Weekend Hardware Sales - Motherboard + CPU Combos, Video Cards

It's our final weekend hardware sales round-up before Xmas arrives, so now's a good time to start planning what you're spending upgrade money on. In this quick sales round-up, we've got a couple of CPU combos with other items (motherboards, RAM), a 1000W 80 Plus Gold power supply, a video card, and a gaming case.

Rosewill Capstone 1000W PSU ($160): High-end power supplies tend to run pretty expensive, but frequent inventory dumps and sales make them much more affordable; Rosewill's Capstone continuous 1000W PSU is on sale for $40 off right now, making it one of the more affordable high-end units out there. 80 Plus Gold certification means you're delivering closer to spec with higher energy efficiency, and modularity means all those extra PCI-E cables can be tucked away until later. Speaking of video cards...

ASUS R9 270 2GB Video Card ($180): After a brief video card supply scare, prices for GPUs are beginning to normalize and inventory has started to flow back into the retailers' warehouses. When we originally wrote about AMD's R9 270 video card, we stated emphatically that the card guaranteed AMD's control over the sub-$200 market -- and that remains true. This 2GB R9 270 will play nearly any modern game on max settings at 1080p, and will almost max-out BF4 at 1080p.

Corsair Obsidian 650D Gaming Case ($160): Corsair's 650D has served as one of the best borderline enthusiast-class enclosures on the market, and continues to do so; the unit shares many characteristics with the much cheaper C70 ($110), but stands a bit larger and offers more cooling options. If you're building a machine that needs a discrete/sleeper look but demands a window, this is your best bet.

Dual Pick of the Week 

I'm opting for a return of our "dual pick of the week" here. AMD and Intel both have pretty hard-hitting combo sales with their CPUs right now:

Gigabyte UD3H + i5-4670K ($375): By combining Intel's i5-4670K with Gigabyte's Z87-UDH3 motherboard, we can reap a discount of $25 from the separately-purchased pricing. The i5-4670K is still a go-to CPU for any mid-range or better gaming build, given its unlocked overclocking status, and the UD3H uses high-quality components to juggle overclocking efficiently.

AMD FX-9370 CPU + 8GB RAM ($293): This one's marked-down $60, a pretty hefty discount, and includes 8GB of 1866MHz RAM with an AMD FX-9370 eight-core CPU. The 9000-series AMD CPUs are the newest in AMD's existing Vishera FX line and compete heavily against Intel's similarly-priced processors; the unit draws a massive 220W of power though, so make sure you've got a motherboard and PSU that'll handle it (this ASRock motherboard will work, and is actually what I use with my 9370).

- Steve "Lelldorianx" Burke.