The main component of a solar water heating system is the collector. The absorber plate is another crucial component of the collector. For a more effective system, the absorber layer should, to the greatest extent possible, be made of materials with good thermal properties.  In this study, in addition to copper and aluminum, new materials such as pyrolytic graphite and glass for the absorber plates of solar water heaters are presented. Along with a performance comparison analysis of the collector utilizing various materials, the costs of each material are also reported. It was concluded that pyrolytic graphite provided the best heat transfer. There is different type of pyrolytic graphite with different thermal conductivity. Calculations, however, show that even the PG with the highest thermal conductivity (1800/15 W/mK in plane and in z-direction, respectively) only slightly increases the temperature of the usable energy. In other words, increasing the thermal conductivity above a certain level does not improve the performance of the solar panel. Glass is another material which offers a better performance while maintaining very low thermal conductivity. Despite having different heat transfer mechanisms when used as absorbers, pyrolytic graphite and glass can be offered as a new material for absorber plates because they outperform conventional materials like copper. In comparison to copper, the efficiency of the collector with the pyrolytic graphite absorber was found to be 2% higher.