Welcome to 2009! Thinking of starting off the year with an upgrade to bring your PC up to speed? Then look no further than our monthly buyers guide. Once again we've brought together a list of components we recommend to help take the stress out of upgrading to suit any budget.

Viewsonic is the second monitor manufacturer to jump on the 16:9 bandwagon. We check out the VX2260WM, a 22-inch 1,920 x 1,080 display with a decent array of connectivity options, to see how it stands up to what else is out there.

Seasonic breaks its own mould with the highest power unit it has ever launched. That's not what's special though - the ultra high quality fan and 80Plus Silver efficiency rating could very well raise the PSU bar again.

A good gamer is well-rounded, using a number of systems, which is why we asked you to vote for your Top Five Console Games of 2008 earlier in December. As we head into the new year, it's time to look back at your choices.

Earlier in the week, we published the best games of the year and today it's time to look back at what's happened in the technology industry over the last year. Find out which products are the best of the year, and also which innovations have caught our eye during 2008.

We here at bit-tech have a saying - "you can never have too much storage," In which case the Seagate 1.5TB hard drive seems ideal, packing more gigabytes into a shiny 3.5" drive than ever before. We find out how this jumbo drive stacks up against the competition.

It's facepalm time. After collecting votes from our readers for the best games of 2008, it's time to look back on the year and see which games came out that didn't live up to expectations. Here's our take on the titles that got destroyed by their own hype and how they could have been saved.

You voted for them and here they are - the top ten PC games of the year according to the bit-tech reader vote. Did your favourite game make it into the short list, or you the only person in the world who likes Conspiracy Island 2? Read on to find out!

Building the perfect home network can be tricky, especially if you've got thick walls which interfere with Wi-Fi signals or don't want Cat5e trailed everywhere. We check out Belkin's Powerline AV starter kit which uses the existing electricity wiring in your home to carry a network signal and see if it's a decent alternative.

Christmas is over and, thanks to unimaginative but rich relatives, you've managed to scrape together a little bit of cash with which to treat yourself. Unfortunately, you're so stuffed with turkey that you can't think of what to buy! Never fear though - bit-tech is here!

It's time for us to put our feet up, loosen our belts, let out our guts and gorge on cheesecake. We've got seven of the best and worst cheesecakes from Marks and Spencer, Sainsbury's, Tesco and Morrisons - now it's time for a taste!

It's been yet another incredible year of modding, and we've chosen the best of the best mods featured here on bit-tech for you to vote on. We've got sponsorship from the industry's finest and both modders and voters can potentially win prizes - so what are you waiting for?

Our first Full HD 16:9 widescreen monitor has hit the labs. The Iiyama ProLite E2208HDS is a 22-inch display with a 1,920 x 1,080 native resolution, which means it has an ultra-tight pixel pitch. Does it do enough to win us over? Read on to find out...

We've seen how AMD's new Kuma CPUs perform at stock speeds, but what's the best CPU to buy for us overclockers: Intel's ever popular E5200 or AMD's new inexpensive monster? We evaluate overclocking performance to see which platform affords the best value.

It's more than clever normalising and keeping the bass intact at low volume; Dolby Volume aims to inject some of the vibrancy back into audio when you can't play the TV "teenage bedroom loud".

Based on the works of comic book artist Enki Bilal, Nikopol: Secret of the Immortals is a story of fanaticism, politics and artistry, but is it any good? We take a look at this most unusual of adventure games to see if it can move us beyond point and clicking.

The Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 Atomic is a heavily overclocked, pre-watercooled version of ATI's dual GPU monster and it's been tearing up the bit-tech test benches all week. We find out just how fast it is, and whether it justifies its monster price tag.

Over the past few days, we've been playing around with Nvidia's next high-end graphics card, the GeForce GTX 295. We have an early look at how it performs ahead of its launch at CES in January.

There's little doubt that Intel's Atom has been a success, but it's been ultimately let down by the high power, and poorly featured graphics of the associated chipset. Looking to right this wrong, Nvidia Ion's Intel's Atom into shape.

The last few weeks have been full of blood, sweat and BIOS revisions in the bit-tech benchmarking sweatshop. We've been feverishly putting our new Core i7-based graphics card test systems together and now we're here to report how the graphics landscape is reforming itself.

SSDs might be able to deliver blistering read speeds, but they tend to fall down when it comes to write. Not so the Intel X25-E, which claims both blistering fast read and write speeds thanks to the use of SLC NAND flash memory. We find out if Intel's Extreme series SSD can make the grade and justify its monster price tag.

The carpentry legend is back - Nick Falzone, winner of our 2007 Mod of the Year competition, tries his hand at a mini-ITX gaming machine with some absolutely gorgeous results! You will NOT want to miss this one!

The year may well be drawing to a close, but we aren't done yet. There's just enough time left to look back on the specific moments that stood out for us this year, at what we reckon were our best gaming moments of 2008. Read our tales and choices within!

AMD's new Kuma cored K10 Athlons have arrived! With 2MB L3 cache and support for faster DDR2 memory, do they afford a new standard for mainstream dual core CPUs? Read on to find out.

While better known for its power supplies and cases, Hiper has also entered the peripheral market with a range of alloy plated, ultra slim keyboards. We take a look at the Solid Alloy and Super Alloy series and see how they stand-up to use by a stressed out tech journo.