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The 2026 TechRadar Australian PC Awards — all the winners revealed!

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Across 40 categories, our PC experts pick the gear we rate as the very best you can get

2026 Australian PC Awards presented by Bitdefender
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The reviews you read on TechRadar, and indeed across the family of Future sites and magazines that cover the PC, are meticulously crafted with the highest levels of professionalism. Our many seasoned experts, with their vast knowledge and many years of experience, share their thoughts and opinions with you here every day. Their talent for writing well and communicating complex topics with clarity and insight lets you know what’s really going on when a new product is released, or a new technology or feature is revealed for the first time.

We work hard every day, testing new PC products of every description, using rigorous methodology that has been refined and updated constantly, and is checked and verified before publication. We’re proud of what we do and how we do it, and we know it’s a service that’s genuinely helpful to you.

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2026 Australian PC Awards sponsors

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Why the TechRadar Australian PC Awards matter

Thousands of new products that fall into the orbit of ‘the PC’ are released each year. We can't test them all, but we have tested several hundred. Some shone, some sunk. But overall the quality of engineering, manufacturing and innovation is as high as ever in the world of the PC, so it’s often difficult to separate the truly great from the very good. But that’s what we’ve done.

The team here at TechRadar has joined forces with our fellow PC experts at PC Gamer, Tom’s Guide, Windows Central and APC magazine to shortlist the exceptional, then make the big call to determine the ultimate winners. All across 40 categories, covering everything that matters in and around the PC.

Now more than ever, it’s essential to choose what to buy carefully. We’re here, with these awards, to help you choose with confidence. Our winners are linked to our reviews, so you can quickly find out more.

Selecting these finalists and winners was a long and thorough process — one we believe is important. We want to acknowledge the hard work of the people behind the scenes at the companies that made great gear or delivered exceptional services, too. A lot of hard work by clever people brought you this gear, so well done to everyone involved and congratulations on being a TechRadar Australian PC Awards winner!

How we pick the winners

Last year’s winners

What are the Australian PC Awards?

Our awards cover all the main categories that affect a PC, as well as our special awards:

Excellence Award: Presented to the person, product or technology that advanced the PC more than any other in 2025.

Gold Award: For the best overall company operating in the PC space for 2025. This list includes every one of the finalists across all the other categories — and has been carefully considered by our expert panel of judges.

And of course there must be balance with all things, which leads us to this year’s Epic Fail Award. May the most dismal failure win!

TechRadar 2026 Australian PC Awards winners

Where possible, we've linked to the most relevant online coverage from across the Future network for each finalist, to help you find out more about why we like them so much.

And now, on to the show!

And the winners are...

APCA 2026 motherboards

(Image credit: Future)

The year in review: Motherboards

2025 was a year of maturing lineups for motherboards, with chips and offers that were launched in 2024, actually getting shipped in volume during 2025. Intel’s LGA1851 ecosystem broadened early thanks to the announcement of B860 and H810 at CES 2025, making Core Ultra 200S builds slightly more appealing.

AMD continued to flesh out AM5 for Ryzen 9000 with B850 and B840 boards. We especially liked that many midrange boards started offering the kind of connectivity that used to be reserved for flagships, like Wi-Fi 7, 5GbE and USB4.

Those putting together an Intel build got more choice, but certainly the worry over how long LGA1851 will be viable for is not reduced. AMD builders have a nicer upgrade path, but prices for the latest models kept older B650 boards surprisingly relevant in the budget end.

As always, manufacturers kept showcasing (admittedly awesome) ultra-high-end boards that most people would never buy, but the mid-range got some great focus.

One of 2025’s most visible trends was the increasing tendency towards cleaner builds with hidden-connector designs available from multiple brands and actually backed by rapidly improving case support.

