Post-Cyber Monday Tech Deals Live: Latest PC Hardware, CPU, GPU, SSD, and Laptop Sales You Can Still Get

This wireless mechanical keyboard is all vibes

We’re generally pretty pragmatic here at Tom’s Hardware, but sometimes you just like to get something for the ⭐ aesthetic ⭐, you know?

That’s why we couldn’t help but notice when the Logitech Pop Keys wireless mechanical keyboard went on sale at Amazon for as low as $66, depending on which colorway you opt for.

The deepest deal is on the Blast Yellow pattern, a mix of yellow, black and gray. The Daydream Mint colorway, a combination of lavender, yellow, green and white is $69. Both the purple Cosmos and reddish Heartbreaker Rose are around $79.

When we tested the Pop Keys, we appreciated the promise of three years of battery life and its TTC Brown switches. That being said, the circular keycaps are definitely an acquired taste.

But if you’re looking for a gift for someone who puts their style into their tech, they might appreciate this keyboard, even if it’s not exactly enthusiast grade in every respect.

Another HP Victus deal with an even better price

We saw a solid deal on an HP Victus 16 directly from HP earlier this week, but today, Walmart has an even cheaper option than we saw on Cyber Monday. Oh, and with an RTX 4060 to boot.

Walmart is selling an HP Victus 15 with a 12th Gen Intel Core i5-12500H, Nvidia RTX 4060, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage for $699. While we typically prefer the most recent processor, this is an incredible price for a laptop with that graphics chip in it.

We tested a version of this laptop back in 2022, (a redesigned 16-inch version came out in 2023), and found it offered strong entry-level gaming performance and was priced well. And that was before a sale knocked a few hundred dollars off of it.

One of our biggest issues was the webcam, so if you’re looking to use this for conference calls, you may want to grab an external camera.

But if you just want to be able to play games on high settings for under $700 without many other frills, this is a deal to take seriously.

Still on Sale: Intel’s Overclockable Core i5, Core i7 and Core i9 13th Gen CPUs

Intel’s overclockable 13th-Gen lineup is up to 18% off, including chips like the Core i5-13600K, 13600KF, i7-13700K, 13700KF, and i9-13900K. Intel’s 13th-Gen chips might not be the new anymore, but they are still very fast and offer performance nearly identical to Intel’s newest 14th-Gen models. 

When they came out a few weeks ago, we noted that the 14th gen “Raptor Lake Refresh” chips were basically the same as their immediate predecessors, but with slightly higher clock speeds and, in the case of the Core i9-14700K, a few more efficiency cores. Now that we’re seeing the 13th gen models on sale, it’s even harder to justify paying more for little-to-no added speed.

The Core i5-13600KF is arguably the best deal of the bunch, being 18% off at just $249.99. In our review of its twin brother, the 13600K, we found its performance to be excellent for a mid-range chip offering gaming performance close to AMD’s Ryzen 5 5800X3D, Intel’s i7-13700K, and even Intel’s latest i5-14600K at a much lower price.

Alternatively, if you need a CPU with integrated graphics, Intel’s Core i5-13600K is also 18% off, priced at $270.

For those looking for a bit more multi-core grunt, Intel’s Core i7-13700K is also 18% off ($345). In our review of the 13700K, we found it excels as both a gaming and content-creation chip, offering gaming performance similar to its Core i9 counterpart. 

The 13700K is actually a more attractive buy for gaming than its 14th-Gen counterpart — we found in our Core i7-14700K review that the 13700K offers nearly identical gaming performance to the i7-14700K, but at a much lower price point. If you don’t need integrated graphics, Intel offers its Core i7-13700KF for $10 less ($335).

If you’re after a higher-end CPU, Intel’s i9-13900KF is on sale for a 16% discount (now just $501). In testing with its twin brother, the 13900K, we found its performance to be basically identical to the much more expensive i9-14900K, both in gaming and content creation tasks. 

This is because both chips feature the same core configuration, with the only difference being a minute 200MHz higher turbo clock for the 14th-Gen parts. If you really need integrated graphics, Intel’s Core i9-13900K is also on sale but is only discounted by 13% for $546. But, if you’re spending $500+ on the CPU, chances are that you also have a discrete GPU. 

Overall, Intel’s 14th-Gen chips might look cool with their shiny new model names, but they don’t really perform any better than their 13th-Gen predecessors (with the exception of the 14700K and its four extra E-cores). As a result, if you are looking for a CPU upgrade or a new CPU for your shiny new gaming/productivity machine, Intel’s 13th-Gen K-series CPUs are the better choice, offering killer bang-for-buck performance this holiday season.

—Aaron Klotz

Asus ROG Ally price drops at Best Buy

The Asus ROG Ally, one of the primary Windows competitors to the Steam Deck, is seeing a deal over at Best Buy for Black Friday. The AMD Z1 Extreme model that we reviewed has fallen $100 to $599.99, while the base Ryzen Z1 version has fallen $170 to $429.99.

Both of these gaming handhelds boast 512GB of storage, as well as the same, 7-inch, 1280 x 800 display.

The Z1 Extreme can pull off performance slightly better than the chip in the Steam Deck. We haven’t had the opportunity to test the regular Z1, but it’s unlikely to be able to use the 1080p screen to the fullest. Some testers have said that the regular Z1, with fewer AMD RDNA compute units, offers better battery life as a trade off. 

In our review of the Asus ROG Ally with Z1 Extreme, we appreciated how much lighter the Ally is than the Steam Deck, and we found that the display was bright and vivid. If you have a big collection of games across many launchers, you’ll be able to play almost all of them, as the Ally runs Windows 11.

Unlike the Steam Deck, the Z1 processors offer better performance when plugged in to the wall, but you can still get solid performance on the go if you use the right settings.

— Andrew E. Freedman 

The 4TB WD SN850X is still available at its lowest-ever price of $230 at WD’s official Ebay store
 

A lot of the best SSD deals of the Black Friday season have dried up. But if you are looking for a fast and roomy PCIe 4.0 drive, you can still grab the WD Black SN850X for $229.99, it’s lowest price ever, from Western Digital’s official Ebay store. But you’ll probably want to act fast. This is likely the lowest price you’ll see for a while (and possibly ever) on this drive, as it’s shot back up to between $276 and $289 at most major retailers. Keep in mind it debuted at $699! 

As we noted in our review of the WD SN850X, it leverages an improved PCIe 4.0 SSD controller and newer flash that puts it easily ahead of most other PCIe 4.0 drives. It’s one of our picks for the Best SSDs for PS5 and our list of Best SSDs for PCs. The WD drive dishes out an incredible 1.2 / 1.1 million random read/write IOPS, so it is plenty snappy and has a respectable five-year warranty. 

As one of the fastest drives in its class, it’s normally quite a bit pricier than other options, so this deal is an excellent proposition. It’s also super fast for gaming on a PC, which is important with DirectStorage games finally coming to market.

–Matt Safford and Paul Alcorn

Save $200 on this prebuilt RTX 4070 gaming rig from NZXT 

Phew. The gargantuan Black Friday / Cyber Monday sales extravaganza is calming down, but I’m still looking around for any interesting hardware deals. One of those sales offers that has caught my eye is the $200 reduction on a high-end prebuilt gaming PC from NZXT, packed with some of the most powerful components currently available. This rig will run games on ultra settings at 1440p without a worry, and even competently handle some 4K gaming. 

Originally priced at $1,699, the Player PC 770 Edition from NZXT is now $1,499 with this $200 discount. The PC is housed in NZXT’s H7 Flow PC case, with a tempered glass side panel and airflow-oriented front and top mesh panels helping keep this mid-sized monster cool. Generating the gaming graphics are an Nvidia RTX 4070 GPU, while Intel’s Core i7-13700KF processor makes sure you won’t be CPU-bound. 

For a prebuilt PC, you can usually expect to pay more than if you were to build it yourself – that’s the price you pay for someone else to select compatible parts, construct the PC, and offer a single warranty and service contact. But, if you’re not comfortable with building your own gaming computer, or you’re thinking of purchasing this as a gift for someone else, then this is probably the easiest way to go. 

If you are comfortable with playing PC Lego and fancy having a go at it yourself you can still browse around the NZXT website for deals on some of the company’s great cases and AIO coolers.

— Stewart

Cyber Monday is Dead. Long Live Post-Cyber Monday Deals!

