The bit-tech and Custom PC Awards 2009

Best Motherboard Manufacturer 2009: Asus

Nominees: Biostar * Gigabyte * Intel * MSI

It’s been another strong year for Asus, with the company continuing to get new products out of the door at a rapid rate. There have been plenty of new motherboards in the Republic of Gamers range, including the micro-ATX Rampage II Gene, accompanying many LGA 1156 designs. They’ve clearly not let design or quality slip though, and beat strong opposition from Biostar, Gigabyte, Intel and MSI to take the Motherboard award for 2009.

Best Graphics Manufacturer 2009: Sapphire

Nominees: Asus * BFG * EVGA * XFX

In China, 2009 was the year of the Ox. In graphics, it was the year of the Radeon. We’re big fans of the HD 5000 series (particularly the HD5870 and HD 5850 but even before the HD 5000 series cards launched en mass, the Radeon HD 4000 series was causing Nvidia serious problems. Endless revision and price cuts were needed to make the GTX 260 an attractive proposition, and with the Radeon HD 4870 X2, ATI finally delivered a great dual-GPU graphics card.

Clearly you agreed, because the award for Best Graphics Manufacturer 2009 went to Sapphire – being a best buddy of ATI was a smart choice this year, and the firm also delivered some interesting spins on the reference card with its Vapor-X range.

Best Memory Manufacturer 2009: Corsair

Nominees: Crucial * G.Skill * Kingston * OCZ

Both Intel and AMD moved aggressively towards DDR3 this year, and that, in conjunction with the release of a new version of Windows meant many of you went memory shopping. Corsair is one of the best known PC memory brands, and this year, got its offerings right – in particular, it brought the price of its excellent Dominator heatsink toting DIMMS right down, and it also continued to offer insanely high-speed modules for bleeding edge Overclockers.

Best PSU Manufacturer 2009: Corsair

Nominees: Antec * Be Quiet! * Cooler Master * Enermax

Graphics cards now manage to measure over 12in in length, and six core CPUs are on the way – powering such monstrous hardware is a serious business, especially if you want a PSU which is quiet, efficient and modular. As more and more people realise buying a generic PSU that costs £20 is a quick way to a PC-less weekend and a smoke filled room, competition in the PSU marketplace has increased, too. This was the second category where Corsair was voted top – we’ve always liked the firm’s high-end PSUs such as the HX1000, but this year more budget conscious models such as the nifty CX 400W certainly helped broaden the appeal of Corsair PSUs.