Best motherboard maker

Asrock

Asrock
Asrock nailed it in 2025 for both AMD and Intel builds, from value to premium. Its B860 boards delivered standout value for LGA1851, while AM5 got fresh B850 options and clever niche designs like the X870 LiveMixer WiFi's 25 USB monster I/O. Flagship Taichi boards also impressed us.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best AMD motherboard

MSI MEG X870E Godlike:

MSI MEG X870E Godlike: (Review | Check Amazon)
MSI’s MEG X870E Godlike is the no-compromise AM5 flagship and is loaded with builder-friendly EZ DIY touches. A 27-phase VRM with 24x 110A stages keeps Ryzen 9000 stable, while you get PCIe 5.0 for GPU and Gen5 M.2, up to seven M.2 total, dual USB4, Wi-Fi 7 and 10G plus 5G LAN.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best Intel motherboard

Asrock B860 Steel Legend Wi-Fi:

Asrock B860 Steel Legend Wi-Fi: (Review | Check Amazon)
A rare budget LGA1851 board that doesn’t feel cut back and makes Intel’s B860 platform feel like a solid choice. While it’s not an overclocking board, you get a PCIe 5.0 x16 slot and a Gen5 M.2, Thunderbolt 4/USB4, DDR5 up to 8666+, 2.5GbE and easy BIOS Flashback, plus heaps of headers.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

APCA 2026 graphics

(Image credit: Future)

The year in review: Graphics

2025 was a bumper year for new graphics cards, with both the main contenders, Nvidia and AMD, and a newcomer to the scene, Intel, releasing new products. Nvidia was the most prolific, with eight new entrants for desktop use and several more for laptops. AMD had a modest six desktop offerings, and Intel scraped in with just one.

While Intel provided another SKU of its previous Battlemage-based architecture, Nvidia and AMD introduced entirely new architectures that offered more performance and visual fidelity than before.

Nvidia brought the impressive DLSS 4.0 technology to market, making it a feature many would consider leaving on all the time because it’s so good at what it does. Multi-frame generation 2.0 also came along for the ride, keeping Nvidia’s feature set clearly out in the lead, much like its top-end GPUs, which AMD couldn’t match.

Not that AMD was sitting still. RDNA5 proved wildly popular largely because of its very good price-to-performance, increased ray-tracing performance to finally match its peers, and the introduction of FSR4, AMD’s much-needed upscaling technology to catch up to Nvidia’s DLSS.

Notably, across all camps, there were no entry-level offerings. With integrated graphics getting so good now, APU-style solutions are eating up entry-level GPU market share, making it financially unviable to launch products in that segment anymore.

Best graphics card maker

Asus

Asus
Winning the Budget category and taking two Highly Commended awards for Mid-range graphics cards, Asus once again proves it can supply gamers with quality cards that are well engineered and deliver impressive performance at reasonable value.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best budget graphics card

Asus Prime RTX 5060 TI OC Edition:

Asus Prime RTX 5060 TI OC Edition: (Asus | Check Amazon)
Offering the best value for money, the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB not only dominates for outright performance, but also on feature set, with superior raytracing, upscaling, and frame generation that the others can’t match. The 16GB version in particular also has the legs to last several years. The Asus Prime RTX 5060 TI OC Edition offers this package at a good price and with impressive performance.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best mid-range graphics card

Sapphire Nitro+ AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT:

Sapphire Nitro+ AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT: (Sapphire | Check Amazon)
With performance to match the RTX 5070 Ti, but at a substantially lower cost, the RX 9070 XT had many questioning how much Nvidia’s software features are really worth to them. With FSR4 and great raytracing to match, it had the value and performance to take the spotlight away from Nvidia. Once again we see Sapphire integrate an AMD GPU into a superior design with excellent design and quality.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Want to see more options? Take a look at our guide to the best mid-range graphics cards.

Best premium graphics card

MSI RTX 5090 Suprim SOC:

MSI RTX 5090 Suprim SOC: (Review | Check Amazon)
With AMD and Intel not offering anything at the top end of the market, Nvidia is left alone at the top of the pile. The RTX 5090 is unquestionably the most powerful graphics card available. With an unmatched feature set and performance no other can touch, the RTX 5090 rules supreme and MSI’s Suprim delivers killer performance at a premium level.