If you look at the calendar today, no matter what time zone you’re in, you’ll notice that it’s no longer Monday, the 27th of November. Therefore, we can say as I write this that Cyber Monday 2023 is over. But the holiday shopping season is not over. 

You may still need to buy some upgrades for yourself or gifts for your family. Fortunately, there are still plenty of Cyber Monday deals that are still in place. Some products have, unfortunately, gone off-sale and others are “on sale” but more expensive than they were just yesterday. 

To help you choose, we’re maintaining this blog. Right now, here are some of the our favorite Cyber Monday deals that you can still get.

Cyber Monday sales still going strong

Cyber Monday is winding down, and while a lot of companies like to stretch their Cyber Monday sales an extra day (or two, or several), we can’t guarantee these deals will stick around past midnight PST. Here’s a quick list of the Cyber Monday sales that are still going on (and that you can still grab now if you’ve got FOMO from staunchly avoiding the Black Friday deals season thus far): 

And some of our favorite deals that are still in stock (for now):

— Sarah

It’s not too late to stock up on some of the best gaming gear from HyperX’s Cyber Monday sale

HyperX’s Cyber Monday sale is still going strong, with solid discounts on some of the best gaming microphones, gaming mice, and gaming headsets — plus, you can still use the code HXFLASH to get an extra 15% off the sale prices.

Here are some of our favorites from the sale: 

The HyperX Alloy Origins 60 keyboard isn’t on sale at HyperX’s store, but it’s down to its lowest price ever over at Amazon — just $59 (was $99). This compact, 60 percent gaming keyboard features HyperX’s tactile Aqua switches. 

Remember to use the code HXFLASH to get the extra 15% off at HyperX!

— Sarah
(Only a few hours left until I can get back to playing Baldur’s Gate 3…)

Grab Sarah’s favorite desk mat for $11

If you ever read any of my peripherals reviews, you’ve probably seen my pictures, in which I normally set the product against a dark blue faux leather background. This background is actually a faux leather desk pad I bought on Amazon over two years ago, and it’s one of the best purchases I’ve ever made. And you can grab the same desk pad — in multiple colors — for just $11 at Amazon (was $13) right now.  

I’ve had the Aothia PU leather desk pad for over two years now (and I’ve got it in multiple colors, though I’m partial to my most frequently-used navy), and it’s still going strong. It has a smooth, faux leather top and an anti-slip faux suede backing and is very easy to clean. It lays flat on my desktop with no problem; the sides are unfinished but I haven’t had any issues with fraying or curling.

It also comes in other sizes: a smaller 23.6 x 13.7-inch version, which is currently on sale for $7.99 (was $9.99), a slightly larger 36 x 17-inch version, which is currently just $12.79 (was $22.99), and an XL 48 x 17-inch version, which costs $19.99 right now (was $24.99). The “medium” size I currently have is quite large, and offers plenty of room for both my keyboard and my mouse (and a notebook, and more — it’s big), however. The desk pad comes in a number of colors, including my favorite dark blue, black, brown, dark pink, gray, lavender, light blue, light gray, off white, olive green, baby blue, fairy pink, foam green, orange, violet, rose red, vivid green, and turquoise (which I also have).

If you’re sick of reading as I wax poetic about an $11 desk pad, how about a $5 mouse pad? SteelSeries’ medium-sized QCK gaming mouse pad is currently just $5.99 at Amazon (was $9.99) for Cyber Monday. 

This soft, cloth mouse pad features SteelSeries’ exclusive QCK micro woven cloth surface, which is “optimized for low and high DPI tracking movements.” It has a non-slip rubber base and measures 12.6 x 10.8 inches (320 x 270mm), and while it’s not our favorite QCK Heavy mouse pad, it’s definitely a steal at just $5.

— Sarah
(Maybe I’ll buy another one. What color backgrounds do we want for 2024?!)

It’s probably your last chance to grab the Samsung 990 Pro 2TB SSD at its lowest price ever

The Samsung 990 Pro 2TB is our current top pick for best overall SSD and it’s the fastest SSD we’ve ever tested, with sequential read / write speeds of up to 7,450 / 6,900 MB/s and up to 1.4 / 1.5 million random read / write IOPS. It’s been on sale (and getting cheaper) all year, but it finally hit its lowest price ever of $119 on Black Friday / Cyber Monday.

Unfortunately, it’s sold out at most retailers (the coveted 4TB version sold out everywhere just yesterday), but you can still grab it at B&H Photo for the lowest-ever price of $119 — if you run.

There’s no telling how much longer B&H Photo will have the 990 Pro 2TB SSD in stock, and this might be your last chance to get this fantastic drive at this price. In fact, it might be your last chance to get any SSD for a great price, as analysts have been predicting price increases for a while now.

— Sarah
(Might buy another one, just in case.)

Get Assassin’s Creed Syndicate for free until Dec. 6

The best Cyber Monday deals are free. And right now you can grab Assassin’s Creed Syndicate over at Ubisoft for that incredible price of $0 (was $29). You’ll need to sign up for (or sign into) a Ubisoft account and download Ubisoft Connect — which is not my favorite launcher, but it’s a small price to pay for something that is, again, free.

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate (first launched in Nov. 2015) is the successor to Assassin’s Creed Unity and takes place in 19th century London during the second industrial revolution. It features two playable characters, twin assassins Jacob and Evie Frye, and also includes some segments set in World War 1.

And it’s free from now until Dec. 6 at 1 p.m. UTC. What more is there to say?!

— Sarah
(It’s just us assassins here, now.)

Grab Logitech’s G203 for 50% off

If you’re looking for a fun, colorful, basic gaming mouse, Logitech’s G203 is currently on sale in every color for 50% off, or $19, at Amazon right now (was $39). It’s not the absolute cheapest we’ve seen the mouse go, but it’s close — and still a solid deal.

The Logitech G203 is a wired gaming mouse with an 8,000 DPI sensor, six programmable buttons, and sharp, snappy clicks. It has a standard rubber cable (not braided or paracord-style) with the expected cable drag, but it’s not bad for the price point. It has a nice, firmly-notched scroll wheel, two side buttons and a DPI switch, and 100% PTFE feet for glide. 

The G203 is a smaller, flatter mouse overall, measuring 4.59 x 2.45 x 1.5 inches (116.6 x 62.15 x 38.2mm), so it may not be ideal for those with larger hands (or who like higher humps). It weighs an acceptable 3 ounces (85g), which isn’t quite lightweight but is still lighter than a tanky MMO mouse.

(Read our full G203 review here.) 

The G203 comes in four colors, all of which are on sale: white, black, blue, and lilac. The mouse has three RGB lighting zones (the left side, right side, and the Logitech G) with Logitech’s “Color Blend,” which provides a gradient effect across all three colors for a very pretty effect.

Is this the best gaming mouse ever? No, but it’s colorful, compact, and clicky, and currently pretty cheap!

— Sarah
(I’m the kind of person who uses a mouse with my laptop on a plane.)

AMD’s RX 6800 16GB can be picked up for just $379

AMD’s Radeon RX 6800 was a long-time member of the best graphics cards, combining good performance with an attractive price. Now, as a Cyber Monday deal, it’s back to just $10 above its all-time low and 15% off its typical going rate. And you still get 16GB of VRAM, plenty for any game likely to come out in the next few years, with performance roughly on par with the newer RX 7700 XT — for less money, and with slightly lower power use.

The RX 6800 formerly traded blows with Nvidia’s RTX 3070 Ti, with the usual combination of superior rasterization performance but slower ray tracing performance. The story hasn’t changed much, but now it offers similar advantages and disadvantages compared to the newer RTX 4060 Ti.

Even three years after its debut, it remains a good mainstream pick for a 1440p gaming solution. Across our rasterization test suite, it averaged 87 fps. Ray tracing didn’t do so hot (32 fps at 1440p, 49 fps at 1080p ultra), but AMD has never pushed ray tracing as a major focus.

The good news is that the RX 6800 is still a reasonably efficient card and it only needs around 230W of power. XFX also provides three large fans to keep this model running cool.

—Jarred Walton

The $349, 64GB Steam Deck is still around

Not every holiday deal is explicitly tied to Cyber Monday. This is your public service announcement that the 64GB Valve Steam Deck is still on sale on Steam, the cheapest you can possibly get it. Once it runs out, Valve won’t make any more, with the 256GB LCD Steam Deck taking its place in the lineup.

The 64GB mode (an LCD version, not the newer Steam Deck OLED)  was always a bit of an odd duck. While it had the same display and AMD APU as the regular Steam Deck, the 64GB of eMMC storage was both slower than the NVMe SSDs in the more expensive options and, of course, not enough to hold a ton of games.

