The Bit-Tech Christmas Wishlist 2013

Matt Lambert

Hardware reviewer and lover of graphics testing (honest)

Dell UltraSharp 32-inch UltraHD Monitor

Though many may still be unsure about 4K, I am completely sold on it and want it in my life immediately. For me, single screen gaming trumps multi-monitor set-ups any day of the week and I have zero interest in 3D, so a single screen packing this many pixels is a big win from my perspective. While a 32 inch screen is certainly large to have sitting right in front of you, I've used one comfortably before and it would still take up less width than my current dual 1080p panels while equipping me with twice as much desktop real estate. I'd settle for the 28-inch model that was also announced, but I feel the 24-inch model would be too small to fully enjoy the benefits of 4K.

With its PremierColor technology and UltraSharp branding, this 32-inch panel is likely to have the upper hand on the Sharp PN-K321 (which we test 4K with currently) and ASUS PQ321Q monitors in terms of colour reproduction. The menu on the ASUS/Sharp screens (they're exactly the same, just branded differently) is also so hard and frustrating to navigate that it would almost be an achievement for Dell to do worse in this regard. Sadly, this monitor costs an eye-watering £2,300, but that's where you come in, Santa.

Water-cooled AMD Radeon R9 290X 4GB (actually, make it two...)

If I'm going to have a 4K screen, then clearly I'm going to need some pretty hefty graphics hardware to power it. The AMD Radeon R9 290X was specifically designed to handle 4K gaming, and though the newer Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 Ti has the upper hand on it in a number of our 4K benchmarks, it doesn't in Battlefield 4, which is my current time-sink of choice. I've also had fewer driver and compatibility issues with AMD hardware when using our 4K panel, so the R9 290X is my prime GPU choice for 4K gaming.

Of course, cooling a pair of these power hungry monsters on air would result in unbearable noise levels, not to mention throttled performance. If you want to get the most out of them, water-cooling is the only way. When Antony strapped an Aqua Computer waterblock to our sample and overclocked it, its performance shot up by over a third compared to stock settings, while the card stayed 42°C cooler and whisper quiet - yes you read that right!

Reversible USB plugs

It wasn't until news broke about these being in development that I realised just how much they were missing from my life. Despite what logic and probability tells me, I seem to only recall managing to insert a USB connector the right way round on my first attempt once (and jumping for joy when it happened). Every other memory is one of frustration and bad language as I flip the connector round to make it fit, especially when I discover that I had it right the first time. I'm angry just thinking about it.

Reversible connectors may seem like an odd thing to wish for since they're already being developed, but having quickly become a fan of the similar connector Apple implemented with its iPhone 5, they simply can't come soon enough. So, what I really want is for the development process and all the necessary co-ordination and paperwork for making a new specification to be completed and for all of my devices to be magically fitted with the wondrous connectors. By tomorrow. Not too much to ask, is it?