iXBT.com Editors' Awards
Striving to bring recognition to manufacturers of high-technology equipment, the iXBT.com editorial team decided to institute three awards:
Reviewed by iXBT.com
The Reviewed by iXBT.com award recognizes the products, which have gone through the iXBT.com lab tests. This award is presented to a manufacturer, whose products were tested in our lab, got reviewed, and their reviews are published on the iXBT.com web site, in the iXBT.com magazine, or on the Digit-Life.com web site.
Original Design
Modern IT market is flooded with clones. Life-cycle of a product became shorter, so most manufacturers do not spend their time and resources on their own designs. Instead, they often follow the so called "reference design", changing only the name of the product and the package appearance. That's why in order to encourage efforts of the manufacturers who create innovative products different from reference designs, the editorial team of iXBT.com institutes the Original Design award.
This award can be honored to a product with an original design, which is essentially different from the reference design. The product must be tested in the iXBT.com lab and then have a review (concerning the test results) published on the iXBT.com web site, in the iXBT.com magazine, or on the Digit-Life.com web site.
The Original Design award can be selected only once a month and must provide links to the reviews of the awarded products.
Cooling Systems Awards
A cooling system (cooler) - air, water, based on heat pipes, or any other similar device or a set of devices can be awarded with Original Design in case it...
- Efficiently copes with its main task — cooling
- Has an original design
- Possesses unique functionality for these days
- Possesses outstanding ergonomic characteristics (including a noise level), which do not damage its functionality
- Other things that are not listed here
January 2006 Awards
Cooler Master Susurro
Motherboards Awards
A motherboard gets the Original Design award for one or a combination of the following design features:
- Passive (or active, but only if necessary!) cooling system for overheated motherboard elements
- Indication system for computer failures at startup
- Good PCB layout, which does not hamper assemblage and upgrade
- On-board buttons to power on or restart a computer, to reset CMOS, etc. — any feature that facilitates express-tests or repairs
- Other things
We award only useful elements of design in our opinion: so, a stylish (or a monstrous) chipset cooler cannot be considered useful, if this chipset does not require mandatory active cooling. And the attractive design will not be awarded, if it offers no other advantages except for its good looks.
Of course, the above list does not contain all possible options (a lot of things cannot be foreseen at all) for a motherboard to get the award. Read the reviews of awarded models to find out the details and perhaps get acquainted with innovations on the market.
January 2006 Awards
Gigabyte G1975X — Top Motherboard Based on Intel 975X
Excellent Package
It's always pleasant to buy a product and find out that the package includes additional equipment, software, games, souvenirs, etc. It's nice to think that the product you bought is well worth its price, and it's twice as nice to buy a well-bundled product at a moderate price. In practice, some manufacturers tend to save on every item, even if the inclusion of this item into the product package raises the price by less than 10%. Thus, the editorial team of iXBT.com institutes the Excellent Package award to bring recognition to those manufacturers, who offer nice boxes with excellent package content (the product plus useful accessories) instead of featureless boxes with minimal package content (CD with drivers).
This award can be presented to a product with an original box and unique package content. The product must be tested in the iXBT.com lab, and the results of these tests must be published in a review on the iXBT.com web site, the iXBT.com magazine, or the Digit-Life.com web site.
The Excellent Package award can be selected only once a month and must refer to the awarded product reviews.
Additional information
The same award cannot be given to a product more than once.
A product can get several different awards.
Printed award certificates can be provided by written request via e-mail: pr@ixbt.com
