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Well, the votes are in, and after millions of them from all over the world, the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D has won Best Gaming Hardware at the Golden Joystick Awards 2025 – beating out both the Nintendo Switch 2 and Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller, just to name a few.
While the winner might be somewhat shocking to the general gaming populace, it makes a lot of sense to those folks that actually follow and regularly use gaming hardware beyond traditional consoles. Like, for example, GamesRadar+ hardware editor Duncan Robertson.
The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D is, per AMD, the world's most powerful processor. Intel would likely argue otherwise, of course. But the specs speak for themselves, according to Roberston, and it also has a 3D V-cache – which means its architecture lends itself to gaming and content creation tasks. It's a powerhouse CPU that's considered by many critics to be pushing the boundaries of what desktop processors are capable of.
"In terms of being better than Switch 2, it adds a lot of performance on a motherboard socket AMD has been using for its previous two generations, unlike Intel, which is already leaving its equivalent for dead and demanding people buy new motherboards for its latest processors," Robertson tells me. "So in that way, it's pretty pro-consumer? Even if it's a pricey CPU at first glance. The 3D V-cache also gives it a lot of futureproofing for demanding PC games, especially in a year when minimum spec requirements are leaving a lot of fairly recent hardware in the dust, and that will likely only continue."
The nominees for Best Gaming Hardware were as follows:
- Nintendo Switch 2
- Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller
- WD_BLACK SN8100 NVMe SSD
- Elgato Facecam 4K
- Razer Blade 16
- AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D (WINNER)
Catch up with our list of all the winners at the Golden Joystick Awards 2025.