But it’s still a deal. $350 is very little for a gaming PC, and it should save a bit in your budget to open the Steam Deck up and replace the drive with a roomier, faster drive. Check out our list of the best SSDs for Steam Decks.

Luckily, our top SSD for the Steam Deck also happens to be on sale. The Corsair MP600 Mini 1TB is a speedy TLC drive that’s reasonably priced, making today’s discount even sweeter.

Additionally, you can consider expanding storage with an SD card, though that won’t be quite as fast. We’ve been appreciating the Steam Deck OLED here at Tom’s Hardware, but if you balked at the original Steam Deck’s price originally, this 64GB option combined with a better SSD and a bit of elbow grease is definitely worth a look.

—Andrew E. Freedman 

An RTX 4060 gaming PC for just $849

While we love building our own PCs, sometimes a pre-built one comes along with good parts for the money. As far as Cyber Monday deals go, we think this CyberPower Gamer Master pre-built for $849.99 on Amazon offers a solid mix of components for the price.

The CyberPower PC features the latest-gen, AMD Ryzen 5 7600 CPU paired with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060, making for a strong mid-range gaming PC. It also comes with 16GB of RAM and a 500GB PCIe NVMe SSD.

That SSD is the biggest weak point. 500GB is OK, but 1TB would be better considering the size of games these days. Check out the best Cyber Monday SSD deals for options to expand storage.

CyberPower’s Onyxia II case has tempered glass, so you should be able to see all of the included RGB, if you’re into that kind of thing. The case also features two USB Type-A ports, as well as dedicated microphone and headset jacks.

—Andrew E. Freedman

You can find anything on Cyber Monday – like RGB soundbars.

Look, if you’re anything like us, you’ve been looking at tech deals for at least a week. Ends up, you do that much digging, and you can find all sorts of stuff for sale.

Case in point: this RGB soundbar from Lenrue. I doubt this is the first one ever, but I sure haven’t seen one before. I can’t vouch for how it works or sounds, but for $15.99, if you know someone who bleeds red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, and every color in between, I suppose it could brighten up their desk.

The speaker is USB powered, though there’s also a Bluetooth mode meant for phones and other mobile devices. A knob on the right side adjusts the volume and serves as the power button.

There are three different RGB patterns: fixed colors, a “flowing” mode of many colors, and a breathing pattern. You can switch between the patterns by reaching out and touching the speaker. There doesn’t appear to be any Lenrue software, so you’ll be doing a bunch of tapping.

Amazon reviewers seem to suggest that the X11 Plus is OK for music (I mean, how great can it be for $16?), but not for voice calls. So if this is your go to for your next video call, maybe consider a dedicated headset instead.

—Andrew E. Freedman

Upgrade your Steam Deck storage — 1TB for $45 or 2TB for $152

The best Steam Deck SSD won’t necessarily be the fastest drive on the planet. That’s because the Steam Deck is limited by what it can accept, specifically: It needs an M.2 2230 SSD. We have an article digging into the details of upgrading the Steam Deck SSD, and with the Steam Deck 64GB on sale for $349, it’s more a matter of finding a cost-effective upgrade solution.

M.2 2230 SSDs do tend to cost quite a bit more than their 2280 counterparts, especially for the 2TB models. But there are a couple of great deals happening right now on both 1TB and 2TB drives. It’s the perfect upgrade for a Steam Deck that may otherwise be low on storage capacity.

Both of the above drives use QLC NAND. If you were planning on sticking one of these into a higher performance laptop, that might matter, but game downloads will still be limited by the Deck’s wireless connection speed rather than SSD performance. That means even “slow” QLC NAND drives will work just fine, though large game updates might be a bit slower.

The Solidigm P41 Plus uses a Silicon Motion SM2269XTF controller paired with (formerly Intel) Solidigm 144-Layer QLC NAND. It’s effectively the same hardware as the larger Solidigm P41 Plus 2280 drives we reviewed, just in a smaller package. Sustained write speeds dropped below 100 MB/s in our Windows testing, but we typically saw download speeds of around 30 MB/s on the Steam Deck, regardless of what SSD we installed.

It’s a big step up for 2TB of storage, but the MP44S packs the same Phison E21T controller and 176-layer Micron QLC NAND as most other 2TB 2230 drives, and it costs about $20 less than the next-closest option. We tested the Teamgroup MP44S 1TB drive earlier this year, and found relatively mediocre performance under Windows use on our desktop system, but in the Steam Deck it was generally comparable to other drives.

Note that the Steam Deck is limited to PCIe 3.0 speeds, but it’s forward compatible with PCIe 4.0 drives — they’ll just have lower peak throughput on the Steam Deck than they might otherwise see. For Valve’s gaming handheld, our experience is that the specific SSD model was far less of a factor than the storage capacity on tap, and 1TB lets you keep far more games installed than the SSD options Valve offers.

—Jarred Walton

Dell XPS 13 falls to $599

Dell’s famous ultraportable, the XPS 13, has fallen to $599 over at dell.com. For those who have been looking at all of the deals on MacBook Airs but want something running Windows, here’s an alternative.

When we tested it, one of the chief benefits was over 13 hours of battery life on our test. That’s not as good as a MacBook Air, but nothing to shake a stick at, either. You should be able to get a full day out of this thing. We also liked that its display hit 460 nits, which was nice and bright.

The XPS 13 is cheap for a reason. For starters, it’s using a 12th Gen Intel Core CPU, not the latest 13th Gen. Then again, Dell never updated the XPS 13 to 13th Gen — that was reserved exclusively for the XPS 13 Plus. This configuration has the base 8GB of RAM and 256GB of SSD storage, so power users need not apply.

But if you’re looking for a lightweight notebook, prioritize premium build quality,  and won’t be doing any photo editing, video work, and only use a few tabs at a time, the XPS 13 at this price isn’t bad.

For those who need more performance, $799 will get you a Core i7, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. You’re getting closer to premium pricing here, but you’re still getting decent savings off of the list price, and you’re still getting a luxurious chassis.

—Andrew E. Freedman

Expand the Power of your Laptop, Dock Around the Clock

If you are looking for a way to connect to more devices to your laptop then you need a reliable docking station that’s compatible with your system. If have a MacBook Air, which is port-challenged, adding a dock can add a wide breadth of connectivity options, including USB-A ports, card readers, and even Ethernet. Throw in support for HDMI and DisplayPort on some docks, and you have all you need for a “one cable solution” for the ultimate docking station.

One of the most feature-filled docking stations on the market is the CalDigit TS4. As the successor to the Thunderbolt 3-based TS3 Plus, the TS4 adds support for Thunderbolt 4. The TS4 Plus features 18 ports, including DisplayPort 1.4, a 2.5 GbE port, a UHS-II card reader, audio ports, and a host of USB-A and USB-C/Thunderbolt 4 ports. It also can deliver 98 watts of power to charge a laptop via a single cable. 

It can support a single 8K monitor or two 6K monitors at a 60Hz refresh rate. Needless to say, the dock can handle just about anything you can throw at it and is compatible with both Windows and macOS devices.

The CalDigit TS4 has an MSRP of $449.95 but is currently priced at just $319.99, which is a 29 percent savings.

For those looking for a name-brand solution, look no further than the Anker 332. This 5-in-1 USB-C hub supports 5 Gbps data delivery and 85-watt Power Delivery to a laptop using an external power adapter. It features a 5 Gbps USB-C data port, two USB-A ports, and a 4K HDMI port. However, due to limited bandwidth, 4K support via HDMI is limited to just 30Hz, so keep that in mind.

The Anker 332 has an MSRP of $34.99, but exclusive Prime Day pricing takes it to just $17.99.

For a more affordable option, there’s the Anker 575 USB-C docking station (10 Gbps). It can send 85 watts of power to your laptop for charging and includes two HDMI ports, three USB-A ports, two USB-C ports (one of which supports 18-watt Power Delivery), an Ethernet port, and an SD/microSD slot. It also has a 3.5mm aux port for hooking up speakers or a headset.

It should be noted that the Anker 575 supports up to three 1080p monitors at 60Hz, dual 1440p monitors at 60Hz, or a single 4K monitor at 60Hz.

The Anker 575 typically retails for $249.99 but is currently on sale for $139.

