At the beginning of this month, we asked you as our readers for a favour, which was to cast your vote for the products/technologies that you thought were the best of the past year. We are happy to inform you that the voting is now over, as is the counting of the votes. That is, we can announce the winners of this year's Hardware.Info Awards!
Below are the winners per category, as well as the runners-up. We would like to thank everyone who cast their votes, and congratulate the manufacturers that won an award.
| Category | Winner | Runner-up |
|---|---|---|
| Best processor 2014 | Intel Core i7 4790K | Intel Core i7 5960X |
| Best (micro) ATX motherboard 2014 | ASUS Maximus VII Gene | MSI Z97 Gaming 5 |
| Best mini ITX motherboard 2014 | ASUS Maximus VII Impact | MSI Z97I Gaming AC |
| Best memory module series 2014 | Corsair Vengeance | Kingston HyperX |
| Best 3D chip 2014 | Nvidia GM204 (GTX 970 / 980) | AMD Hawaii (R9 290(X)) |
| Best AMD graphics card 2014 | MSI Radeon R9 290X Lightning 4GB | Sapphire Radeon R9 290X Vapor-X 8GB |
| Best Nvidia graphics card 2014 | MSI GeForce GTX 970 Gaming 4GB | ASUS GeForce GTX 970 Strix 4GB |
| Best sound card 2014 | ASUS Xonar Essence STX II | Creative Sound Blaster ZxR |
| Best harddisk 2014 | Western Digital Black | Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 |
| Best SSD 2014 | Samsung 850 Pro | Crucial MX100 |
| Best CPU cooler (air) 2014 | Scythe Mugen 4 PCGH Edition | Cooler Master Hyper 412S |
| Best CPU cooler (liquid) 2014 | Corsair H100i | Cooler Master Nepton 240m |
| Best thermal paste 2014 | Arctic Silver 5 | Cooler Master HTK |
| Best (micro) ATX case 2014 | Cooler Master CM 690 III | Fractal Design Define R4 |
| Best Mini ITX case 2014 | Corsair Obsidian 250D | Cooler Master Elite 130 |
| Best PSU (series) 2014 | Corsair RM | Be quiet! Dark Power Pro 10 |
| Best casefan (series) 2014 | Be quiet! Silent Wings 2 | Noctua NF-F |
| Best monitor 2014 | Dell UltraSharp U2713HM | Iiyama Prolite XB2483HSU-B1 |
| Best gaming monitor 2014 | ASUS ROG Swift PG278Q | Iiyama ProLite GB2488HSU |
| Best mouse 2014 | Logitech G502 | Razer Deathadder |
| Best keyboard 2014 | Logitech G710+ | Corsair K70 RGB |
| Best printer/all-in-one 2014 | Canon MG5550 | HP Photosmart 5520 |
| Best PC speakerset 2014 | Logitech Z906 | Harman Kardon Soundsticks III |
| Best headset / headphones 2014 | Sennheiser Momentum | SteelSeries Siberia v2 |
| Best Bluetooth speaker 2014 | Bose SoundLink III | JBL Charge |
| Best USB thumb drive (series) 2014 | Sandisk Extreme Pro | Kingston DataTraveler 100 G3 |
| Best flash memory card (series) 2014 | Sandisk Extreme Pro | Samsung Evo |
| Best NAS device 2014 | Synology DS415+ | QNAP TS-453 Pro |
| Best router 2014 | ASUS RT-AC87U | Netgear R7000 Nighthawk |
| Best all-in-one PC 2014 | MSI AG240 Gaming | Apple iMac 27 |
| Best mini-PC / barebone 2014 | MSI Nightblade Z97 | Gigabyte Brix Pro-4770R |
| Best notebook 2014 | ASUS N550 | Apple MacBook Air |
| Best hybrid tablet/notebook 2014 | Microsoft Surface Pro 3 | ASUS Transformer Book T100TA |
| Best gaming notebook 2014 | MSI GS70 | Alienware 17 |
| Best smartphone 2014 | Samsung Galaxys S5 | Oneplus One |
| Best tablet 2014 | Apple iPad Air 2 | Samsung Galaxy Tab S |
| Best TV 2014 | Samsung HU7500 | Sony X9005B |
| Best camera 2014 | Canon Eos 5D Mark III | Nikon D810 |
| Best PC game 2014 | Battlefield 4 | Far Cry 4 |
| Best product 2014 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 970/980 | Sony Playstation 4 |
| Best new technology 2014 | Oculus Rift | DDR4 |
