A few months ago, we polled thousands of PCMag readers to bring you a definitive ranking of the best laptops and tablets on the market. But what about the less portable, more powerful category of computers: desktops? That’s what we’re diving into for this month’s Readers’ Choice Awards. We asked readers across the globe to share their opinions on the desktop computers, monitors, keyboards, mice, and graphics cards they use, and after crunching all that data, we have a clear picture of the companies that tech-savvy users trust the most.Which brands should you turn to first for your desktop computing needs? Keep reading to find out! If you’re looking specifically for a desktop or monitor you can use for work, check out our Business Choice Award winners for 2024.The Top Desktop PC Brands for 2024
Apple is the only desktop PC brand to repeat as a Readers’ Choice Award winner this year, which doesn’t come as a surprise—the company has taken home this award every year for over a decade. Apple’s ratings in the key measures of overall satisfaction and likelihood to recommend are more than half a point higher than any other brand in our survey. The company also tops the ratings on every other satisfaction measure except for satisfaction with value.While Apple’s dominance is impressive, most desktop users cannot or will not purchase a computer that doesn’t run Windows. For those people, our Readers’ Choice Award winner this year is Lenovo. Lenovo and Dell earn identical overall satisfaction ratings for this category, but Lenovo has a slightly higher likelihood-to-recommend score. Lenovo also edges out Dell in satisfaction with cost/value, ease of use, and performance. Dell holds a slight edge in reliability, but both companies score quite well on this measure.
A contingent of PCMag’s audience prefers constructing their own computers rather than purchasing pre-built desktops from a PC manufacturer. It’s not a task that everyone is willing to take on, but those who do always seem very happy with their choice. It’s the same this year, with self-builders rating their overall satisfaction higher than they do for this year’s Windows-based award winner, Lenovo. However, these respondents are also pragmatic about going DIY and seem to understand it’s not for everyone. The likelihood to recommend score for self-built computers is relatively low. While they rate well from the standpoint of satisfaction with cost/value, the score is no better than Lenovo and its pre-built PCs.MSI wins our Readers’ Choice Award for gaming computers. The company earns top marks in overall satisfaction, likelihood to recommend, and satisfaction with technical support. Alienware, which won this category’s award last year, finishes closely behind MSI overall and slightly ahead of it in satisfaction with gaming performance. However, Alienware’s ratings for cost/value are second worst in the category this year, ahead of only Dell, its parent company. HP has the lowest overall satisfaction rating in the category, but it has the best ratings for satisfaction with reliability, ease of use, and cost/value among gaming PC brands.When it comes to users who build their own gaming PCs, their satisfaction with their desktops is higher than that of MSI (or any of the other brands) on every measure—except for likelihood to recommend and satisfaction with technical support.Last but certainly not least, Apple’s iMac line earns our Readers’ Choice Award for all-in-one PCs, receiving the highest satisfaction ratings on every measure except satisfaction with cost/value. Dell also earns a Readers’ Choice Award for this category, as its Windows-based AIOs come out well ahead of its main competitor, HP.For our in-depth reviews, read The Best PCs (Desktop Computers), The Best Gaming PCs, and The Best All-in-One Computers.The Top Monitor Brands for 2024
Whether you use your computer primarily for work, play, browsing, gaming, spreadsheets, or watching videos, you can’t underestimate the value of a good monitor. This year’s Readers’ Choice award winner for monitors is ViewSonic. While it’s not the most popular brand of monitors in our survey based on the number of responses (that honor goes to Dell), ViewSonic tops our ratings in overall satisfaction, as well as satisfaction with cost/value, reliability, ease of use, and display quality. It finishes slightly behind Dell and Samsung in likelihood to recommend. Last year’s winner, LG, falls to the middle of the pack in 2024.
