The Best Hardware of 2016

June

At the start of June, we were busy combating jet-lag and earthquakes in Taipei for the annual hardware-fest that is Computex. For a reminder of what everyone was showing off, check out our coverage here: Day 1; Day 2; Day 3.

Roccat Sova MK


One of a few such offerings now on the market, the Sova is described as a 'gaming lapboard', combining a built-in mechanical keyboard, wrist rest, and large mouse-pad onto a single tray-like device with cushioning on the underside so you can rest it on your lap and revel in your PC master race glory. It's not a must-have accessory for every enthusiast, but if you're interested in playing games on the big screen and don't want to settle for puny console graphics and fiddly controllers, the Sova could well be for you.

MSI X99A XPower Titanium


You only really need to look at this motherboard to understand its place on this list. The titanium PCB, seen on a few other MSI products too, is gorgeous, and even more so in person than our photos show. It's one pricey motherboard, but it has plenty of features under its belt too, and if you're lucky enough to be able to splash out extra for great looking hardware, you can't really go wrong here.

AMD Radeon RX 480


The RX 480 was a much-needed product for AMD, giving it solid competition in the all-important mid-range market. The current flagship Polaris card is unable to compete with Nvidia at the high-end, but that's not where market share is won. With the RX 480, AMD delivered a much more efficient part than we were used to seeing, excellent performance in new APIs like DirectX 12 and Vulkan, and entry-level VR performance. The reference card wasn't amazing, but board partners were quick out of the gate with improved designs. The RX 480 continues to hold its ground very well against the competing GTX 1060 – we'd say it's the better card overall – and paints a hopeful picture for the red team in 2017.