All Finalists

APCA 2026 CPU

(Image credit: Future)

The year in review: CPU

The CPU front was vibrant in 2025, with both AMD and Intel releasing many new offerings across a broad spectrum of categories. AMD stuck to releasing newer SKUs of its Zen 5-based Ryzen 9000 series, whereas Intel ushered in a somewhat underwhelming new Arrow Lake-based Core Ultra 200 series.

AMD’s strategy of long-term platform support remains a strong suit, with a new processor launched for AM4, which was superseded some four years ago. Even the Ryzen 7000 series saw a new entry.

AMD also proved very popular in the laptop and thin-and-light space with its Strix Halo-based Ryzen AI Max 300 series, offering what AMD sought to do when it bought ATI all that time ago: make an APU with a large iGPU inside. And thus creating a new class of SoC that we previously could have only dreamed of.

Not that Intel is out of the fight by a long shot, with the majority of its offerings delivering substantial multithreading performance that AMD can’t match in most segments, giving us hope for a healthy fight and, hopefully, a resurgent Intel continuing into 2026.

Best budget CPU

AMD Ryzen 5 7500X3D:

AMD Ryzen 5 7500X3D: (Review | Check Amazon)
Offering gaming prowess at such a good price, you can easily overlook the one-generation-old architecture AMD’s Ryzen 5 7500X3D is based on. With X3D parts offering such an uptick in gaming performance, Intel can’t come close to it.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best mid-range CPU

Intel Core Ultra 7 Processor 265K:

Intel Core Ultra 7 Processor 265K: (Review | Check Amazon)
In this category, you want your processor to perform well across the board. And while AMD has solidified itself in gaming for the moment, in productivity its midrange is very lacklustre, giving Intel’s Core Ultra 7 265K an easy win here, with good gaming performance and class-leading multithreading.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best premium CPU

AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395:

AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395: (AMD | Check Amazon)
Unlocking near-discrete levels of GPU performance, sixteen CPU cores and the ability to address 128GB of RAM make AMD’s Ryzen AI Max 395 not only great for gaming but also for productivity and AI applications. It’s a SoC that really does do it all.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

APCA 2026 storage

(Image credit: Future)

The year in review: Storage

How it was supposed to happen: speedy PCIe 5.0 SSDs would supercharge gaming, creator and productivity PCs, offering ridiculously quick 14,000 MB/s drives. What is actually happening: While many good PCIe 5.0 SSDs have been released, rising costs have kept PCIe 4.0 drives well in play, and in most cases those 4.0 drives are the smarter choice.

Longer upgrade cycles will slow the penetration of PCIe 5 SSDs, though for high performance needs the benefits are indisputable and if company money is being spent, it’s a no-brainer. For gamers and almost all productivity users this isn’t really a problem, as many users find that PCIe 4 speeds are still plenty quick for everything.

And for basic bulk data storage, there are always hard drives, right? Sadly, no. As you have probably heard, data centres have also snapped up the majority of HDD production, with WD recently reporting that most of its 2026 production has been allocated to data centre buyers.

For new PC builds today, the standard is usually 2TB for most off the shelf PCs, with 1TB now reserved for budget systems.

Best internal storage maker

WD

WD
We were impressed with all of WD’s SSDs this year, none more so than the brilliant SN8100. This drive typifies WD’s engineering-driven design and no compromise commitment to performance. Reliability and value are also winning WD hallmarks.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best external storage maker

SanDisk

SanDisk
SanDisk portable drives are tough, look great and deliver the reliability and rugged construction so many people depend on. We’re impressed with the high sustained performance of drives like the Extreme Pro.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Want the best drives? Check out our storage Buyers Guides.

Best NAS

Synology BeeStation Plus NAS:

Synology BeeStation Plus NAS: (Review | Buy now)
The BeeStation Plus is an easy-to-use cloud storage solution that has zero subscription cost, gives you control of your 8TB of storage, and allows for advanced integrations and control over where your data is and how it is accessed.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

APCA 2026 laptops

(Image credit: Future)

The year in review: Laptops

2025 was a fun ride for laptops. Intel’s Core Ultra (Series 2) spread beyond a handful of premium models into more mainstream machines and showed us Intel could still make good CPUs. AMD’s mobile Ryzen chips also saw some great new additions, like the higher-end Ryzen AI Max designs that offered genuinely impressive performance in thinner laptops.

