Australian PC Awards 2021 winners: The best of the best in PC
The ultimate in value and performance for PC systems, tech, peripherals & components

- Best Motherboard Maker
- Best Value Motherboard
- Best Premium Motherboard
- Best Graphics Card Maker
- Best Value Graphics Card
- Best Premium Graphics Card
- Best Value CPU
- Best Premium CPU
- Best Internal Storage Maker
- Best External Storage Maker
- Best SOHO or Home NAS
- Best Value Laptop or 2-in-1
- Best Premium Laptop or 2-in-1
- Best Gaming Laptop
- Best Desktop PC Maker
- Best Memory Maker
- Best Cooling Product
- Best Monitor
- Best Keyboard
- Best Mouse
- Best Gaming Headset
- Best PC Case
- Best Router
- Best Reseller
- Excellence Award
- Gold Award
The last year has been a massive one for PC gaming and home computing and we can finally now get 20/20 hindsight vision for which products of 2020 and the start of 2021 were the absolute best in their field.
The Australian PC Awards are complete, with live streaming reveals airing across three nights on June 23, 24 and 25, 2021.
If you missed them on the nights, you can still tune in to the APCA 2021 episodes to see the live unveilings, some for great debate on the state of PC components... and a chance to win some excellent prizes!
The Australian PC Awards is presented by computing experts from TechRadar, APC, TechLife, PC Gamer, PC PowerPlay and T3. Representing a broad collection of computing veterans from some of Australia's best PC publications, there's no better way to get a complete snapshot of the highs and lows of personal computers in 2020/21.
Anyone here purely for the results of the 2021 Australian PC Awards, read on. Below is the final list of products that beat all the competition in their field to take out an APCA 2021 best product award.
Whether you're looking to build the best value rig around, or you simply want to tick off any components you might already have in your current build, all of the following products are the best in the business.
Motherboards
Best Motherboard Maker 2021
Asus
Great BIOSes and a consistently good physical layout across the range. Asus has proven to their motherboard owners time and time again that they are both reliable and capable of the highest performance.
Best Value Motherboard 2021
Asrock A520M-ITX/AC
The perfect partner for one of AMD's lower-priced CPUs (or APUs), this $150 board offers a great feature set for the price and even has AC Wi-Fi.
• Read the full PC Gamer review
Highly Commended
MSI MAG Z490 Tomahawk
A great choice for a user looking to build a powerful system without spending the big bucks.
• Read the full AnandTech review
Best Premium Motherboard 2021
Gigabyte Z590 Aorus Master
Mega VRM and huge heatsinks that give lots of surface area for outstanding cooling, great quality components and even 10G LAN, which is unheard of at this pricepoint.
• Read the full Tom's Hardware review
Highly Commended
Asus Crosshair VIII Dark Hero X570
The best AM4 motherboard we've yet tested, we're so enamoured with it that it's become our AMD testbed. Fantastic memory support, supporting frequencies that other boards just don't. Insane amount of USB ports. Does have a couple of weaknesses, but they're acceptable trade-offs.
• Read the full PC Gamer review
Graphics Cards
Best Graphics Card Maker 2021
MSI
Consistently first-rate coolers from top to bottom across the whole range, and often priced a bit cheaper than other brands.
Highly Commended
Nvidia
30-Series features genuine engineering innovation and reasonable cooling for a reference card.
Best Value Graphics Card 2021
MSI RTX 3060 Ti Gaming X Trio
A mid range card with a triple-fan flagship design. One of the quietest gaming cards you'll find and punches well above it's weight.
• Read the full PC Gamer review
Highly Commended
Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3060 Vision OC
The gorgeous Gigabyte 3060 Vision OC is a great choice for gaming or creating.
Highly Commended
PowerColor Radeon RX 6700 XT Hellhound
Why spend more when you can get a great performing and cool running option for less.
• Read Tom's Hardware's coverage
Best Premium Graphics Card 2021
Asus ROG Strix RTX 3080 O10G Gaming
A quiet, cool, powerful and feature loaded card. It's got the lot.
Highly Commended
MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Suprim
A powerhouse of high clocks and quality cooling to tame it.
• Read TechRadar's coverage
CPU
Best Value CPU 2021
Intel Core i5-11400F
With impressive performance for less than half the price of a 5600X, for those on a budget, this is a slam dunk.
- Read full PC Gamer review
Highly Commended
- Read full TechRadar review
Highly Commended
Intel Core i5-10600K
This CPU offers the performance of a flagship CPU from just a couple of years ago.
- Read full PC Gamer review
Best Premium CPU 2021
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X
A great enthusiast processor, Intel can't beat it and does everything pretty well without breaking the bank.
- Read full TechRadar review
Highly Commended
- Read full PC Gamer review
Highly Commended
Intel Core i5-11600K
This powerful hexa-core CPU offers very competitive performance at this price point
- Read full TechRadar review
Storage
Best Internal Storage Maker 2021
Highly Commended
Best External Storage Maker 2021
Highly Commended
Seagate
Innovative products like the Firecuda Gaming Dock demonstrate Seagate's commitment to innovation.
Best SOHO or Home NAS 2021
Synology DS1621+
A great combination of performance, capacity, features, expandability and price point for any SMB.
- Read full TechRadar Pro review
Highly Commended