4th OCWORKBENCH Readers' Award

Most innovative product

Imagine running 2 processor in one computer… sounds expensive? Yes. The last cheap end-user dual processor that I can recall with the Abit BP6. It gave decent performance for cheap, but it was nothing to shout about. Fast forward to present time and AMD’s X2. Yes, dual. Yes, Intel has their own dual core in the form of Pentium Extreme Edition and the Pentium D, it’s prohibitory expensive.

AMD X2 stands for dual core. (actually we should be calling it AMD 64 Athlon X2) Somewhat like a dual processor setup, but using only a single socket 939. It’s affordable, and as many people would be holding on to socket 939 board, a quick flash of the Bios will allow the usage of a dual core cpu. For this, it get the number one spot.

Second is the very popular Asrock 939Dual-SATA2. Based on the ULi M1695+M1567, this board supports native PCIe and AGP 8x.

Gigabyte i-RAM gets third for it’s hard disk on rams. Remember some of the programs that allocate ram to act as a hard disk? This takes the place of the program, and unlike it, does not lose all data after a reboot/shutdown for up to 16hours.

Maybe if we combine the whole lot of AMD 64 Athlon X2 with Asrock 939Dual-SATA2, and Gigabyte i-RAM, we get the most innovative product combo?

Best Tech Support

You can have the best equipment, but when it breaks down or if you need help. Who can you turn to? According to voters, Gigabyte will be most willing to help. Asrock second. And TUL third (in case you are wondering who TUL is, think PowerColor).

The above results are all based on votes casted in the past weeks. It is just an indicator of how well the different brands has got into the minds of our readers. Although some brands did not make it to the top, that does not mean that they are not good.  It is just that they might not have a vast user base to vote for them.

For the guys who got into top 3 last year but are missing this year, it is time to reflect on what went wrong with your products and its reach. Are manufacturers making products that nobody cares or it is simply waiting for an acquisition to happen?

See you again in OCW Readers Award 2006.

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