
• Tech Awards 2015: Editor's Choice Results - Part 1
• Tech Awards 2015: Editor's Choice Results - Part 2 - this article
• HWM+HardwareZone Tech Awards 2015 Microsite

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