This MSI gaming laptop has an RTX 4050, 16GB RAM, and a 1TB SSD for just $699, 22% off its previous price

Many people like the portability aspect of gaming laptops, even if the price jump compared to similar performance desktops can be quite large. But right now, you can get this MSI Thin GF63 with an RTX 4050 graphics card for only $699. That’s $200 less than the normal price, a 22% discount, and it’s the lowest price we’re currently tracking for any laptop that includes an RTX 40-series GPU.

The RTX 4050 certainly isn’t the fastest GPU on the mobile block, and we definitely wouldn’t put too much weight on its DLSS 3 Frame Generation feature. You’ll want higher base framerates before bothering with Frame Gen, though it can smooth out visuals in some cases. Still, in our testing of other laptops that use this GPU, we’ve found solid 1080p ultra gaming performance of 60 fps in moderately demanding games — as in: Don’t fire up games with heavy ray tracing and expect that level of performance. But the 4050 will easily outpace any integrated solutions.

The 12450H CPU is now two generations old, but it’s still totally fine for a budget laptop solution. You get four performance cores and four efficiency cores, or an 8-core/12-thread design, and the RTX 4050 will end up as the bottleneck in most games. Perhaps more critically, MSI doesn’t skimp on the memory or storage size, giving you 16GB of DDR4 RAM and a 1TB M.2 SSD.

The laptop also sports a 15.6-inch 1920×1080 IPS display with a 144 Hz refresh rate. There’s no VRR support (variable refresh rate), and only 45% NTSC color gamut (or about 63% sRGB coverage). It’s not an amazing display for content creation, in other words, but it will generally be fine for gaming. At this price, you have to expect to make a few compromises.

—Jarred Walton

Asus AMD laptop is $100 off

If you’re an AMD fan looking for a new ultraportable at a mid-range price, Asus has a deal for you. Over at Amazon, the Asus Zenbook 14 with a Ryzen 5 7535U is down to $699.99.

For that price, you’ll also get 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, a 1080p screen and a 67 WHr battery.

There is also a solid selection of ports, including a USB 4 Type-C port, two USB 3.2 ports (one Type-A, one Type-C), HDMI 2.1, and a 3.5 mm headphone jack. The 1080p webcam includes infrared support for facial recognition to log in with Windows Hello.

At just 0.62 inches thick and 3.09 pounds, this should slip into any bag — or stocking — with out you noticing too much.

One note on that CPU: While the 7000 series means this is technically AMD’s latest series of processors, the “3” in 7535U stands for Zen 3, which means this chip is made on AMD’s 6-nanometer Zen 3 process, rather than the latest Zen 4.

—Andrew E. Freedman

The Nvidia RTX 4070 is arguably the best all-around GPU pick right now, and is on sale for $514

The best graphics card means different things to different people. Some want raw performance, price be damned, but I’ve always been partial to the more balanced approach. It’s why the Nvidia RTX 4070 remains my overall pick for anyone looking to pick up a good all-around GPU that won’t break the bank. You can check our GPU benchmarks hierarchy to see where it stands in the overall rankings, but it’s basically an RTX 3080 10GB replacement with much improved efficiency plus some other extras.

More important than the GPU itself is the price. Launched at $599, the RTX 4070 was a good generational improvement. If you look at the previous generation RTX 3070 Ti that was also priced at $599, it’s a decent jump in performance: 20–30 percent faster. You also get 50% more VRAM, and total power use dropped from ~275W on average (at 1440p) to just ~190W. And now, you can get all that for as little as $514 — 14% off the launch price.

It’s the familiar tale of Nvidia GPUs versus the competition. Even without factoring DLSS support, the RTX 4070 offers significantly better ray tracing performance than similarly priced GPUs from AMD, while rasterization performance is less impressive. Compared to the similarly priced RX 7800 XT, at 1080p ultra the RTX 4070 was 30% faster in our ray tracing test suite, and 2% slower in our rasterization tests, for a net overall win of 9%. Things don’t change too much at 1440p ultra either: The 4070 was 27% faster in DXR and 6% slower in rasterization, for a net 6% lead.

Again, this is all without factoring in DLSS enhancements. Newer games like Alan Wake 2 are effectively unplayable on AMD’s RX 7800 XT with full path tracing, even with upscaling. At 1080p, even AMD’s top RX 7900 XTX GPU managed just 33 fps, compared to 43 fps on the RTX 4070. And the 4070 also supports DLSS Ray Reconstruction, which looks superior to traditional denoising. The RX 6900 XT (which still generally outperforms the RX 7800 XT) puttered along with just 21 fps.

We’re not saying we need path tracing to enjoy a game, but Nvidia now offers features and performance that make it viable, even on mainstream GPUs; AMD does not. And for just a bit over $500, the RTX 4070 provides a great upgrade for anyone currently sitting on a graphics card from two or three generations back. The Zotac card doesn’t come with all the bells and whistles like RGB lighting, but for a sub-200W card, the dual fans and 2-slot cooler are generally sufficient.

—Jarred Walton

I love Lenovo’s Qi-Charging Mouse, and it’s currently 53% off, or $28

I have a wireless charging pad at my desk and in three other spots around my apartment. I use them mostly for keeping my phone, earbuds, and watch juiced up, and I take one with me when I travel. So when I saw Lenovo had a Go Wireless Multi-Device Mouse that charges wirelessly using the Qi standard, I was intrigued. And now that I’ve owned one for a year, it’s my go-to travel rodent.

There’s not much remarkable about this compact mouse in terms of its design. It houses a USB-C dongle under its magnetic top, and it also works over Bluetooth for pairing with up to three devices. There’s a button up top, behind the scroll wheel, for cycling through pairing modes, and a single extra programmable “Utility” button on the left side.

Lenovo claims 2-3 months of use if you use it a couple of hours a day, which is probably fairly accurate. I’ve never been able to tell because whenever I’m done using it, I just drop it on the Qi charging stand on my desk and it’s fully charged whenever I pick it up again. Plugging things in is so 2019. However, it does have a USB-C port in the front if you want to pry off the rubber door and charge it the old-school way.

Find the best price on a wireless gaming controller for your PC

I love my PC for gaming. It’s a great way to unwind after a long day at work, speak to some friends online on Discord, or exchange some witty banter with my opponents in my favorite online game. One of the essential tools for this hobby, though, is a comfortable and responsive gaming controller. Owning consoles means I already have access to some of the best controllers available, but having to pair and unpair controllers is a hassle, so I like to have a separate one for the PC. 

If you prefer an Xbox controller, the cheapest deal I can find is on the Microsoft Xbox Store itself, where you can pick up the latest Xbox wireless controller for just $39 – and in a multitude of different colors for the same price. 

For the cheapest available PlayStation controller, it looks like Amazon is the place to go, by a mere 50 cents. You can find the DualSense on offer at Walmart, Best Buy, and direct from PlayStation for just a little more. Sony’s PlayStation DualSense wireless gaming controller is $49 from Amazon, on a Cyber Monday sale, down from its usual MSRP of $69.

Previously I’ve used both PlayStation and Xbox controllers over the years, choosing to connect over wireless or Bluetooth – or cable when the PC was choosing not to cooperate with me for some reason. With Steam recently adding official support for PlayStation DualShock and DualSense controllers, it’s even easier to use these popular controllers for gaming on the PC. 

—Stewart Bendle 

Grab the Xbox Series X games console at its lowest price with Diablo 4 for less than the price of a console without a game – madness 

Cyber Monday is great for picking up those last-minute tech gifts that have survived through the Black Friday weekend. But whatever the reason, it’s also a way of saving money on a future holiday gift such as a new gaming console for the family or a present to yourself. Although the competition has been high, this is the best deal I could find on a new Xbox Series X console in the sales. 

Microsoft is offering the Xbox Series X games console in a bundle with Blizzard’s latest Diablo entry – Diablo 4 for $439, you can also get the console from Walmart for $439 (the lowest price I can find) but without a game, so this time around you are actually getting a premium AAA game for free. 

The Xbox Series X gaming console is Microsoft’s most powerful current-generation gaming console and features some impressive specs for a computer under $450. As well as being designed for gaming, the Xbox Series X features a custom Zen 2 CPU with 8 Cores that run at 3.8GHz and a custom AMD RDNA 2 GPU that can put out 4K visuals at 120FPS on a variable refresh rate TV or monitor if the games are compatible of course. 

Microsoft’s latest-gen console comes packed with extra features like Dolby Vision and Atmos, HDMI 2.1, and plenty of USB 3.1 ports for connecting up your favorite gaming peripherals like a keyboard and mouse or gaming headset for chatting with your online pals.