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Plus CPUs helped bring solid performance and excellent battery life to more affordable machines. Windows on Arm continued to improve as well, despite Microsoft's best efforts to annoy everyone in other ways, and updated Surface laptops are great options with few downsides.

The M4 MacBook Air launched early in the year, with small but welcome improvements on the classic design, and at times, discounted prices that made it very affordable.

OLED screens got increasingly common, Wi-Fi solidified as the baseline spec and options like Thunderbolt 5 were increasingly available on premium machines.

RAM pricing shenanigans started to hit laptops by the end of 2025, but even before that upgradeable memory was getting rare, and soldered had become the default.

Gaming laptops finally had a proper update cycle, with RTX 50-series GPUs arriving in new and existing models that offered quite decent boosts, though also slightly steeper prices.

Want even more laptops? Check out the best in our Buyers Guides.

Best budget laptop or 2-in-1

MSI Modern 14 F13MG:

MSI Modern 14 F13MG: (Review | Check Amazon)
Not only is the MSI Modern 14 F13MG a proper budget workhorse, it’s unusually well specced out of the box, with 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD. It also doesn’t skimp on ports (USB-C PD, HDMI, Ethernet, microSD) and keeps upgradeable memory — quite a feat considering the affordable price.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best premium laptop or 2-in-1

Microsoft Surface Laptop:

Microsoft Surface Laptop: (Review | Buy now)
The Microsoft Surface Laptop (8th edition) is genuinely the best premium Windows notebook going, with a solid design, great display, fast performance and excellent battery life. It also nails the basics with a great keyboard, quiet thermals and a slim build — making it a solid choice for home, work or study.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best gaming laptop

Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 10:

Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 10: (Review | Check Amazon)
The Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 10 is a genuinely brilliant update to last year's winner — the Legion 5i Gen9. This mid-range gaming laptop balances top-notch performance with a sensible, sturdy design, plus solid cooling, a great screen and (when on sale) affordable pricing that few others can match.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

APCA

(Image credit: Future)

The year in review: Systems

From the graphics card shortages at the start to the RAM shortages at the end of 2025, PC retailers endured a lot last year. They needed to adapt to an unusually volatile market in order to survive and as a result, we saw several examples of both good and bad decisions around pre-built systems, all seeking an edge or a niche in which to sell them.

Many were coming up with inventive ways to shoehorn the ever-more-expensive graphics cards into previously stable price tiers. Companies like Mwave impressed us with the quality and balance of their builds while also retaining a wide range of products. Photech did well here, too, with some admirably good system offerings that had great value for money while being well thought out and not cutting back in certain areas when others were.

The biggest improvement we saw was from MSY, which, after a website overhaul, went from a terrible online shopping experience to a great one overnight. The breadth of retailer options and their offerings, along with their willingness to adapt to market conditions, gives us hope that our PC retailers will soldier on as the 2026 RAM apocalypse deepens.

Want more PCs? Check out the best in our Buyers Guides.

Best desktop PC

Geekom A8 AI:

Geekom A8 AI: (Review | Check Amazon)
The new Geekom A8 AI is an impressive little machine. Performance is strong. Indeed, very strong, given how small and light it is, and the range of I/O ports is good considering the small size.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best handheld

Lenovo Legion Go S SteamOS:

Lenovo Legion Go S SteamOS: (Review | Check Amazon)
You're getting all the benefits of this OS for the first time with some hardware that can make deft use of it. Throw in the gorgeous colour scheme and wonderfully comfortable design, and you have a handheld that offers a unique combination of benefits that no other handheld does right now.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Want more gaming goodness? Check out our guide to the best handheld consoles.

