A feature that I'd like to see on Anandtech: Best Hardware Currently

[pm]

A question that at least someone at work or at home asks me at least several times a week is "what is the best <camera/motherboard/video card/recordable DVD/insert-another-piece-of-hardware> right now?" and then - depending on how much I like the person - either "shoot from the hip" or I go onto the web and read all of the reviews and base that with prior experience and come up with an answer. What I haven't seen anywhere online is a "our current editor's choices for hardware". To some extent the Anandtech pricing guide does this for CPU's and video cards, so this is a start, but the ones that I find hardest to answer are "best motherboard" and "best CD-RW/DVD-R" drives.

Yes, the solution is to read the reviews, but often these are out of date - or some later information comes along that makes the high review much lower (like lack of firmware support for a new DVD standard) but the review never gets updated. I would really like to see the pricing guide with video cards expanded to include other hardware. Or not even a full pricing guide but merely a list of editors picks in the "value", "mid-range" and "high-end" catagories. But more importantly, I would like this list to be updated somewhat frequently (in order to be of best use) - like weekly or twice monthly. As Anand, and Evan and the other hardware guys see new hardware, or as the prices change, perhaps their choices of "best" would change too. So this type of thing would keep everything up-to-date with current opinion on Anandtech.

 

[Pariah]

PCWorld.com ranks a lot of the non-enthusiast hardware (cameras,printers,scanners,monitors,CDRW's, etc). They're usually pretty up to date (how often do monitor lines change?).

 

[AndyHui]

Something like StorageReview's Leader Board?

 

[First]

Yeah, maybe we can have something similar StorageReview's Leader Board for motherboards, good idea.

 

[DaFinn]

The A-list!

-DaFinn

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

The real problem is that you start having to categorize when you do this. How do you define the best? That really varies from one person to the other (highest performance, best bang for the buck, best in price range, etc).

eg I'm sure that the Seagate Cheatah 15K.3s are the fastest hard drives, but are they the "best" for a desktop user? it gets to be pretty messy if you start picking "best" items. I'd rather see a "recommended product" or something along those lines.

*edit* typos

 

[DaFinn]

The real problem is that you start having to categorize when you do this.

Umm, yeah thats the whole point of doing it. In your example, "Best Desktop HDD", "Best Server HDD", "Best Workstation HDD"...


-DaFinn

 

[DaFinn]

BTW, I think this is a good suggestion. Mods pls sticky this so we hear what people have to say!


-DaFinn

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: DaFinn

The real problem is that you start having to categorize when you do this.

Umm, yeah thats the whole point of doing it. In your example, "Best Desktop HDD", "Best Server HDD", "Best Workstation HDD"...
-DaFinn

Except you have to split it much more: "Best intel non-OC non-RAID DDR", "Best intel non-OC RAID DDR", "Best intel non-OC non-RAID RDRAM", "Best intel non-OC RAID RDRAM", then another 4 for overclockers. That's just intel chipsets, and ingoring the choice between graphics and no graphics. Add another 4 VIA AMD and 4 nForce AMD. I suppose 16 recommended "best" desktop motherboards isn't too bad.

For desktop IDE hard drives it's easier since you just need one "best" each for (say) 60, 80, 120, 160, 200, 320 GB, though some would argue you need both "fast" and "quiet" categories.

 

[DaFinn]

Uhhhh,

Dear DaveSimmons, arent you getting a bit too precise there...

- make a roundup of P4 boards, winner gets to the list!
- make a roudup of AMD boards, winner gets to the list!
- make a roudup of IDE drives, winner gets to the list!
- make a roundup of graphics cards, winner gets to the list!

and so on...

Its how you test and what features you take into account! And HOW you take them into account!

For example in mobos:

-game speed = 0-50 points
-stability = 0-10 points
-raid = 0-5 points
-sound = 0-5 points
-firewire = 0-2 points
-???

total out of 100 points = ???

or something similar. Also, if you want to do it properly one could make an interactive database of all test results. So that people can go and for example disable the points mobos got for sound if thats not important feature to you. This would change the postition (maybe) of the boards... this way people could find out what is the best board for their use!

uhh, confusing enough... just something to think about!


-DaFinn

 

[nortexoid]

dafinn, you're missing his point.

P4 boards using different architectures and bringing different features sets at different prices, intended for different marget segments will have a hard time being categorized so easily...

should u match RDRAM boards vs. DDR boards? - should u match RAID boards vs. Non-RAID boards? And say one board has more features but stinks when it comes to performance or some other area - how do u weight which criterion/criteria is the most/more important?

recommendations within some general category is good, but u can never claim one board to be the BEST.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: DaFinn
Uhhhh,

Dear DaveSimmons, arent you getting a bit too precise there...
- make a roundup of P4 boards, winner gets to the list!
- make a roudup of AMD boards, winner gets to the list!
- make a roudup of IDE drives, winner gets to the list!
- make a roundup of graphics cards, winner gets to the list!

and so on...

Its how you test and what features you take into account! And HOW you take them into account!
For example in mobos:
-game speed = 0-50 points
-stability = 0-10 points
-raid = 0-5 points
...
total out of 100 points = ???

or something similar. Also, if you want to do it properly one could make an interactive database of all test results. So that people can go and for example disable the points mobos got for sound if thats not important feature to you. This would change the postition (maybe) of the boards... this way people could find out what is the best board for their use!
-DaFinn

Think about when you're buying a mobo though, many people have a fanatical preference for DDR vs. RAMBUS, and some of us don't like buying features we don't plan to use.

Your interactive database-driven ranking system has promise, even though it's actually more complex than what I proposed. Someone not looking for RAID and overclocking could disable those elements from the ranking calculation. The "best-for-me" mobo might still happen to come with RAID but at least it won't have influenced the ranking.