So if you’re in the market for a gaming console and the Xbox Series X fits your needs then this really is a great deal to go for.

—Stewart Bendle

Get 40% off Logitech’s colorful, cable-free G305 Lightspeed gaming mouse 

Whether you’re after an affordable wireless gaming mouse this Cyber Monday, or you just want a second mouse that will stand out in a world of mostly black or white cursor controllers, Logitech’s G305 Lightspeed is a great option at its current sale price of $29.99. It’s been this cheap before, but we’ve never seen it for less. And it’s available in five colors – mint, black, blue, lilac, and white. 

We mostly liked the G503 when we tested it back in 2020, praising its 12K optical sensor and fast, reliable wireless connection. And while the mouse isn’t rechargeable, it runs off a single AA battery (Logitech estimates longevity at about 250 hours), so it’s pretty easy to keep a spare cell handy. A red LED under the control wheel will let you know when the mouse needs a fresh battery.

The mouse has six programmable buttons, a standard 1,000 Hz polling rate, and its shape and compact size means it won’t stand out even in a business environment – at least unless you want it to and you choose one of the more colorful options.

—Matt Safford

This HOTO NEX 01 Pro Screwdriver won’t replace my  DeWalt impact driver, but it breezes through building PCs!

I build a lot of PCs and also do a fair bit of home improvement work around my apartment. So a cordless screwdriver is a nice thing to have. I also own a much slimmer Wowstick, but have found HOTO’s NEX O1 Pro to be handier thanks to its extra (and variable) torque. It’s great for loosening those factory-installed screws on PC cases that just don’t want to let go, and also good for assembling small pieces of furniture. 

The HOTO won’t replace my DeWalt impact driver or drill for bigger, tougher jobs, but for everyday tasks, it’s powerful enough, easy to charge over USB-C, and even looks good on my workbench. I just wish it came with and stored more than 12 bits.

—Matt Safford

I’ve never plugged in this Lenovo Go Qi Charging Wireless Mouse to charge!

I have wireless charging pads at my desk and three other places around my apartment for keeping my phone and watch juiced up, and I take one with me when I travel. So when I saw Lenovo had a Go Wireless Multi-Device Mouse that charges wirelessly using the Qi standard, I was intrigued. And now that I’ve owned one for a year, it’s my go-to travel rodent. In fact I think I ordered it during last year’s Black Friday deals season. 

There’s not much remarkable about this compact mouse in terms of its design. It houses a USB-C dongle under its magnetic top, and it also works over Bluetooth for pairing it with up to three devices. Lenovo claims 2-3 months of use if you use it a couple of hours a day, which is probably fairly accurate. I’ve never been able to tell because whenever I’m done using it, I just drop it on the Qi charging stand on my desk and it’s fully charged whenever I pick it up again. Plugging things in is so 2019. However, it does have a USB-C port in the front if you want to pry off the rubber door and charge it the old-school way.

—Matt Safford

This portable USB soldering iron brings the heat, doesn’t burn a hole in your wallet!

Let’s start by saying this is not the best soldering iron in the world. But it is cheap, small and it heats up fast. USB soldering irons were an oddity, but now there are more and more of them! These pencil shaped soldering irons deliver 8W of heat and cleverly heat just the tip, rather than the entire length of the iron (although that also gets hot, ask me how I know!) This means that we get plenty of heat where we need it.

Charging this soldering iron’s 1,100 mAh battery  takes around 2 to 3 hours, and for that we get 30 minutes of soldering. The TS1C portable soldering iron has a much better charge to use ratio, but the TS1C is over $100. I use my USB soldering iron connected to a 5V power source, typically a power bank or Pine64 Pine Station power supply. 

I’ve got one of these irons, and for quick fixes, small solder joints etc, it works really well. Pressing the button will cycle through three temperatures (350, 400, 450 degrees Celsius), but we rarely need to go over 350. The only time I needed to boost the temperature was when I tried to solder some speaker wires. I had to go to max temp and hold the iron for a long time. It worked, kind of.

The soldering iron tips can be replaced (when they are cold!) so you have a choice of fine tip, chisel, or bladed for your projects. The kit comes with a reel of lead-free solder, USB C lead (for charging) and a small stand. We cannot stress how helpful a soldering iron stand is!

This is a soldering iron for those learning to solder. It heats up fast, mere seconds, and cools down in a few minutes. The smaller pencil size means it is ideal for younger makers, just remember to supervise their learning and to solder in a well ventilated space. 

—Les Pounder

This 4TB Crucial P3 Plus SSD is just $3 short of its lowest ever price!

This budget-friendly SSD is for those of us who favor lots of capacity over performance and it is now just $3 short of its lowest ever price!
The P3 Plus is based upon Phison’s E21T controller and Micron’s new 176-layer QLC flash. QLC tends to have higher read latency than TLC and one way to improve read performance is to allow each of four planes in a flash die to be read independently. QLC also programs or writes much more slowly, so enhanced programming algorithms can help it reach the desired values more quickly. QLC is ultimately about density – capacity per square millimeter – so all major manufacturers are putting control circuitry (CMOS) under the layered flash array. All of this helps make QLC more affordable while still being performant enough to compete with TLC options.

The 4TB option is the largest in this range, and it is now just a few dollars short of its lowest ever price.

The 4TB model has a sequential read speed of 4,800 MBps, although the 1TB and 2TB are slightly faster at 5,000 MBps. Sequential write speeds at 4TB are 4,100 MBps, the 2TB just beats it at 4,2000 MBps. 

Specifications

In our review, we concluded that the P3 Plus is an enticing budget drive which runs the full range of drive sizes from 500GB to 4TB. The drive runs cool and is power efficient, making it a good choice for laptops and Sony’s PlayStation 5. The average performance means this is good as a bulk storage drive, but keep your boot drive running on something faster. 

—Les Pounder

 Save a massive $356 on Creality’s K1 Max and use the money to buy filament! 

With a build volume of 300 x 300 x 300mm, Creality’s K1 Max is bigger than the norm CoreXY printer built into a glass enclosure. With a direct drive extruder and 0.4mm nozzle this printer can print using PLA, PETG, TPU and ABS with a nozzle temp of up to 300 degrees Celsius.

Coming 99% built, all we needed to do was remove it from the crate. Yes, our review model (and retail versions) comes in a crate! Remove the packing foam

Being a CoreXY 3D printer, and running Klipper means that the K1 Max can hit 600 mm/s and the included Hyper PLA, a high-speed filament is designed to print fast with no visible loss of quality. That said, our reviewer also used an everyday PLA, Inland gray PLA and that printed a benchy in 17 minutes and 38 seconds. The fastest benchy they had ever printed at the time of the review.

The K1 Max isn’t just a bigger printer, it’s a more deluxe printer with LIDAR and an AI camera to warn you if a print fails. The printer uses a form of AI to scan the build plate and then the first layer to make sure everything is going to plan. It then continues to monitor the print process and can warn you if it detects a print failure. This mode needs to be switched on to operate – and only works in conjunction with the Creality Cloud. If the printer is operated in LAN only mod you’ll have to monitor prints the old-fashioned way – with your own eyeballs.

Specifications: Creality K1 Max

The K1 Max will auto level the print bed, a smooth PEI flex plate print bed before every print (you can turn this off). The glass enclosure means that printing ABS, which will remove itself from any print bed at even the slightest mention of a breeze, is much easier and less smelly. 

—Les Pounder

Samsung’s 4TB 990 Pro is finally sold out everywhere

The 4TB version of the Samsung 990 Pro only launched a couple of months ago, but it was already down to just $249 this weekend at Samsung, Best Buy, Newegg, and B&H Photo. Unfortunately it looks like that price — nearly $100 off the retail price of $344 — was pretty tempting for SSD shoppers, because the 4TB 990 Pro appears to be sold out at most major retailers right now.

If you missed out, no sweat — you can still pick up the smaller 2TB version of the 990 Pro for just $119 — its lowest-ever price — at Best Buy. The 990 Pro is the fastest drive we’ve ever tested, with sequential read / write speeds of 7,450 / 6,900 MB/s and up to 1.4 / 1.55 million random read/write IOPS. You can read our full review of the 2TB 990 Pro here.

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If you had your heart set on 4TB, the 4TB WD Black SN850X is still on sale for just $229 at Amazon (was $289 — original MSRP $699). The SN850X offers up to 7,300 / 6,600 MB/s sequential read/write and 1.2 / 1.1 million random read/write IOPS, and is one of our favorite SSDs for the PS5. You can read our full review of the SN850X here.