Best tablet

Apple iPad Pro 11in (M5):

Apple iPad Pro 11in (M5): (Review | Check Amazon)
The M5 iPad Pro is so good and intuitive that it could feasibly be a laptop replacement. It features a new chip, an improved interface and long battery life — something Apple seems to have mastered of late. It's for creators, it's for tablet-lovers, and yes, it is also for business uses.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Want more of the best tablets? Check out the full range in our buyers guides.

Best retailer for PC enthusiasts

PC Case Gear

PC Case Gear
When GPU shortages hit at the start of 2025, PC Case Gear not only had stock but also multiple SKUs for each. They continue to impress with their range and offerings, but, more importantly, with their stock levels when times got tough, as well as the best overall ready-to-ship PCs.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

APCA 2026 components

(Image credit: Future)

The year in review: Components

First the important news — PC style is trending strongly towards white, with matching white graphics cards and motherboards being a strong fashion statement in 2026.

In less significant news, the RAMpocalypse continues to play havoc with every corner of the PC industry. It’s quite possible that rising component costs will eliminate the budget sub-$500 (USD) segment almost entirely by the end of the year (according to a forecast published by research firm Gartner on February 26). Component costs will also slow the growth of AI PCs, being those that require more memory to run local inference workloads. AI is one area where components have an especially vulnerable victim, and one that just happens to be the poster-child of the PC marketing scene over the last year or more. Ironically, consumer AI PCs will suffer due to AI data centre expansion.

Higher-end components will give systems integrators the margins they need to survive, meaning premium PC builds outfitted with hard to find and expensive memory and storage will become the norm and the budget segment will be pushed aside.

Want more memory? Check out our guide to the best DDR5 RAM

Best memory maker

TeamGroup

TeamGroup
Consistently at the top of our benchmarks in testing and with a range that covers every need. TeamGroup is also good value for performance memory, and market availability is also great.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best air cooling product

Thermalright Royal Pretor 130:

Thermalright Royal Pretor 130: (Review | Check Amazon)
This is simply the best air cooler on the market, exceeding our expectations for what air cooling can offer. You won’t find better performance without using liquid cooling. Thermalright’s Royal Pretor 130 raises the bar for what’s possible with air cooling both in terms of maximum theoretical performance and when its fans are set to run quietly.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best AIO cooling product

Thermalright Grand Vision 360:

Thermalright Grand Vision 360: (Review | Check Amazon)
Thermalright proves once again that it is a market leader, raising the bar for performance and value with the Grand Vision 360. Its thermal results are better than any previous AIOs we’ve tested. It includes a fancy LCD screen with tons of preset customisation options, and its price tag is reasonable.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

APCA 2026 monitors

(Image credit: Future)

The year in review: Monitors

The relentless march of OLED continues, and with good reason. These panels are a gift to PC gamers, with vivid colours and perfect-black contrast. Any game experience is enhanced with an OLED. It’s just undeniably superior. Improvements in panel tech have gradually led to OLEDs being a viable replacement for LCD for productivity, though some tweaking is still needed to get a simple black font looking good against a white background. Those who don’t game are still better off with LCD.

In LCD, IPS still dominates, with almost half of all monitor sales using that panel tech. VA is now almost exclusively reserved for insanely-high refresh rate displays. Those days are numbered, though, as refresh rates keep getting better for OLED.

1440p is still the sweet spot resolution, and we expect it to remain that way for a few more years, as the slowing release of better new GPUs and general graphics card market scarcity will mean people will hold onto the card they have and upgrade less frequently, slowing the move to high resolution panels. That said, ultrawides keep getting cheaper, and interesting new resolutions keep emerging, like LG’s wondrous 5K2K screen.

We also have loads more of the best monitors in our comprehensive buying guides.