If you have both ranking and filtering (for example "include only DDR" or "size= 60 GB") you answer the need for different IDE capacities as well.

Ranking instead of a single "best" or "recommended" also lets a person pick a "second-best" choice that might be much cheaper (for example P4 2.8 vs. 3.0 pricing).

 

[Rand]

My question is.... how do you define "best"?
Best for whom?
Best for what usage?


As one quick example, there are a good half dozen or more "best" graphics cards depending upon one's requirements. Hell, just off of the top of my head I can think up 8 different boards that I would consider the "best" in certain respects... that's without adding cost or other such complexities into consideration.
What's great for one person may be entirely useless for another.

The much maligned Matrox Parhelia is the "best" in some respects, so is the low end cheapy ATi Radeon VE. The ATi Radeon 9700 is the "best" in some ways, and in others looks pathetic compared to a much cheaper and older G400. In still others respects the GF4 Ti4600 still holds the crown, while in some ways it falls to it's cheaper sibling the GF4 MX. Let's not even touch upon any of the professional level graphics cards, then the situation will get even more confusing.

There is no single product in any area that will be the "best" at everything.

And that's only graphics cards... I don't even want to imagine how many different motherboards might be the "best" for a certain individual depending upon their needs.

Plus once you start adding price or longevity into consideration it makes matters much more complex.

Picking a "best" product is simply impossible IMHO.
If you even attempt to incorporate an even remotely in-depth listing you'd have a good dozen or more products for each piece of hardware... in some areas it's quite concievable you may end up with 20+.
You certainly can't keep it simple and just pick one product for each piece of hardware as your bound to find usage scenarios in which it's entirely inappropriate and for which their are both cheaper and superior options.

 

[Budman]

Best Hardware Currently

To do that they would need to keep up with what people are using at this very moment, where or when could they get this info?

I suggest that they keep watch of what current AT forum member are using & doing, we have a bunch of guys overclocking & messing about on their pcs right here at anandtech forums & this resource should not be overlooked.

What's hot now should be reflected by what people are using on the AT forums.

 

[DaFinn]

The A-list!

I correct that: The AT-list!

-DaFinn

 

[Wolfsraider]

I would love to see a best hardware currently list or at least a place where hardware was placed in a poll where we could give imput as to stability,reliability,ease of use etc...

 

[Tbirdkid]

All in all post a poll.... that is where we will find the best answer. As long as people think about it before answering because each person looks at products differently because of experience and because of rumor. I dont know if it would be a great idea. Too broad of a subject... I think

 

[Justorq]

Hey guys, I think this is a great idea, except, instead of taking the best hardware, you could take the best balanced hardware. In other words, the best price/performance ratio.
It's better cuz we all know what the best hardware is ... for RDRAM you have the ASUS P4T533... video card : The Radeon 9700PRO... bla bla bla ... Most people that don't have an unlimited amount of money don't know what to buy with their budget, this would be great for them ... You could even make subcategories based on prices, such as: In the P4 Mainboard categorie: you have the $300 price range, the $200 price range, etc. Think about it ... This is pretty cool ...
Oh yeah ... and no AMD and Intel mixing ... try to find the best in each company... cuz some people like to buy Intel and some people like to buy AMD (it's all about preference).

Thx
Justin

 

[ChefJoe]

I think that AT really doesn't have much in the way of its own research/reviews.. it links to others mostly, and provides a technical resource for what it can. In that way, I wouldn't want them to comment on what's the best without having done the evaluations themselves. That being said, a forum category for roundups (links to them, comments) with a locked leaderboard thread on top might be sufficient.

 

[Dug]

It's better cuz we all know what the best hardware is ... for RDRAM you have the ASUS P4T533

See!- here's proof we need a 'Current Best Hardware' section.

I think a top 10 list in no particular order, for each category, would suffice with comments under each one.

A generalization would work much better then a saying one is better than the other.

 

[LukFilm]

Rand, that's what I was going to say. What's best for one person isn't best for another and vice versa. I don't need SCSI, but that may be best for someone who will take full advantage of it etc... This task is impossible, IMHO.

 

[Rand]

Originally posted by: Justorq

It's better cuz we all know what the best hardware is ... for RDRAM you have the ASUS P4T533... video card : The Radeon 9700PRO...

That's just it... I can think of LOTS of people for whom the R9700Pro is not only not the best graphics card available but is indeed a rather poor choice that does relatively poorly in some aspects.
Similarly I can think of numerous situations in which the Asus P4T533 is far from being the best board available depending upon what the individual requires.... and this is still without taking into account cost.

It's a losing proposition because there is no "best" hardware.

 

[pm]

I agree that what is best for one is not best for all. And of course, what someone at AT thinks is "best" will probably have a whole lot of people in disagreement. The situation is no different from reviews currently.

My point is that I would like to know what the AT reviewers think is the best currently - like the Leaderboard at StorageReview, or the video card recommendations in the pricing guide here at AT - to use as the basis for my own research.

Whether I actually agree or disagree with the "editor's choice" is my own choice, but at least I'd know.

As an added bonus my suggestion would reduce the traffic in the GH forum. Many of the posts are people asking "what is the best <insert hardware>".

Also, "best" is probably a poor choice of wording. Perhaps "editor's choice" would be better.

 

[ElFenix]

it should be like
"best value mobo"
"best feature packed mobo"
"best overclock mobo"
for both amd and intel.

 

[First]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
it should be like
"best value mobo"
"best feature packed mobo"
"best overclock mobo"
for both amd and intel.

Yup, that's exactly what I was thinking...