—Sarah Jacobsen Purewall

(I bought a 2TB 990 Pro for $129 in July because Paul said it was a great deal. And now it’s even cheaper!)

20TB of hard drive storage at a record-low price for Cyber Monday

Black Friday is always a great time to score storage at a deep discount, and this sale on the 20TB Seagate Exos is a perfect example — at its discounted $269 price point at Newegg, you get a capacious slab of storage for pictures, media, and archival purposes. You can even use this drive to store games that you don’t frequently play and then move them back to your SSD when the time is right.  

This drive, a resident of our list of Best HDDs, has a 7,200-RPM spindle speed and uses the tried and true conventional magnetic recording (CMR) tech, not the slower SMR tech that you find in drives of lesser quality. The drive also has 156MB of cache and a sustained transfer rate of 285 MB/s, putting it near the top of our HDD benchmark charts. You can read our full Seagate Exos X20 review here.

This pricing works out to $13.50 per TB of storage, or $0.013 per GB, a price that SSD storage simply can’t match. Yes, you should use an SSD as your primary boot drive, but bulking up your overall storage capacity with an HDD sidekick makes sense. You could also opt for even cheaper storage by going with an external drive, but you’ll sacrifice performance and warranty compared to this drive, which comes with an excellent three-year warranty. 

—Paul Alcorn

Grab an Alienware m16 gaming laptop with Ryzen 9 7845HX and RTX 4070 for $1,399

If you’re in the market for a potent mid-range gaming laptop, Dell has you covered for Cyber Monday with the Alienware m16. While we often see scores of gaming laptops sporting various iterations of Intel’s 12th and 13th generation Core processors. However, this m16 variant sports an AMD Ryzen 9 processor and is discounted to just $1,399 (a steep $700 drop from its regular asking price).

Specifically, the Alienware m16 features AMD’s Ryzen 9 7845HX processor, which can boost up to 5.2 GHz and has 12 cores capable of executing 24 threads. That powerful processor comes paired with 16GB of DDR5-4800 memory (2x 8GB) and a 1TB M.2 SSD. Since this is a gaming laptop, we’d be remiss if we left out the graphics card, which in this case is Nvidia’s excellent GeForce RTX 4070. This discrete mobile GPU comes with 8GB of GDDR6.

As its name implies, the Alienware m16 has a 16-inch display. This configuration has a QHD+ resolution (2560 x 1600) and a 165Hz refresh rate. Dell also includes an AlienFX RGB backlit keyboard with customizable zones for those who want to add a bit of color to their typing surface. 

Other features included with the Alienware m16 are Wi-Fi 6/Bluetooth 5.2 wireless connectivity, GbE port, HDMI 2.1, Mini DisplayPort 1.4, USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports, USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 ports, an SD card slot, Element 31 thermal interface material for the GPU and CPU, and seven heat pipes used in conjunction with a vapor chamber and four fans to keep things cool. However, keep in mind that the Alienware m16 is a bit portly, weighing in at 7.2 pounds with a 14.5 x 11.4 x 1-inch footprint.

Today’s $1,399.99 price for the Alienware m16 is part of Dell’s version of a Lightning Deal. As of this writing, 40 percent of the available units at this price have been claimed, so you had better act fast to secure yours.

—Brandon Hill

Dell sweetens Nintendo Switch OLED purchases with an included $75 eGift card for Cyber Monday

It’s hard to believe it, but the Nintendo Switch has been with us for nearly seven years. It became a best-seller during that time and spawned plenty of memorable games like Super Mario Odyssey and Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. However, if you still haven’t purchased a Switch yet or simply want to give one as a gift this holiday season, Dell has an excellent Cyber Monday promotion on the Switch OLED (White) that warrants your attention.

The Switch OLED is the newest version of the console, having launched in October 2021. Dell sells the console for $349.99, which is its regular asking price. While that is nothing to write home about, Dell pairs the handheld console with a $75 promo eGift Card that can be used for future purchases. According to Dell, the promo eGift Card will be emailed within 20 days of purchase. Once issued, you will have 90 days to use the eGift Card before it expires.

I would have preferred a straight-up $75 discount over a promotional offer, but it can be used towards a future purchase at Dell, be it accessories for your new Switch OLED or as a discount on a Dell or Alienware PC.

While the Switch OLED has the same 1270 x 780 resolution as the original model, it has a larger, 7-inch OLED panel. Internal storage space also doubles to 64GB, although you can still expand storage using the microSDXC slot. Nintendo says that the 11.36-ounce Switch OLED can last up to nine hours per charge, which is plenty of time to get in some intense Mario Kart 8 Deluxe sessions while trying to avoid that pesky blue shell.

—Brandon Hill

CyberPowerPC Desktop with Core i7 and RTX 4060 Ti is now $1069, $330 Off.

Wouldn’t we all love a top-of-the-line gaming desktop with a GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card, a flagship Intel or AMD CPU, and copious amounts of RAM/storage? While that’s often wishful thinking, some of us are thinking on more budget-friendly terms. That’s where the CyberPowerPC Gamer Extreme gaming desktop comes into play, which features a $330 discount this Cyber Mondayat Best Buy, bringing it to just $1,069.99.

The system features a sleek mid-tower case with a see-through window, giving you a clear look inside at the internals and the RGB fans that keep everything cool under pressure. At the heart of the system is an Intel Core i7-13700F processor and 16GB of DDR5 memory.

You’ll find an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti (8GB) graphics card for your gaming needs and a 2TB SSD for storage. There are also plenty of ports for all your peripherals: six USB 3.1 Type-A and two USB 2.0 Type-A. Regarding network connectivity, there’s 802.11ac Wi-Fi and a GbE port for a hardline connection to your router. A 600-watt power supply feeds juice to the system.

A wired gaming keyboard and mouse are included, as is a one-year manufacturer’s warranty for parts and labor. 

This system would make a good starting rig for your son or daughter who is getting into gaming or as a budget system if you want to game on the side. Throw in a nice Cyber Monday discount on a gaming monitor, and you’ll be all set to begin your gaming adventures.

—Brandon Hill

Intel’s Arc Graphics Cards Offer Great Value This Cyber Monday

This has been a disappointing Black Friday / Cyber Monday deals season for GPU savings. Many of the most desirable cards have been holding steady at previous prices. However, the clear exception to that are the Intel Arc GPUs, which are all seeing double-digit percentage discounts compared to earlier this month. 

Intel’s fastest A770 16GB now at $259, nearly $100 below its launch price and $10 above its all-time low. The A750 is all the way down to $179, another all-time low, and the newest addition Arc A580 has dropped $20 to $159.

If you’re curious about how Intel’s GPUs stack up, the answer is that they’re reasonably competitive, have great media encoding capabilities, and the driver issues have mostly been ironed out. 

Intel has released about 30 different driver updates in the past year, some with significant improvements. AI performance is another strong point, where Arc GPUs are at least competitive with Nvidia’s alternatives in Stable Diffusion image generation.

Don’t expect record-setting performance from Intel’s GPUs. Frankly, the best they can hope is to compete with the mainstream Nvidia RTX 4060 and AMD RX 7600. But they do cost quite a bit less than those parts, even if they also generally use more power.

Intel also took a page out of Nvidia’s playbook and went whole-hog on all the latest features. It’s ray tracing hardware generally keeps pace with Nvidia (outside of full path tracing in stuff like Alan Wake 2), and it has dedicated tensor cores called XMX cores that are great for AI workloads — including the DLSS-alternative XeSS. For mainstream hardware at budget prices, Intel Arc provides a good alternative to the AMD and Nvidia graphics cards.

—Jarred Walton

These Cyber Monday Accessory Deals Could Change Your Life

Sometimes it’s the smallest things that matter most. You can upgrade from an 8-core CPU to a 12-core CPU or from 32GB to 64GB of RAM and not notice an immediate difference. However, a $12 wrist rest could make you infinitely more comfortable in a way that’s readily apparent from the moment you start using it. And you’ll be using it all day every day.

That’s why I’m taking a minute to highlight a few life-changing desk accessories that are on sale this Cyber Monday. The few dollars you spend here could make a huge difference for you, or for the person you gift them to.

