Every year, hundreds if not thousands of new products arrive for the PC gaming platform. From core components like graphics cards, CPUs, and motherboards to accessories like headsets, chairs, and mice, we have more options than ever to customize our gaming rig and environment to our personal tastes. But while many products are good or even great, only a few reach the lofty heights of being the best.
But what does best mean? It's not just the fastest or craziest parts that will win, though those are certainly factors. We also love a great value, and it's awesome to see and test new products that move our industry forward. Every product that we've selected is something we can recommend with confidence that you'll be wowed by the experience. Some of our picks may not be affordable, but these are still our favorites.
Over the next two weeks, we'll be publishing our picks for the best hardware in each of eighteen categories. We only have one rule, and it's that a product has to have been released in 2017 in order to qualify. We love many older products and they continue to work great, but sometimes they're not as readily available, and we still want to recognize the advancements that have happened this year, not in the past.
Gear of the Year Winners
Best WiFi Router of the Year: Asus Rapture GT-AC5300
Best Webcam of the Year: Logitech Brio
Best Wireless Headset of the Year: SteelSeries Arctis 7
Best Headphones of the Year: MrSpeakers Ether Flow
Best Hard Drive of the Year: HGST UltraStar He12 12TB
Best Case of the Year: NZXT H700i
Best RAM of the Year: G.Skill Trident Z RGB
Best Keyboard of the Year: Corsair K95 RGB Platinum
Best Desktop of the Year: Corsair One
Best Mouse of the Year: Logitech G903 Lightspeed
Best Headset of the Year: Kingston HyperX Cloud Revolver
Best Motherboard of the Year: Asus Z370 ROG Maximus X Hero
Best Monitor of the Year: Dell UP3218K
Best Laptop of the Year: Gigabyte Aero 15X
Best SSD of the Year: Intel Optane SSD 900P
Best Graphics Card of the Year: EVGA GTX 1080 Ti FTW3 Elite Gaming
Best CPU of the Year: Intel Core i5-8400
We're all finished with our awards for 2017. Thanks to all the companies who pushed the boundaries of what we can expect from computer hardware. We look forward to seeing all the new tech that 2018 will bring us!