If you’re a serious gamer, you need a monitor that can keep up without blurring, flickering, or lagging. According to our survey respondents, MSI’s gaming-specific monitors are the best in the business, earning the company our Readers’ Choice award for gaming monitors. MSI has the highest ratings for overall satisfaction and likelihood to recommend, as well as satisfaction with gaming performance (tied with HP) and cost/value (ditto). Notably, all of MSI’s ratings were over nine on our 0-to-10 scale.In addition to tying MSI on satisfaction with gaming performance and cost/value, HP beats MSI in several other areas, including installation/setup, reliability, ease of use, and picture quality. Despite these ratings, HP has the lowest score for likelihood to recommend (and is tied for last place with Dell).Dell’s non-gaming ultrawide monitors fare better, with excellent scores for both overall satisfaction and likelihood to recommend, thereby earning it a Readers’ Choice award for ultrawide displays. Thanks to its best-in-class overall satisfaction rating, Dell also wins for its ultrawide gaming monitors. Samsung is not quite as well regarded overall, but it earns the best ratings for picture quality, gaming performance, and several other measures.For our in-depth reviews, read The Best Monitors, The Best Gaming Monitors, and The Best Ultrawide Monitors.The Top Graphics Cards Brands for Gaming in 2024
If you’re into gaming, choosing the right graphics card is one of your most important decisions. Your card choice will be a key factor in how good the images look on your screen, how smooth the motion is, and how much money you have left for other components. MSI wins our Readers’ Choice award for graphics cards. The company receives top ratings on nearly every measure, including overall satisfaction and likelihood to recommend, as well as satisfaction with ease of use, setup, reliability, repairs, and graphics performance.MSI does finish behind last year’s winner, EVGA, in one area (satisfaction with tech support), but overall its scores are still excellent. The company’s weakest rating is cost/value, where it finishes in the middle of the pack.
At the heart of any graphics card is its GPU, or graphics processor. Most cards are based on either Nvidia or AMD chips, and some graphics card brands offer products using chips from each company. This year’s Readers’ Choice award winner for GPU makers is Nvidia, which also won the award last year. Nvidia, which recently surpassed Microsoft and Apple as the most valuable public company thanks to its work in AI, rates slightly ahead of AMD on most measures we poll for. Importantly, it holds an edge over the competition in overall satisfaction, though AMD does earn higher scores for satisfaction with cost/value. Relative graphics newcomer Intel, which plays in this space with its Arc Graphics, comes in last on every satisfaction measure.
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For our in-depth reviews, read The Best Graphics Cards and The Best Graphics Cards for 4K Gaming.The Top Keyboards, Mice, and Trackball Brands for 2024
You may not be familiar with SteelSeries if you’re not a gamer, but the Danish company earns our Readers’ Choice Award for its keyboards this year. In particular, the company’s keyboards scored top marks in overall satisfaction, as well as several other measures, including satisfaction with performance, comfort, and reliability. Despite the fact that Logitech won our Readers’ Choice Award for keyboards last year (and largely retains the same scores this year), SteelSeries managed to take the top spot on the podium. Lenovo is still very well regarded by survey respondents, though. It finishes second to SteelSeries in overall satisfaction and ties with the company in likelihood to recommend.Note: Respondents were only asked to rate their keyboards if they purchased them separately from their PC, as the keyboards that come with most PCs tend to be very basic models.
When it comes to computer mice, Logitech is the clear leader. In addition to having many fans (half of our survey respondents say they own a Logitech mouse), the brand also earns impressively high scores for customer satisfaction. It ties with Apple and Razer for overall satisfaction but edges out all other competitors in likelihood to recommend, cost, and repairs.Our survey results also suggest that a small contingent of respondents prefer to use a trackball instead of a mouse. For this subcategory, Kensington wins our Readers’ Choice award by a wide margin. The company has the highest satisfaction ratings on every measure for which it received enough responses, including a near-perfect rating on satisfaction with ease of use. Logitech’s trackballs also score well, though. They tie Kensington in satisfaction with setup and comfort, but lag behind on all other ratings.For our in-depth reviews, read The Best Keyboards, The Best Gaming Keyboards, The Best Computer Mice, and The Best Trackball Mice.Full Results
The PCMag RC/Business Choice survey for Desktop PCs, Monitors, and Peripherals was in the field from May 12 to June 2, 2024. For more information on how we conduct surveys, read the survey methodology.
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