... that I'm biased towards...

• Processors: Intel and AMD.
• Motherboards: Abit, Gigabyte.
  • To find motherboard/BIOS/chipset info for a machine, use Wim's BIOS page.
• SCSI cards: Adaptec.
• Graphics cards: Matrox and Creative Labs / NVidia.
  • NVidia Riva TNT cards run very hot and crash unless you install a chip cooler (such as the Card Cooler).
• Sound cards: the SoundBlaster series from Creative Labs (and CL Europe).
• Network cards: DLink.
• Monitors: Iiyama, particularly the VisionMaster series. But also ADI.
• Scanners: Umax.
• Portable storage: the Zip drive from Iomega.
• CD recorders: Yamaha. Mine's a CDR200t, not made any more.
• Printers: Hewlett-Packard are reliable and widely supported. Epson do very good inkjets.

Supplier of the moment is Insight.