Readers' Award 2003 Results (1)
Grumpy/Bluetooth 5 Jan 2004

For the second year running, OCWorkbench has been running the Readers Awards, and 2003 has been a very interesting year indeed. With Sars dominating the news in Asia and leading to the postponing of Computex, along with Global Terrorism strangling Western Economies, the past year was as unpredictable as the Technology Industry itself. Most memorable to me was the fact that it was the year of delays. The Opteron and Athlon64 was late, and supporting chipsets even later, the Prescott did not even arrive, nor did Windows 64 for AMD64 CPUs. Despite all these happenings, 2003 was still a great year for new technology.

OCWorkbench was quite successful with its' inaugural Readers Awards, and this year we had a good response from Members, voting in a wide range of categories. One area where Members really display their loyalty is Most Popular manufacturer, where a company can put out a bad product but brand loyalty from customers can still get them a vote.

In the Most Popular Mainboard Manufacturers 2003 Award, two timeless Companies once again captured top spot. Asus on 20.7 % snuck ahead of Abit on 19.1 % . Reputation is everything in this business, reliability and overclocking features most value. Asus and Abit have always come to mind first when considering a new Mainboard for your system.

More interesting though was the battle for minor places and who missed out. ECS, a favourite for budget system builders here among Members, claimed third on 10.4 %. Amazingly Biostar came fourth with 9.7%, ASrock at 9.4% and DFI fifth with 9.2 %. A remarkable turnaround for Biostar and DFI, and these last three companies are going to have an even better year in 2004.

No computer would be complete without a Video Card, and for gamers a quality card is a must. The results here for Most Popular Graphics Card Manufacturer 2003 were no surprise considering the success ATi has seen the last 12 months. Gaining 27.2%, it was a clear winner, with second place, Asus, only earning 12.3 %. Sapphire at 10.0 % and Abit on 9.7% filled in the minor placing.

When it came to Most Popular Graphics Card Chipset Maker 2003, despite ATi dominating the performance Benchmarks most of the year, NVIDIA made a reasonable showing, boosted by long term fans of their products. ATi came in well in front with 52.4%, NVIDIA with 34.9%. While a poor year for Nvidia, it could have been worse. Expect good things in 2004 for this stalwart of the industry, ATi will need to continue with strong performance from its' Chipsets if it wants to continue the success it had in 2003.

Next >>>

(C) Copyright 1998-2009 OCWorkbench.com