We asked, you answered. Here are the results of the Vortez Best Of 2012, as voted by YOU the reader. Click to find out the winners!
Once again it’s come around to that time of year where you decide which products we reviewed in the last 12 months have been your favourite. You may have liked them due to their raw performance, extensive feature set or our of this world styling, but there has to be a winner for each of the ten categories shortlisted this year.
If 2011 was a markee year for performance milestones and huge innovation, 2012 will become known for refinements to excellence, where product ranges have been tweaked to near perfection after listening to customer and reviewer feedback. Once again there are some clear winners, with some surprises and disagreements along the way, but without a doubt they are idiosyncratic to the Vortez community.
Best Of 2012 – CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K
A bitter struggle between two Intel CPUs was finally won by the Quad-core unlocked i7. Intel’s Ivy Bridge Architecture was released in late April and built on the immense instructions-per-clock improvements seen in the Sandy Bridge generation of CPUs. The new 22nm architecture reduced TDP and tweaked IPC upwards, but the largest gains were seen in the graphics modules, which saw huge strides for integrated graphics to be built on in 2013. Paired with the latest Z77 motherboard, there is surely no faster enthusiast level gaming set-up on the market right now.
Best of 2012 – CPU Cooler: Corsair Hydro Series H100i
In a dominant performance the Corsair H100i takes the mantle of Best CPU Cooler from its predecessor the H100. Released in November, we initially wondered if the H100i was a mere cosmetic update to already exceptional H100; it would have been difficult to be more wrong. David stated outright that it “outperforms anything we have yet tested,” and that covers a substantial number, but air and liquid. With the radiator mounting limitation swiftly ceasing to be a factor thanks to the latest range of PC chassis, voters could not be put off. It achieved a Gold Award in testing, and goes on to win Best CPU Cooler 2012.
Best of 2012 – Motherboard: GIGABYTE X79-UP4
Designed for Intel Sandy Bridge-E CPU’s, this Socket-2011 motherboard was one of the most affordable in the range. It’s designed to be very much a workhorse in the theme of Sandy Bridge-E as a whole, but has top-notch black and grey aesthetics usually seen on much more high-end models. The UP4 was also supported by GIGABYTES Ultra-Durable 5 technology, promising durability and longevity as well as excellent stock performance; new BIOS updates have also improved overclocking potential following our review. The X79-UP4 is a great starting point for a more affordable Sandy Bridge-E system.
Memory, Peripherals And Audio
Best of 2012 – Memory: Kingston HyperX Beast DDR3 2400MHz
This years Kingston HyperX Beast’s crossed the finishing line first to pick up our reader award for best Memory, beating out stiff competition from GSkill, Patriot and Kingston’s own HyperX Predator DIMMs. Rich identified its sublime performance in December’s review of 32GBs of quad-channel DIMMs, also highlighting the heatsink style as a bright-point for those seeking a particular look for their system internals. Now if only they released them with a black PCB, Rich could retire happy.
Best Of 2012 – Peripherals: Tt eSPORTS Level10 M
Thermaltake and BMW DesignworksUSA bring a touch of class to the proceedings with the Level10 M gaming mouse, part of the Tt eSPORTS stable. Crafted for those who want something unorthodox, but with performance matching its gaming credentials, the Level10 M threw down a gauntlet in October thanks to its engineering excellence. Whispers of new Level10 products are on the horizon, and we can’t wait to see what the future may hold in this novel collaboration.
Best Of 2012 – Audio: ASUS ROG Xonar Phoebus 7.1
Thanks to some remarkably strong audio products reviewed this year we took the decision to spin it off into a separate award category. Just reaching a shortlist was difficult enough, with many exceptional products still left in the cold outside the top five. Taking a resounding victory however is the ASUS ROG Xonar Phoebus 7.1, a soundcard which Tony deemed to be the best possibly option for a gamer currently on the market which absolutely deserve to be paired with excellent speakers and headsets.
