Gaming products dominate top tech list [update 1]

8 Comments by Conrad Quilty-Harper Jun 1st 2006 1:45AM
Filed under: Mac, PC, Microsoft Xbox 360, Business

PC World's list of top 100 tech products of the year praised our sister blog Engadget and gave Apple lots of love but the categorical winner of the list is undoubtedly gaming. The following products aren't all directly gaming related (you could use some of them to run spreadsheets) although there's a quite clear video gaming subtext underlying many of the choices. Lets just say that they're as close to being gaming technology as Uri Geller is to being locked up in an asylum.

1. Core Duo - the first chip to enable desktop level performance in games on laptop computers.
2. Athlon 64 X2 - for that ultimate gaming rig you always wanted (but couldn't, and still can't, afford).
10. Boot Camp - Apple's Mac gaming solution.
16. GeForce 7600GT - hits that price/performance sweet spot.
19. Guitar Hero - we think that this is some kind of video game.
55. Raptor X - 10,000RPM Hard Drives were invented for gaming.
58. X1900 XTX - ATI's biggest, baddest GPU. Stupid name though.
63. A8N32 mobo - it's all about the SLI, baby.
89. Xbox 360 - we've heard of this! Isn't it designed to hold your lunch?
92. GeForce 7900 GTX - nVIDIA's biggest, baddest GPU. Stupid name though.

I personally own several products identical or similar to products on this list (a MacBook with a Core Duo CPU running Windows via Boot Camp is being used to write this post - I'm off for some Eve Online in a sec). Do you agree with these choices? What's missing?

P.S. If anyone from PC World is reading this, I apologize for desecrating your logo.

[Update: "top tech," not "top ten tech". Thanks Ahms!]

Tags: 10,000RPM, 64 X2, 64X2, Apple, Asus, Asus motherboard, AsusMotherboard, Athlon, ATI, Boot Camp, BootCamp, Core Duo, CoreDuo, CPU, Engadget, gaming, GeForce 7600, GeForce 7900, Geforce7600, Geforce7900, GPU, Guitar Hero, GuitarHero, Hard Drive, HardDrive, Intel, nVIDIA, price/performance, Raptor X, RaptorX, SLI, top 100, Top100, TUAW, Uri Geller, UriGeller, X1900, Xbox 360, Xbox360

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(Page 1) Reader Comments

Ahms: Jun 1st 2006; 2:23AM

Conrad, should the title say "top 100" instead of "top ten"? Judging from the rankings it looks more like "10 gaming items in the top 100" list, unless I am reading something incorrectly :)

Grats Engadget!

Spence: Jun 1st 2006; 5:18AM

I think VOIP is a big deal, and will continue to be so.. it's hard to describe it as a product but in game communications was a big step forward.. even if Live has made it mainstream.

Unimental: Jun 1st 2006; 7:06AM

I'm going to agree with #1 on this... it looks like the gaming "domination" is just 10% of the list.

Engadget is #13, though. THAT is sweet, and worth bragging about big-time. Right between FireFox 1.5 and Toshiba's HD-A1.

And way-to-go Apple.

JPRacer: Jun 1st 2006; 9:35AM

I'm glad Guitar Hero is included in the list. That game rocks!

Cabbage: Jun 1st 2006; 10:54AM

Saying that the "categorical winner" of the top 100 tech list is gaming is quite a stretch. I don't know that I would count the Core Duo, Athlon, Boot Camp, or Raptor X as "Gaming." Sure, I have an iMac with XP installed, but the only game I've played on it was Civ 4 which gets more love on my laptop than the iMac anyway.

Wouldn't you think it's normal for a PC mag to highlight PC technology in its list? It seems to me that sound cards, printers, monitors, and many other PC components have reached a plateau, so it makes sense that we'd see GPUs CPUs and a killer hard drive on that list. Not to shoot you down, but that's just the way I see it.

I guess since I'm a big PC nerd, but not necessarily a PC gamer I see things differently.

Geist: Jun 1st 2006; 11:25AM

The hell? You're telling me I have nVidia's most powerful GPU in my system?

...

Cool.

Yuki~Summer Ver.~: Jun 1st 2006; 7:00PM

"In video games, the speed of game play varied, but overall we did not notice much difference in visual quality or smoothness."
-According to the article you linked to for the Core Duo.

"1. Core Duo - the first chip to enable desktop level performance in games on laptop computers."

Which is it?

Jack Flash: Jun 2nd 2006; 12:04PM

I currently have a duo core laptop and it has a geforce 7800 GT (and that is because it, and the GTX, were the only options available from dell at the time). Aside from civ 4 however, I am a strictly counsel (sports) gamer, but civ 4 does run seamlessly at the highest graphics settings. I only got it so I could run bootlegged chemical engineering design software w/o any headaches.

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