Welcome to another edition of Mik's Picks! After scouring the interwebs for deals, I've once again found some decent deals out there for anyone looking to build or upgrade their PCs. Intel and NVidia sales aren't as abundant this week -- likely in the face of the next-gen launches for Intel and nVidia products -- but we found some other cool stuff.
This week I found a controller sale, the Genius Gila mouse, a $90 120GB SSD, a $50 1TB HDD, and a great video card discount.
Microsoft XBox 360 Controller ($25): First up, I found a sale on an Xbox 360 gaming controller that you can use on your PC to play games that support controller input. For those of you that are used to playing the Xbox 360, this controller should be helpful in the transition period; it's also recommended for dual-input local co-op games (like Trine). Use promo code EMCXRWN92 at checkout to take advantage of the deal. Update: It appears this controller is sold out already; check out this alternative by Logitech.
Genius Gila MMO/RTS Mouse ($71): We recently reviewed the Genius Gila mouse and found it to have some of the best button-placement on a mouse we've yet tested; the Gila has 12 programmable buttons, programmable LEDs, and decent internals. The body is a bit odd, but favorable for small-to-mid sized hands.
Samsung 840 Series 120GB SSD ($90): Once again, the Samsung 840 Series SSD finds itself on sale. This drive uses TLC NAND and is targeted purely for consumer, everyday usage purposes. It's not quite as fast nor does it have the same endurance of other drives on the market, but for everyday usage (OS, gaming, browsing), it'll perform perfectly fine. Use promo code EMCXRWN52 at checkout to get this deal.
1TB Toshiba 7200RPM HDD ($50, Free Shipping): There's not much to say here. A standard 3.5", 7200RPM HDD from Toshiba at 1TB capacity for ~$50 after MIR and free shipping. Definitely the right price.
Time for Pick of the Week!
XFX HD 7970 GPU ($350): This one's a pretty beastly bundle, even if the discount isn't that deep. The HD 7970 can easily play nearly all games on the market at highest settings without breaking a sweat, and as NVidia and AMD continue to compete with game bundles, we continue to get better games with each package iteration. The 7970 ships with AMD's "Reloaded" bundle, including Tomb Raider, Crysis 3, Bioshock: Infinite, and Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon (which is hilarious). Definitely a good game collection to test out on the card. The thing I personally like the most on this monster is its dual-fan heatsink, which should really help keep temps down during your gaming sessions. It boasts 3GB of GDDR5 RAM that supports high resolutions on multiple displays with AMDs Eyefinity technology.
Well, that's all for this week. There are many more deals out there to find, so until next time.
Michael "Mikagmann2" Mann