Let’s start with our favorite wrist rest. I have one of these (the large size one) and, if I type for even five minutes without it, my fingers start to hurt. There are many wrist rests on the market, but the HyperX Wrist Rest is the best by far, because it combines soft gel with cooling. I have the large version, which is $15, but the small one is just $12.

You can never have access to too many USB ports. That’s why owning a 10 or 7-port hub to keep on your desk is critical. You also want that hub to be powered, rather than just drawing electricity from your computer’s USB port. 

I love the Sabrent hubs, because they have on/off switches that allow me to disable and enable devices at will. For example, I keep my wireless headset dongle and my USB desktop speaker plugged in at all times, but I turn off whichever audio device I’m not using.  Other hubs also have the on / off feature, but I’ve tested many and Sabrent’s models have the best design and build quality by far.

If you’re like me, you probably have a ton of wires to plug in, but only one outlet. You could buy a standard power strip which goes on the floor where your cat or child could easily poke the switch. 

But a better alternative is to buy a vertical power tower that takes up very little desk space but has a ton of outlets. I have my desktop PC, all four of my monitors, my laptop and my Raspberry Pi all plugged into my tower. To save on vampire power, I hit its power switch when I shutdown for the night.

This SMALLRT tower has on / off switches for each side so you can turn off the power to, say, your desktop, but leave your TV or server getting juiced. My son has a similar power tower, where he turns his desktop off but leaves other outlets on for charging.

A headphone holder or stand is key as you don’t want your headset lying all over your desk. Here’s one that will also charge your devices.

Massive 4TB WD Black SN850X SSD is only five cents per GB for Cyber Monday

WD’s excellent 4TB SN850X SSD is now only $229 at Amazon for Cyber Monday 2023, a savings of $60 over the normal pricing (it debuted at $699). This speedy SSD is optimized for the PS5 but is just as adept in a leading-edge gaming PC. Regardless of which type of machine you slot it into, it provides enough capacity to hold even massive game libraries. 

The drive peaks at 7,300 / 6,600 MB/s of sequential read/write throughput and dishes out an incredible 1.2 / 1.1 million random read/write IOPS. It’s no surprise that this is one of the leaders on the list of Best SSDs for PS5 and our list of Best SSDs for PCs. WD also covers the drive with a five-year warranty.

If you don’t need quite the spacious 4TB model, WD also has the SN850X in 1 and 2TB capacities for a solid $79 and $114, respectively. Both of these drives deliver nearly the same level of performance as their larger counterpart but make sure to check our full WD Black SN850X review for the particulars.

—Paul Alcorn

2TB PCIe 4.0 SSDs that don’t suck, for under $100

Black Friday SSD deals have been abundant, and many of them are carrying over to Cyber Monday. That’s great because, due to dwindling flash supply in the industry, these might be the lowest prices we’ll see in some time. But right now, there are still some excellent options. There are a lot of unknown brands out there, but we have tested several “alternative” brands that are trying to become “established” brands. Silicon Power, Addlink, Lexar, and Netac all fall into that category, though certainly Silicon Power has been around for a while now. (Lexar used to be a Micron subsidiary but was sold off a few years back.)

We wrote up some excellent deals on 4TB SSDs for under $200, which are capacious enough to hold at least a decent portion of your Steam library — or 16 separate copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. But nearly $200 might be more than a lot of people want to spend. If you’re hoping to keep things under $100, for yourself or someone else, those same drives are worth a look and can deliver impressive performance for the price. We’ll give you our best pick for each capacity.

Both these SSDs have something in common: They use the Maxio MAP1602A controller with 232-layer YMTC TLC NAND. (The Addlink A93 uses the same combination, but it costs a bit more than the Lexar drive.) This has proven to be a potent combination, even if it’s a DRAM-less controller. That helps cut down on price as well as power, however, and the YMTC NAND still sustains very respectable throughput. These drives are also single-sided designs, and the Lexar even has a heatsink included, which makes them a great fit for a PlayStation 5 or a laptop (you’d need to remove the heatsink for laptop use, which is easy enough).

Like most modern SSDs, these drives implement pSLC (pseudo-SLC) caches, which means they’ll have excellent throughput until the cache is filled up. That’s usually more than enough space to keep up with any game downloads, though performance can start to trail off as the drives are filled to capacity. The US75 and NM790 still maintained solid sustained write performance in our testing, however, which is a good indication of how they’ll run as you stuff them like a Thanksgiving turkey with all of your games.

Note that the US75 clearly falls behind in our write saturation testing, which pelts the drive with continuous writes for over 30 minutes. That’s because it has half the number of NAND dies available, and the 4TB models clearly take a lead in this “worst-case” testing. But 850 MB/s is hardly something to scoff at. Less strenuous workloads showed significantly better performance, if you’re wondering.

—Jarred Walton

Screaming-fast 500 Hz Alienware gaming monitor at all-time low pricing

Feel the need for extreme speed? Well, if you have a powerful enough system to push one of the fastest gaming monitors on the planet, the 500 Hz Alienware AW2524H is the monitor for you. Today, it’s priced at a mere $496 at Amazon for Cyber Monday 2023, an all-time low price that’s 39% below its $830 MSRP.

This ultra-fast monitor runs at 480 Hz at stock settings but, when overclocked, runs at 500 Hz on the 25-inch FHD IPS panel. It also sports a 0.03ms response time and supports G-Sync and HDR400. In fact, this monitor is now even $150 cheaper than the more economical cut-down “F” model that Dell released to bring 500 Hz to a lower price point.

Sure, normally, we would recommend the AW252HF if you were looking to score a 500 Hz panel at a lower price point, but the current deal finds the Dell flagship at even lower pricing than its more value-oriented counterpart. Also, you don’t have to accept the AW252HF’s compromises, like the step back to AMD FreeSync Pro instead of G-Sync, the lack of HDR400, and the removal of the AlienFX lighting on the back panel. 

Instead, you can now score the AW2524H for only $496 and get the whole enchilada with no compromises.

Crucial’s tiny X9 Pro and X10 Pro Portable SSDs get big discounts

Crucial has solid Cyber Monday deals on its latest portable, rugged external drives for Cyber Monday 2023, with the X9 Pro and X10 Pro models selling at all-time low prices that span up to a 33% discount. 

If you’re in the market for a dust and waterproof portable SSD, the Crucial X9 Pro might be worth your attention. Coming in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacity options with USB 3.2 Gen 2 speeds via the Type-C connector, this family of drives is on sale for Cyber Monday at $59, $87, and $182, respectively, which is up to 32% off the normal selling price.

These drives are pocket-friendly 65 x 50mm-sized devices with read/ write speeds up to 1,050 MB/s and 256-bit AES hardware encryption, plus the assurance of dust and water resistance. The casing is anodized aluminum with a rubberized soft touch base. Crucial also gives you one month of complimentary access to Adobe Create Cloud and Mylio Photos+ with product purchases made before December 31st, 2024.

Crucial X10 Pro is even faster

If you demand more speed from your portable storage, the Crucial X10 Pro series gives you up to 2,100 MB/s of sequential read/write throughput. These models are a bit pricier than the X9 Pro drives, but you’ll still get a good discount with 1TB for $92, 2TB for $129, and 4TB for $209.

This drive has the USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 interface device, and the 2TB variant sold for $170 at the time of review. While the X9 Pro is a great, nifty little portable device, the X10 takes advantage of the speed of the USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 interface, which can be a time saver, especially when you need to transfer large files.

Whether you choose the X9 Pro or the X10 Pro, Crucial backs its products with a five-year warranty.

 Shed some light on your PC life with this $51 monitor lamp 

Lamps that hang over your monitors have become increasingly popular in recent years, as they’re a good and attractive way to shine some light on your desk, without having to light up the entire room. I bought this very KableRika lamp during Black Friday 2021, and it’s been the perfect companion for these overnight deals-slinging shifts. It gives me some extra, adjustable light for working, without broadcasting to my neighbors that I’m blogging about anti-sag GPU support rods at 4 a.m.

The KableRika is a whole lot cheaper than competing models from the likes of BenQ, and it’s performed flawlessly for me over the past two years. Its mounting system is designed to clamp on the back of a desk. But I have it clamped to the wall mount that holds the OLED TV that I use as my monitor. It gets bright enough that at night, I mostly keep it on the lowest two settings.

—Matt Safford

Minisforum Venus and Neptune Series Mini PCs get big Cyber Monday discounts

Minisforum is well known for making handsome and feature-packed mini PCs that cater to a wide variety of use cases. While the company has multiple deals for Cyber Monday, the best deals are for the Minisforum Venus NPB7 at $616, which is 22% off its original price, and the Neptune HN2673 at $623, which is 26% off the retail price.

