Early Black Friday Deals on PC Hardware: Latest GPU, CPU and PC Sales

Acer Nitro 5 Gaming Laptop with RTX 3060 Now $699

When you’re looking for a gaming laptop, the single most important component is the graphics card. Get a lesser graphics card and you’ll have to turn your settings down to play your favorite games. Go for a better one and you can turn on all the special effects you want while still achieving smooth frame rates.

If your gaming laptop budget is less than $1,000, the best GPU you can normally hope for is an Nvidia RTX 3050 Ti, which will play mainstream competitive games such as Overwatch 2 at 1080p and high settings in the 50 to 60 fps range, but will drop down much lower if you turn on ray tracing or play a much more demanding title. An RTX 3060 card is a huge performance step up and, right now, you can find an Acer Nitro 5 with an RTX 3060 inside for just $699 at Walmart (opens in new tab).

To get a system with RTX 3060 graphics for just $699, you have to be willing to make a few compromises. This configuration comes with just 8GB of RAM, which you’ll definitely want to upgrade after you buy it. This config doesn’t appear to have RGB backlighting on the keyboard so forget about an exciting light show. 

On the bright side, the 144 Hz, 1080p screen will definitely be able to keep up with whatever the GPU throws at it, providing smooth tear-free game play, even if you get over 100 fps. It also has a modest 512GB SSD, which should be enough to install maybe two or three large games.

We have not tested this exact configuration of the Acer Nitro 5, but we have tested a few RTX 3060-powered gaming laptops. Most recently, we reviewed the MSI Sword 15 with RTX 3060 graphics and a Core i5-12500H CPU. Thanks primarily to its graphics card, it was able to lay waste to its RTX 3050 Ti-based competitors. For example, the RTX 3060-powered laptop achieved a frame rate of 90 fps in Grand Theft Auto V at 1080p and very high settings, where three RTX 3050 Ti laptop got rates of 60 or 61 fps. These competitors cost between $700 and $1,000.

So this Acer Nitro 5 deal at Walmart is all about the graphics card. Plan to upgrade your RAM and live without RGB, but you’ll get far better game performance than you can usually find in this price range.

AMD’s Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU at $329 is a Great Deal

Intel’s new Raptor Lake CPUs dominate AMD’s new Ryzen 7000 series CPUs when it comes to gaming and even in most productivity benchmarks. Even worse for AMD: team red’s new chips and the motherboards you need for them are extremely expensive.

However, there’s one AMD chip that’s a great value and offers excellent gaming performance: the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. Thanks to its 96MB of L3 cache, the 5800X3D is actually faster at gaming than any Ryzen 7000 series CPU and it competes with and sometimes beats Intel’s latest Core i5 and Core i7 chips. Best of all: this 8-core, 16-thread CPU is now only $329 at Best Buy (opens in new tab).

As you can see on our benchmark chart below, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D provided higher 1080p frame rates than any other processor except the pricey Core i9-13900K at stock speeds.

Better still, the cost of buying a motherboard to go with your Ryzen 7 5800X3D is really low. You can grab a B550 motherboard for as little as $89 (opens in new tab). Compare that to the X670 boards that you need for the Ryzen 7000 series CPUs, which start at $289.

Dell S2522HG 240Hz Gaming Monitor Now $149 at Dell

Today at Dell, users can take home the Dell S2522HG 240 Hz gaming monitor for its lowest price yet. It usually goes for around $249 but right now is marked down to $149. The purchase also comes with free shipping by default.

The Dell S2522HG is a 25-inch monitor with an LED-backlit LCD IPS panel. It has an FHD resolution which measures up to 1920 x 1080px. This monitor is AMD FreeSync Premium certified which ensures a dense resolution, low latency as well as low framerate compensation.

It has a maximum refresh rate of 240Hz and a response time as short as 1ms. According to Dell, it can cover 99{f5ac61d6de3ce41dbc84aacfdb352f5c66627c6ee4a1c88b0642321258bd5462} of the sRGB color gamut while the brightness can reach up to 400 nits.

Users have a couple of video input options to use including a DisplayPort V 1.2 input and two HDMI 2.0 ports. There is also a 3.5mm jack for external audio peripherals. This monitor also has a USB hub for connecting other various peripherals.

AMD-Powered ThinkPad Z13 Has 14 hours of Battery Life, $1375 Price

If you’re looking for a great typing experience, superior build quality and the accurate navigation that only a TrackPoint pointing stick can deliver, you want a ThinkPad. While the ThinkPad X1 Carbon grabs a lot of headlines, the ThinkPad Z13, a 13-inch AMD powered model that’s new for 2022, has even more to offer.

The 13-inch, Z13 weighs just 2.78 pounds and is a mere 0.55 inches thick, making it really easy to throw in a bag and take everywhere. Thanks to some great power efficiency from its Ryzen 6000 series CPU and its 1920 x 1200 display, the laptop lasted about 14 hours (13:58 to be exact) on our battery test. That’s about 5 hours longer than the most recent X1 Carbon we tested.

Now, by using coupon code 2022THINKDEAL at checkout, you can get a ThinkPad Z13 with a a Ryzen 5 6650U CPU, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD and a 1920 x 1200 display for just $1,374 at Lenovo (opens in new tab). That’s a great price for that much endurance. You can use the same coupon code to get savings on higher-end configs of the Z13 (opens in new tab) as well. The config we reviewed, which featurs a Ryzen 7 6850U CPU, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, a 1920 x 1200 touch screen and a vegan leather lid, is $1,566 (opens in new tab) with the code.