SSDs, Graphics Card and Power Supplies
Best Of 2012 – SSDs: Kingston HyperX 3K
2012 has been a tumultuous year for SSD manufacturers. With raw speeds plateauing the focus has shifted to two other key metrics – IOPS and price per GB; it is in the latter of these categories that our next winner excelled. In April the Kingston HyperX 3K was the first performance SSD in our labs to break the £1 per GB barrier, and was a watershed moment for gamers who may have previously felt priced out of taking advantage of the massive performance boost SSDs bring to the table.
Best of 2012 – Graphics Cards: GIGABYTE GTX 680 Super Overclock
Could the award for best of 2012 truly go to any other card? NVIDIA and AMD designs have been nip-and-tuck all year for performance, and it took a jaw-dropping card design from GIGABYTE to eliminate any signs of pragmatism and go all out. The GTX 680 SOC was dominated by a huge bespoke heatsink dubbed the Windforce 5X, which cooled a GPU with pretty hefty factory overclock and left more room at the top-end. Taking top spot in our single GPU performance charts, the Elite GTX 680 SOC is a testament to occasions when heart, rather than head, has dictated product design.
Best of 2012 – Power Supplies: Corsair AX i Series
Corsair are the second manufacturer to gain two Best Of… awards this year. Following the success of the Hydro Series H100i is the latest in Corsair PSU range, the AX i-Series. Dave tested the AX1200i, an immense fully-modular PSU designed to take an overclocked triple CrossfireX/SLi system and come back for desert. Just as impressive as the loads it can bear are the nonchalant way it deals with these loads; fans barely reach whisper-quiet even at 87% load, and below 30% it can run totally passive. 80+ Platinum efficient and also sporting Digital Corsair Link diagnostic tech., the AX 1200i can add this readers award to the exceptionally rare Editor’s Choice David was forced to give it.
Cases and Final Thoughts
Best Of 2012 – Cases: Cooler Master COSMOS II
One chassis above all others stood out this year. A daunting edifice of steel and aluminium, precision engineered and with imposing finish, the COSMOS II was probably the most eagerly awaited chassis on the previous year. Surpassing the original COSMOS wouldn’t be easy, but Cooler Master proved that they were up to the task with a chassis which is exceptional for water cooling any high-end system. The aspirational factor may have been key for the COSMOS II as it won our Best Case of 2012, beating out stiff competition from the likes of Fractal Design and BitFenix.
Final Thoughts
Following the bumper year for PC components and peripherals that was 2011, 2012 had its work cut out to surpass it. Key areas of visible progress were in the realms of PC chassis and peripherals, where quality and value was exceptional and provided something for all tastes and budgets. As companies in the industry mature so are their audience, and increasingly designs are embodying this maturity. This ethos is best reflected in the Tt eSPORTS Level10 M, which for all its gaming credentials remains an aesthetic show-piece at home in a LAN or design studio. Intel has continued its CPU and motherboard dominance, whilst AMD and NVIDIA are locked tight trading blows in the GPU arena on both value and performance measures. It is unfair however to pick specific manufacturers, all should be praised for the progress they have made in a mere 12 months.
We’d like to thank our sponsors for this years awards: Enermax, Cooler Master, Corsair and Tt eSPORTS, and more widely all the manufacturers and associated partners who supply us with products to review for you. We may often disagree and not rate their products as highly as they believe we should, but they are also in the main unflinching in the face of constructive criticism and willing to give their own time whenever problems with pre-release products arise.
Finally – as we like to do every year – we’d like to thank you, our readers. We do our best to bring you the latest products with an unbiased eye, yet for all the cool technology which comes through our doors without a consistent readership we couldn’t continue. All comments and feedback are valued so don’t hesitate to leave them, and we will endeavour to bring you even more exceptional products in 2013.
Winners
benzeman (CM Storm Scout II)
Jacksb4 (Enermax Platimax 850W)
Phot3k (Corsair H100i)
BurningFeetMan (Tt eSPORTS Level 10M)