Best monitor maker

Asus

Asus
Whether it’s a ProArt for creators or a ROG for gamers, every Asus monitor without fail is superbly engineered and built with cutting edge tech. The overall package each Asus monitor represents is usually a luxurious combination of features that meet or exceed any expectation.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best productivity monitor

Dell 32 Plus S3225QS:

Dell 32 Plus S3225QS: (Review | Buy now)
The combination of good looks, a basic adjustable stand and respectable colour accuracy is a pretty good combination for a $600 monitor — and especially one that offers a crisp 4K resolution on a big 32-inch panel. If big-screen productivity is on your wish list, the Dell 32 Plus S3225QS is a great choice.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best gaming monitor

Asus ROG Swift PG27UCDM:

Asus ROG Swift PG27UCDM: (Review | Check Amazon)
If you want the very best OLED technology has to offer, the Asus ROG Swift PG27UCDM should be on your shortlist. It does everything well and stands out with Dolby Vision support and incredible pixel density.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best creator/pro monitor

Asus ProArt PA27JCV:

Asus ProArt PA27JCV: (Review | Check Amazon)
Asus' new ProArt PA27JCV monitor is a fantastic choice for most creative work thanks to its impressive colour gamut, a huge 5K resolution and highly adjustable stand. Its impressive image quality, plus its eye comfort features, make it the ideal monitor for digital artists.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

APCA peripherals

(Image credit: Future)

The year in review: Peripherals

The winds of change are blowing across the world of keyboards, and we love it. Gone are the days when all the top rated keyboards came exclusively from the traditional players. While the likes of Corsair and Logitech are still pumping out great gear, the ascendancy of ‘niche’ keyboard companies like Keychron, NuPhy, McHose and Wobkey has been most welcome. The market is now awash with beautiful colours and designs, and the range and customisation options are glorious.

The reverse is true with mice, where it’s still very much the domain of the likes of Razer, Logitech, Corsair, Asus and SteelSeries. Sensors are pushing into polling rates up to and even beyond 8000Hz, which is the realm of only elite esports players. Small and light is the trend, which we appreciate, and so is having fewer buttons, which we don’t like at all.

Gaming headphones are seeing a few planar driver models sneak into play, which is a trend we hope continues, as the crystal clear fidelity is very well suited to gaming.

Fish tank-style cases remain in vogue, with attractive examples from many of the top case brands.

Best keyboard

Keychron V6 Max:

Keychron V6 Max: (Review | Check Amazon)
One of the best keyboards around, perfectly positioned for productivity-minded professionals, students, programmers — effectively anyone who’s going to be spending a lot of time at their desk. On that score, it delivers an awesome experience.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best mouse

Razer DeathAdder V4 Pro:

Razer DeathAdder V4 Pro: (Review | Check Amazon)
The Razer DeathAdder V4 Pro manages to improve on the previous generation of the esports gear manufacturer’s flagship wireless gaming mouse in every single way. Feeling as comfortable and lightweight as ever, this work of art and technical brilliance has even faster performance, longer battery life and adds an optical scroll wheel.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

It’s also worth checking out our guide to the best mice in Australia.

Best gaming headset

Razer BlackShark V3 Pro:

Razer BlackShark V3 Pro: (Review | Check Amazon)
By adding active noise cancellation to an already excellent BlackShark model, Razer bolsters one of the best wireless headsets on the market with even more luxury, complementing its stellar build quality, thumping sound and crisp, clear mic.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best case

Lian Li O11 Vision:

Lian Li O11 Vision: (Review | Check Amazon)
This chassis is just out of this world. Not only does it have a remarkably compact form factor and wildly broad compatibility, it looks incredible, comes with two configurations, and leaves you with one beautiful-looking machine.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best router

TP-Link Deco BE68 BE14000:

TP-Link Deco BE68 BE14000: (Review | Check Amazon)
Balancing performance and price almost perfectly, TP-Link's Deco BE68 is a supremely capable and very fast home mesh system. The stylish look, ease of use and huge coverage area make it ideal for anyone wanting effortless Wi-Fi everywhere.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

It’s also worth checking out our guide to the best mesh Wi-Fi systems.

APCA 2026 internet

(Image credit: Future)

The year in review: Internet

The NBN received a major shake up towards the end of 2025 with the arrival of its “Accelerate Great” initiative, which saw much faster download and upload speeds being delivered to customers with eligible connection types. These speed upgrades arrived at no extra cost too, resulting in some great value for Australians wanting to improve their home internet.

