Now that Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and "Cyber Week" (yes, really) are over with, I guess we're looking at "Cyber Winter!" Hell, why not Cyber Year, right? That's certainly how sales work.
Regardless, I've once again scoured the web to find the best weekly deals out there. For this week's article, we've got a cheap (ish) 8GB kit of RAM, a high-end CPU, budget gaming case, and more. Christmas is right around the corner, so let's see what presents we have for you.
G.Skill Ripjaws 8GB DDR3 RAM ($50): The first deal I found is on a kit of G.Skill 2x4GB 1600MHz RAM for a great price. For only $50, you get 8GB of solid gaming memory that allows for some overclocking room, too. With DDR4 memory around the corner (~2015 consumer adoption), this is the RAM for most gamers right now -- 1600MHz stands as the standard for most memory right now, and is more than enough speed for gaming. Of course, if you're running an APU, faster memory is preferable.
Thermaltake TR2 700W PSU ($40): When it comes to budget power supplies, Thermaltake has taken the lead with offering quality power supplies at a pretty reasonable price. This TR2 PSU offers 700W of reliable power for only forty bucks, more than enough for almost any gaming machine. Keep in mind that this PSU is not modular, but for this price it is hard to hold that against them.
Thermaltake Frio CPU OC heatsink ($30): For those of you looking for a great CPU air cooler at a low price, look no further. The
Rosewill R5 Gaming Case ($45): If you are looking for the best budget gaming case out there now, our previous review still stands that this is the case you should get. This case is a mid-tower, but still offers plenty of space for budget and mid-range builds. The dimensions are 8.1" x 19.5" x 21.5" (W x H x D), supports up to 320mm long video cards, comes with 3x120mm fans, and has room for up to 10 fans. So you get plenty of room for air flow optimization. You also get a nifty fan controller, dust filters, tool-less installation, and basic cable management features.
ASUS HD7870 2GB GPU ($170): Since we are a site that is dedicated to PC Gaming, we had to include this great deal on a very capable video card. ASUS is well-known as one of the leading manufacturers on the market right now (though MSI is seriously challenging that), and here they've posted a sale on the 7870. Even though this GPU is a generation behind the newest AMD video cards, it offers plenty bang for the buck. You get 1280 Stream processors and 2GB of GDDR5 RAM on a 256-bit interface, allowing for higher-resolution texture packs and more compute power. The 1000MHz Core Clock and 1200MHz (4.8Gbps) Memory Clock should allow you to play most, if not all games out at mid to highest settings (depending on the game). You also get one HDMI, 2xDVI, and 1xDP display ports.
Pick of the Week
AMD FX-9370 Vishera CPU ($220) The deal of the week comes from AMD, who've been in the news a lot this week. This combo pack includes a high-powered CPU with an included closed-loop liquid cooler for $220 -- making it one of the most competitively-priced CPUs we've seen this year. The FX-9370 is in the most recently-released FX CPU series and is based on the Piledriver architecture, but has higher stock clocks than the 8350. You get an eight core processor on a 4.4GHz stock operating frequency (easily OC'd to 5GHz +), shared 8MB L3 cache, and it's all on the AMD turbo core technology. With the latest trend in gaming going to multicore technology, as seen in games like Battlefield 4, the FX line seems to be geared up to take advantage of this. The FX line is well known as overclocking- and enthusiast-friendly, and with the included liquid cooler, it would be very easy to overclock this CPU to 5.0GHz or higher. Hard to beat that. Keep in mind that this CPU does draw a massive 220W of power, so it is an enthusiast item in the truest sense -- make sure you get a compatible motherboard, like this one.
Well, that's all for this week. Keep in mind these deals are constantly changing, giving the insane state of online sales right now. There are many more deals out there to find, so until next time.
- Michael "Mikagmann2" Mann.