When we reviewed the ThinkPad Z13, we praised its attractive design. While the laptop clearly has a ThinkPad aesthetic, Lenovo uses different colors and materials. The body is made from 95 percent recycled aluminum and the lid comes in either silver (the least expensive option) or vegan leather with copper accents (which is hot). The box it comes in is made from sugar cane and is therefore biodegradable. 

Putting environmental friendliness aside, this is one powerful laptop that will make you more productive too. The unit we tested, which had a Ryzen 7  Pro 6850U and it had a higher multi-core Geekbench score than the ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Gen 10) which was loaded with a Core i7-1260P CPU.

Like other ThinkPads, the Z13 has a highly-responsive keyboard. It also has both a TrackPoint pointing stick and a touchpad. In what’s likely a first for a ThinkPad, the touchpad is haptic and you can bring up a special menu by pressing down on the TrackPoint.

The 1920 x 1200 touch display on our review unit was extremely bright, hitting 428.6 nits on our light meter. It also reproduced a full 107 percent of the sRGB color gamut. The less-expensive config that’s $1367 doesn’t have a touch screen but it is rated for 400 nits of brightness and 100 percent of the sRGB gamut.

Whichever ThinkPad Z13 you choose, you can expect excellent audio output , a bright display, long battery life and a great typing and navigation experience.

Razer Huntsman Elite Gaming Keyboard Now $94 at Amazon

Right now at Amazon, the Razer Hunstman Elite gaming keyboard is available for a new all-time low price. The keyboard has been going for around $110 lately although it debuted at $199. Today, the Clicky Optical Switch edition is available for just $94.

 The Razer Huntsman Elite gaming keyboard is a full-sized keyboard complete with a numeric pad off to the side. It’s wired, connecting with a braided USB cable. According to the official specifications, it has an ultrapolling rate of 1000 Hz. The top plate is constructed with an aluminum matte finish.

The keys are supported with Clicky Optical switches and housed underneath ABS keycaps. It has dedicated media controls and is capable of recording custom macros. Users also have 10-key rollover and antighosting to take advantage of.

The keyboard is illuminated by RGB LEDs that can be programmed with custom preferences and stored in up to 5 profiles. The Razer Huntsman Elite gaming keyboard also comes with a removable wrist rest.

Intel Core i5-13600K Falls to $300, All-Time Low

In most of our benchmark tests, Intel’s new 13th Gen, “Raptor Lake” CPUs make mince meat of both AMD’s 7000 series and prior-gen Intel processors. The lineup, so far, consists of a Core i9-13900K, Core i7-13700K and Core i5-13600K, as well as KF versions of each chip that are otherwise identical but lack integrated GPUs. 

When we reviewed the latest Raptor Lake chips, we found that they beat pretty much every AMD chip — the Ryzen 7-5800X3D hangs with Intel in a few tests — in 1080p and 1440p gaming. But, with an MSRP of $319 and a street price that’s been around $329 up until now, the Core i5-13600K is the best value by far. Today, Newegg and Best Buy have the chip for just $300 (opens in new tab), a new all-time low. Amazon had it, but it’s now out of stock

As you can see in the chart below, the Core i5-13600K averaged 183 fps on our 1080p test suite,  outpacing even the Ryzen 9 7950X. The chip easily overclocked to 5.6 GHz, taking it all the way up to 199 fps, which beats even the Ryzen 7 5800X3D.

The Core i5-13600K is no slouch when it comes to productivity either. Its Cinebench R23 multicore score, for example, is above the Ryzen 7 7700X, a chip that costs $100 more.

The Intel Core i5-13600K features 6 P-cores that boost up to 5.1 GHz and 8 E-cores that boost to 3.9 GHz. It has a 125W TDP and comes with a cooler in the box.

Save $600 Off an Asus Rog G15 Advantage Edition Gaming Laptop

It’s still a way off before Black Friday hits us, but that hasn’t stopped Best Buy from knocking out some great Early Black Friday deals. The Asus ROG Strix G15 Advantage Edition gaming laptop is on sale for just $1,099 (opens in new tab). The G15’s configuration is powerful, and it’s hard to find a gaming laptop that can match this much power at this price. 

With an AMD Ryzen 9 5980HX processor, and Radeon RX 6800M GPU powering the 165Hz QHD screen, this laptop should be more than capable of playing all the latest games on high settings. We reviewed the Asus ROG Strix G15 Advantage Edition (opens in new tab) and gave it 4-stars, thanks primarily to its solid gaming and productivity performance, and long-lasting battery. 

Asus’s ROG Strix G15 Advantage Edition gaming laptop fared well in our testing and provided great performance results when compared to laptops of a similar pedigree. Our tests were completed on a unit that had a 1080p FHD display, so results will vary as this particular laptop comes with a more resource-hungry 165Hz 1440p QHD display that will provide better picture quality, but put more of a strain on the G15’s hardware.

On Shadow of the Tomb Raider on its highest settings at 1080p, the Strix G15 ran the test at 88 frames per second, beating out the RTX 3060 and the Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5 (73 fps) and finishing just ahead of the RTX 3070 in the Razer Blade Pro 17 (86 fps). As expected the MSI GP66, with an RTX 3080 inside, sailed ahead at 106 fps.

When testing Grand Theft Auto V on very high settings (1080p), the Strix played the game at 98 fps, surpassing the Alienware (82 fps) but falling behind both the Blade Pro (102 fps) and the GP66 (125 fps).

On Far Cry New Dawn (1080p, ultra), the Strix, achieved 81 fps, very much in line with the Alienware (79 fps) than the Blade Pro, which ran at 89 fps. The GP66 hit 103 fps.

Overall, this is a great deal on a gaming laptop at this price. It already has 16GB of DDR4 RAM which is ample to play modern games and also have some browser windows open at the same time. Storage wise we have a 512GB SSD with Windows 11 pre-installed.