Minisforum Venus NPB7 is 22% Off on Cyber Monday 

The NPB7 comes packing a tremendous amount of connectivity for a mini PC. The foundation starts with a 14-core / 20-thread Intel Core i7-13700H CPU with integrated Intel Xe graphics. The system sports 32 GB of DDR5 memory and a 1TB NVMe SSD in an M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0  slot and an additional SATA slot for a 2.5-inch SSD. 

For display outputs, Minisforum provides two HDMI ports supporting 4K @ 60Hz and two USB4 ports supporting up to 8k @ 60Hz. There’s also one audio jack. You also get two 2.5GbE ethernet ports, two USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A, two USB 4, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type A, and a data-only USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port. The system includes an Intel 802.11 AX WiFI 6E+ BT 5.2 chip for wireless connectivity. 

Minisforum provides an active cooling option for the PCIe 4.0 drive, with a much larger fan for the Intel CPU on the other side of the PCB facing downwards. The compact chassis has aluminum sides, but the top and bottom cover are plastic.

Minisforum Neptune Series HN2673 is 26% Off on Cyber Monday 

The Minisforum Neptune HN2673 uses a last-gen 10-core / 16-thread Core i7-12650H Alder Lake CPU, clocked up to 4.7 GHz. However, this device offers the additional charms of the Intel Arc A730M GPU with 6GB of GDDR5 memory. 

While this mobile discrete card won’t replace your primary gaming setup, it can definitely power some light gaming fun. Intel Arc drivers have improved lately with regular WHQL driver releases and optimized game-specific BETA drivers. This is a very different situation from the state of Intel Arc series driver support when it was launched.

Other specs of note are the system’s two HDMI ports and two USB-C ports that support up to 4K @ 60Hz displays. There is 32 GB DDR4 memory on board and a 1 TB SSD with expansion options via two SATA III ports for 2.5-inch SSD drives. 

The HN2673 looks well-ventilated and has a stand to place it in the upright position. However, for a mini-PC, this is a larger unit due to its powerful quad-fan active cooling. 

Both systems come bundled with Windows 11 Home by default.

AMD’s potent 12-core Ryzen 9 5900X CPU Falls to $289, an All-Time Low

AMD’s Ryzen 9 5900X might be a last-gen chip, but its 12 cores and 24 threads still deliver potent performance in a range of workloads, particularly in productivity applications, and its 50% discount for Cyber Monday makes it even more appealing, bringing this powerful chip down to a mere $289.

The Ryzen 9 5900X is a great upgrade for an AM4 system, providing a huge jump over many of the prior-gen Ryzen 1000, 2000, and 3000 models. You can drop this chip in any AM4 motherboard, even those stretching back to 2017, that has a newer BIOS that will support the chip. You’ll want to make sure that the board has the requisite power delivery for this class of chip, though.

Sure, the Ryzen 9 5900X isn’t as fast in gaming as the Ryzen 7 5800X3D model, but it has four more cores for the same price as the X3D model and offers a more balanced profile — the X3D chips offer elite-class gaming performance but suffer from lower performance in productivity work.

—Paul Alcorn

Intel’s Overclockable 13th Gen CPUs Are 18% Off, Much Better Value Than 14th Gen

Intel’s overclockable 13th-Gen lineup is up to 18% off, including chips like the Core i5-13600K, 13600KF, i7-13700K, 13700KF, and i9-13900K. Intel’s 13th-Gen chips might not be the new anymore, but they are still very fast and offer performance nearly identical to Intel’s newest 14th-Gen models. 

When they came out a few weeks ago, we noted that the 14th gen “Raptor Lake Refresh” chips were basically the same as their immediate predecessors, but with slightly higher clock speeds and, in the case of the Core i9-14700K, a few more efficiency cores. Now that we’re seeing the 13th gen models on sale, it’s even harder to justify paying more for little-to-no added speed.

The Core i5-13600KF is arguably the best deal of the bunch, being 18% off at just $249.99. In our review of its twin brother, the 13600K, we found its performance to be excellent for a mid-range chip offering gaming performance close to AMD’s Ryzen 5 5800X3D, Intel’s i7-13700K, and even Intel’s latest i5-14600K at a much lower price.

Alternatively, if you need a CPU with integrated graphics, Intel’s Core i5-13600K is also 18% off, priced at $270.

For those looking for a bit more multi-core grunt, Intel’s Core i7-13700K is also 18% off ($345). In our review of the 13700K, we found it excels as both a gaming and content-creation chip, offering gaming performance similar to its Core i9 counterpart. 

The 13700K is actually a more attractive buy for gaming than its 14th-Gen counterpart — we found in our Core i7-14700K review that the 13700K offers nearly identical gaming performance to the i7-14700K, but at a much lower price point. If you don’t need integrated graphics, Intel offers its Core i7-13700KF for $10 less ($335).

If you’re after a higher-end CPU, Intel’s i9-13900KF is on sale for a 16% discount (now just $501). In testing with its twin brother, the 13900K, we found its performance to be basically identical to the much more expensive i9-14900K, both in gaming and content creation tasks. 

This is because both chips feature the same core configuration, with the only difference being a minute 200MHz higher turbo clock for the 14th-Gen parts. If you really need integrated graphics, Intel’s Core i9-13900K is also on sale but is only discounted by 13% for $546. But, if you’re spending $500+ on the CPU, chances are that you also have a discrete GPU. 

Overall, Intel’s 14th-Gen chips might look cool with their shiny new model names, but they don’t really perform any better than their 13th-Gen predecessors (with the exception of the 14700K and its four extra E-cores). As a result, if you are looking for a CPU upgrade or a new CPU for your shiny new gaming/productivity machine, Intel’s 13th-Gen K-series CPUs are the better choice, offering killer bang-for-buck performance this holiday season.

—Aaron Klotz

This Cyber Monday Gaming Laptop Has Long Battery Life, a New Low Price

When I reviewed the HP Victus 16 earlier this year, I raved about the gaming laptop’s design, its excellent battery life, and its bright display. The biggest downer with the laptop was its price, which was hundreds more than similarly-performing competitors. Well, that big flaw has now been rectified for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The same Victus 16 configuration we reviewed at $1,449 is now just $979 direct from HP. 

The Victus 16, as its name implies, features a 16-inch IPS display with a Full HD resolution (1920 x 1080) 144Hz panel. An Intel Core i7-13700H processor powers the laptop, while a discrete GeForce RTX 4050 GPU with 6GB of RAM handles gaming duties. You’ll find 16GB of DDR5-5600 memory (two 8GB sticks) and a 1TB SSD.

You’ll find a mix of USB-A and USB-C ports for connectivity along with GbE. Wireless connectivity is handled by Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 radios. And in an excellent addition for a laptop at this price point, HP configures the Victus 16 with a 1080p webcam and a physical privacy shutter.

But perhaps the biggest surprise with the Victus 16 was its 83 WHr battery, which was a real endurance champion in our tests. The Victus 16 lasted for just over seven hours in our battery test. The next closest competitor was the Acer Nitro 5, which gave up the ghost after five and a half hours. 

I concluded my review by writing that the Victus 16, “is right in line regarding gaming performance relative to the competition. It has a bright display, good build quality and a business-like exterior. In addition, its battery life blows away the competition at just over seven hours. If you can find the laptop on sale, it’s worth considering for those seeking a budget 1080p gaming rig.”

With a new low price of $979, we can honestly say that now is the time to buy this stellar budget gaming laptop. 

—Brandon Hill

Give your graphics card the support it desperately needs, for less than $5 

Your high-end, heavy graphics card does a lot for you: delivering triple-digit frame rates so you can stomp your opponents in Counter-Strike 2; rendering Cyberpunk 2077 in all its glorious path-traced glory; maybe it even made you some money during the heyday of cryptomining. But now it needs a little support from you (and Joyjom). And that support can cost as little as $4.79. 

Sure, you could spend $30 or more and get something with pretty RGB and glass, like Cooler Master’s ARGB GPU Support Bracket. But for less than $5, you can give your graphics-rendering friend all the help it needs to stay perfectly horizontal (while also taking the stress off your precious x16 slot). 

I ordered one to support my elderly GTX 1080 Ti – won’t you? If this isn’t worth a bit less than you probably spent on your coffee yesterday, you don’t deserve to call yourself a PC enthusiast. 

—Matt Safford