That sentiment is especially true when you consider official speed reporting data compiled by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC), which found that the new 500Mbps tier, in particular, is actually overdelivering on speed promises, while the similarly new NBN 750 speed tier is exceptionally close to hitting 100%.

Aussie-owned internet service provider, Exetel, beat everyone else to the punch with an NBN 500 plan launch in July 2025, ahead of the wider September rollout. The telco also made the surprising move to eradicate all its other NBN plans, leaving it with just one. We had wondered if other providers would follow suit but, so far, Exetel maintains its unique position.

Elsewhere, prices for very-high speed NBN plans continued to drop, with the average monthly cost of an NBN 1000 plan being around $5 less year on year. At the other end of the spectrum, slower NBN plans — such as NBN 25 and NBN 50 — continued to increase in price, highlighting the improved value of faster plans. With the number of connected devices only expected to increase over the coming years, getting yourself connected to a superior NBN plan is practically a necessity.

It’s also worth taking a look at our buyers guides for all the best NBN and internet options.

Best NBN Provider: Overall

Exetel

Exetel
Exetel ripped up the rule book in 2025, reshaping its lineup with just a single plan, which was the first NBN 500 plan to make it to market. Exetel performed incredibly well in ACCC reporting and we appreciate its fuss-free billing and extra available perks.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best NBN Provider: Budget

SpinTel

SpinTel
SpinTel has long been associated with value and cost-friendliness, no matter which NBN speed you’re looking for. The telco’s pricing is highly competitive, both during introductory periods and ongoing rates.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best NBN Provider: High-speed

Superloop

Superloop
Superloop is one of only a handful of providers to offer the full spectrum of NBN plans, including the new ‘Hyperfast’ NBN 2000. ACCC data regularly finds that it overdelivers on speed promises and it does so for regularly discounted monthly prices.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best NBN Provider: Gaming

Superloop

Superloop
Superloop regularly records fast ping speeds in ACCC testing and often finds itself at the top of Steam’s Global Speed Index list. The telco also has subsea fibre cables, which helps make sure gamers achieve faster connections to overseas servers in Asia and the US. Superloop also lets users opt out of CGNAT (a connection technology that can sometimes interfere with online gaming) at no additional cost.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

Best Security Suite

Bitdefender Total Security

Bitdefender Total Security
Bitdefender wins here simply because it is among the very best at stopping malware. Threats don’t have a chance to even touch your system, and the platform takes care of it all without much fuss. Bitdefender Total Security is an impressive package that is crammed with valuable features and functionality.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

APCA 2026 excellence

(Image credit: Future)

For the person, product or technology that advanced the PC more than any other in 2025.

Excellence Award

Valve

Valve

Valve earned its Excellence nod in 2025 thanks to Gabe Newell being Gabe Newell, and instead of selling out like almost everyone else, continuing to back PC gaming as an open, long-game ecosystem instead of a walled garden.

We loved that SteamOS finally broke out of the Steam Deck bubble and SteamOS 3.7 brought official install support for select AMD handhelds. Lenovo’s Legion Go S was the first third-party device to get the “real” SteamOS experience rather than Windows with a launcher attached.

Valve also introduced SteamOS Compatibility ratings on the Steam store, so you can quickly tell whether a game and its launchers, middleware and anti-cheat will behave itself on SteamOS devices.

Under the hood, Valve kept Linux gaming moving with Proton 10 entering beta in 2025, pushing more Windows titles into the “it just works” category across handhelds and desktop Linux. Steam itself got quality-of-life upgrades too, including a proper accessibility menu with UI scaling, high contrast and reduced motion settings.

Mac gamers also finally saw a native Apple Silicon Steam client in beta, which makes the app feel much snappier. And for the living room crowd, Valve capped the year by announcing a fresh Steam hardware push for 2026, including a new Steam Machine and Steam Frame VR.

