OCWorkbench Readers' Award 2002

OCWorkbench Readers' Award is our annual online event of the year. This is the first time we are running such an Award in recognition for the best of best of year 2002. This event is run at the end of year 2002 with a nomination of the items to be included in the voting which last for another month. The polls are opened for voting until midnight yesterday.

As you know, OCworkbench.com is not just another motherboard site, we have been venturing into different areas. Users of PCs also do not just buy a motherboard. They also purchase peripherals like Graphics cards, RAM, Printers etc. In addition to that, we have also included nominations + polls for other high tech products e.g. mobile phones, PDAs. You could say that we included most of the PC related items in this Readers' Award poll.

OCworkbench.com started off in 1998 as a review site of mainboard and chipsets, this is also the focus of this poll. Chipsets poll is also another important element of this poll. Ok, let us take a look at the score sheets.

Best Socket A chipset

First of all, the best Socket A chipset (Discrete DDR chipsets). This poll attracted most voters and we can see that in the year 2002, nVIDIA's nForce2 appears to be the best winner. In fact, from the start of this poll, we saw a high of 60% but it dropped to 40.3% in the 3rd week of January. Securing the second position is SiS 746FX which most users hasn't even seen it. It really came as a surprise. The third is VIA KT333 and it overtook VIA KT400 which is a newer chipset. It seems that there is a growing trend towards the nForce2 has it has been proven to be one of the best overclockable chipset and it is the only dual channel DDR chipset for the Athlon platform.

Best Socket A chipset (Discrete DDR chipsets)

nVIDIA nForce2 40.3% SiS 746FX 19.2% VIA KT333 11.5% SiS 735 10.8% VIA KT400 5.7% SiS 745 2.4% AMD 761 2.2% nVIDIA nForce 2.0% ALi ALiMAGik1 1.9% SiS 746 1.8% VIA KT266A 1.5% VIA KT266 0.7% Total Votes: 1164

Best Socket A (Overclocking Board)

Again, in the Socket A OC category, we see that the top 2 are both based on the nVIDIA nForce2 chipset, Surprisingly, ECS K7S5A makes it to the 3rd position. This came as a surprise to me because this board does not offer any overclocking features at all. The only 2 reasons I can think of is the overwhelming support of K7S5A users who voted for it and secondly, Cheepoman's overclocking BIOS has brought new life to this aging board. The rest of the boards using VIA and SiS chipset seems to have a much lower votes compared to the top 3.

Best Socket A (Overclocking)

ASUS A7N8X 19.3% EPOX 8RDA+ 18.6% ECS K7S5A 15.2% EPOX 8K5A2+ 5.3% MSI 745 Ultra 5.2% Chaintech 7NJS 4.6% ABIT KX7-333 4.4% ABIT KD7 4.2% ABIT NF7-S 3.9% EPOX 8K3A 3.6% GIGABYTE GA-7VRXP 3.6% MSI KT3 Ultra 2.2% MSI KT4 Ultra 1.9% IWILL XP333 1.8% GIGABYTE GA-7VA 1.7% ASUS A7N-266 VM 1.5% CHAINTECH 7VJL Deluxe 1.4% SOLTEK SL-75FRV 0.8% MSI K7N2-L 0.7% Total Votes: 1696 You have already voted!

Best Socket A (Cost/Performance Ratio)

Who says low price boards means that it won't be well accepted. The top 3 boards we see here are probably the cheapest boards we have in the market right now. Out of the 3, ECS K7S5A still maintain the top choice. EPoX 8RDA+ is the only nForce2 board which makes it to the top 3 with a high of 17.3%. MSI 745 Ultra is another SIS board. The VIA chipsets mainboards seem to be forgotten.

Best Socket A board (Cost/Performance Ratio)

ECS K7S5A 35.4% EPOX 8RDA+ 17.3% MSI 745 Ultra 7.3% ABIT AT7 Max 2 6.4% GIGABYTE GA-7VRXP 5.1% CHAINTECH 7NJS 4.6% ABIT KX7-333 3.9% ASUS A7N-266 VM 3.8% MSI KT3 Ultra ARU 3.8% GIGABYTE GA-7VA 3.0% ASUS A7S333 2.4% CHAINTECH 7VJL Deluxe 1.7% SHUTTLE AK35GT2 1.5% MSI K7N2-L 1.4% ECS K7S7AG 1.4% SOLTEK SL-75FRV 1.1% Total Votes: 1564

Best Socket A heatink

This are the top 3 heatsinks chosen by our readers. It looks like the Thermalright SKL800 Copper heatsink has a lead over the rest. In this poll, we can see that the top 5 are more wide spread and the difference isn't that great.

Best Socket A heatsink

Thermalright SLK-800 Copper 18.8% Alpha 8045 14.9% Thermaltake Volcano 7+ 14.8% CoolerMaster HHC-001 Heatpipe 13.1% Thermtake Volcano 9/SmartFan II 12.2% Swiftech MCX 462 9.1% Thermalright AX-7 6.3% Titan TTC-D5TB(F/CU35) 4.8% Thermaright SK-7/SmartFan II 2.1% GlobalWin CAK4-88T 1.9% Vantec C7040 1.3% GlobalWin TAK68 0.7% Total Votes: 908

Pentium 4 (Socket 478) and Best Mainboard Package

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