The Full Nerd awards: Our favorite PC hardware of 2023

In this annual penultimate episode of The Full Nerd, Gordon Ung, Brad Chacos, Alaina Yee, and Adam Patrick Murray slipped on their boxing gloves to verbally brawl over what equipment moved the needle for the PC in 2023. Efficiency? Worth? Raw accessibility? Everybody might just settle on one point: The absence of worth in graphics cards continues to be a huge downer.

Everybody has their own meaning of what “finest” implies, however each individual brought his/her own choices for the very best PC software and hardware of 2023 before all of us hashed out a single winner in each classification. It’s not constantly simple; the argument over the very best CPU of 2023 took almost an hour all by itself. I can’t even picture what Oscars citizens go through!

We trimmed the list a bit this year so Gordon might join us. Keep in mind that this list is different from PCWorld’s larger best PC software and hardware of 2023 and finest work from home tech of 2023; this list is the viewpoint of our Full Nerd team just. Peep the classifications listed below, the complete episode listed below thatand a short description of winners later on if you desire the outcomes without all of The Full Nerd gang’s shouting and hand-wringing.

• Finest CPU
• Finest GPU
• Finest PC device
• Finest development
• Worst pattern

… prevent your eyes if you do not desire the spoilers (and winners!) prowling listed below!

Finest CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D

This was a fiercely objected to fight in between a trio of main competitors: AMD’s relentless 16-core, V-Cache-infused Ryzen 9 7950X3D, its smaller sized (yet still terrific) Ryzen 7 7800X3D brother or sister, and the AMD Z1 Extreme chip powering a wave of handhelds like the Asus ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go.

It took almost an hour of enthusiastic dispute before we picked a victor, and even then, there was still a lot of whining. In the end, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D’s mix of a dual-chip, 16-core style and 3D V-Cache on one of those passes away allows a real no-compromises work-and-play experience unlike any other. The Ryzen 7 7800X3D is a much better worth for many people, sure, however no other chip manages what the Ryzen 9 7950X3D achieves.

Finest GPU: AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT

For chips, it’s a tidy sweep for AMD! In an unusual year and an unusual generation for graphics cards– one so unconventional that the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 was thought about for this honor for an extraordinary 2nd year– just the Radeon RX 7800 XT became a standout. It’s the just real beneficial 1440p graphics card of this generation after Nvidia fumbled the RTX 4060-series style and RTX 4070’s rate. The Radeon RX 7800 XT is much faster than its likewise priced RTX 4060 Ti competitors and even handles to frequently outpunch the RTX 4070, which costs $100 more. Its ray tracing is quite darn great too, measuring up to the RTX 3080. It’s the clear winner.

Finest device: Corsair Xeneon Flex

Valve’s modest, yet game-changing Steam Deck swept our Full Nerd awards in 2015, so in 2023, we wished to crown an OLED screen given that the ultra-luscious panel innovation has actually taken off in accessibility over the previous 2 years. The Xeneon Flex is not the most inexpensive OLED around at $1,500-plus, however Corsair’ huge, bendable, astonishing display was quickly the very best we’ve checked in 2023, making itself a triumph here. An excerpt from my Xeneon Flex evaluation:

The Corsair Xeneon Flex 45WQHD240 immerses you in manner ins which tangibly raise the PC video gaming experience. I’ve never ever used a screen that made me feel genuinely inside video game worlds the method this one does. Its delightful mix of blisteringly-fast speeds, elite movement clearness, sterling image quality, best blacks, and lavish HDR will make your jaw drop, specifically covered within the custom-tuned curvature of its distinctively bendable screen. The connection is superior, too.

When it concerns multimedia, this screen exudes quality. The Corsair Xeneon Flex is among the best video gaming screens we’ve ever seen, complete stop.

Finest development: Frore AirJet

We saw the very best development of 2023 right as the year started, seeing Frore Systems’ extreme solid-state AirJet PC cooling at CES in January. Adam saw it the most throughout the year, and here’s how he summed AirJet up in our PCWorld Best Of 2023 Awards:

When we initially saw Frore Systems’ strong state active cooling module at CES, called AirJet Mini and AirJet Pro, we understood that this had a possibility to really change cooling in electronic devices. Without getting unfathomable into the specifics of how it works, understand that the AirJet utilizes MEMS innovation, is far thinner than a standard fan discovered in something like a laptop computer, however far outshines it thanks to tremendous back pressure that simply can’t be accomplished with today’s thin fans.

In the months because that program we’ve seen a variety of demonstrations with different item classifications. The release of the very first item including this system originates from Zotac in the business’s ZBOX pico PI430AJ with AirJetIt’s going to take a lot to alter a market, however I ‘d like this innovation to be prevalent in the future and continue to drive efficiency and cooling for our electronic gadgets for several years to come.

Fingers crossed we see more systems (and laptop computers!) emerge with Frore’s AirJet inside in 2024.

Worst pattern: New GPU worth

It’s been the very best of times and the worst of times for PC players in 2023. Fortunately: You can lastly get offers on last-gen graphics cards and get video gaming without offering an arm and a leg. The completely terrible news: The brand-new generation of graphics cards is a snoozer. Not just are the Nvidia GeForce RTX 40-series and AMD Radeon RX 7000-series both painfully high priced, specifically on Nvidia’s side, however numerous of these brand-new GPUs really run no faster (and in some cases slower) than their predecessors. Nvidia does not even field a real 1440p competitor for under $700. It’s a frustrating mess.

Even if you handle to conserve up sufficient nickels to get a brand-new GPU, the video gaming experience hasn’t been all that terrific either, as 2023 was pestered by technical incidents in a variety of prominent video games, like Last of United States and Hogwarts: Legacyamongst numerous others.

Sigh. Why do we constantly end this on a disappointment? A minimum of those OLED keeps track of sure are great.

Author: Brad ChacosExecutive editor