Well played Valve, well played.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

  • Gabe Newell: Not selling out
  • AI everywhere: For better or worse...
  • Intel Arc B-series (Battlemage): An actually competitive GPU alternative to Nvidia and AMD
  • AMD Radeon RX 9000 series: Made mid-range GPUs interesting again
  • Valve: SteamOS is advancing Linux gaming in huge strides. Microsoft is worried
  • AMD Strix Halo: One of the best mobile chips in years
  • MSI: Project Zero made cable-hiding stealth boards a success
  • Nvidia: Never gave up on CUDA, now it drives most AI
  • ARM: Slowly but surely taking on every kind of processing
  • QD OLED: High refresh rate, high PPI, falling cost

APCA 2026 gold

(Image credit: Future)

The company that impressed us the most, overall, over the past year

Gold Award

Asus

Asus
There was one company that absolutely dominated our reviews, with more high scoring products across more categories than anyone else — from component hardware, to monitors, laptops and even phones. Just as importantly, it catered to everyone, from those on a budget through to flagship premium options.

We remain as impressed as ever by Asus’ always energetic push into innovative design and engineering. For such a huge company, it’s uncommon to see such risk taking. Mostly too, the smart designers at Asus execute well, and there’s no sense that they’re just throwing ideas out there to see what sticks. Along with its premium sub brand ROG, which is now 20 years old, Asus always excites us with a premium attitude to materials, features and manufacturing. That extends down into its budget brands like TUF. Quite simply, Asus products reliably impress us, and often.

Asus is active in almost every area of the PC, with gear filling every category. It really excels at some. Its monitors are generally class leading, for example, and Asus laptops are among the very best in the world.

Asus has gone from strength to strength and is a very deserving winner of our Gold award.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

PC Builders

Finalist brands (in order of appearance)

Internet providers

Security suites

APCA 2026 epic fail

(Image credit: Future)

Epic Fail Award

AI

AI
Even if you love AI, there’s no denying it’s brought out the absolute worst in almost everyone involved, especially the people making (and losing) the money.

2025 was a stream of AI fails: companies chasing “AI-first” headlines, businesses bolting chatbots into everything without a plan, and the workers left to clean up the mess when the shiny demo can’t handle the real world.

Meanwhile, the online content mills are all in. AI now makes it cheaper to flood the web with low-effort slop, burying useful writing, art and videos under an avalanche of keyword soup, half-true summaries and increasingly hard to spot fake images and videos.

Then there’s the real-world footprint: data centres being forced on communities that can’t supply the power or water needs, while the hardware arms race created unprecedented hoarding and shortages that drove up tech prices for everyone. Not to mention the legal and ethical issues, with major copyright fights unresolved and “maybe ask for forgiveness later” becoming an actual corporate strategy.

We stand by how impressive the tech itself is, but the behaviour around its development and use is truly the biggest epic fail of 2025.

Highly Commended

All Finalists

  • Apple: Apple Intelligence is the gift that keeps on not giving
  • AI: Overpromising and under-delivering for the consumer, causing the RAM apocalypse. AI slop. Grok deepfakes. And more...
  • Borderlands 4: Game runs poorly but Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford said it's "pretty damn optimised", "Use DLSS. It's great".
  • Cloudflare outage: Wiped many websites and services offline. Too much of the internet is dependent on it!
  • Intel: Still hasn't properly dealt with Raptor Lake issues
  • Memory shortage and price surge: AI driven insanity
  • Meta AI stage fail: Zuck's glasses failed to work live on stage
  • Micron/Crucial: Abandoning consumers at their time of need
  • Microsoft: Multiple Windows update fails, Agentic AI integration, efforts to kill Windows 10, including updates that brick your SSD!
  • Nvidia: RTX 5000 series launch, melty connectors 2.0, crappy drivers, outrageous pricing
  • Optus 000 outages: People died, nuff said
Ben Mansill
Ben Mansill
Editor - APC, PC PowerPlay and Australian T3

Ben Mansill is the Editor of APC, PC PowerPlay and Australian T3 at Future Publishing Australia. He is a consumer technology editor and writer with three decades of experience at the senior editorial level. Ben was the founding editor of the groundbreaking and wildly successful PC PowerPlay and Atomic magazines. Ben also spent five years as Editor of PC Authority magazine.

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