Hardware Sales – i7-6700K for $365, 500GB MX200 for $155, & R9 390

Sales this weekend are favorable for most types of system builders – the upgrades and the ground-up builds are equally represented by CPU sales, a 500GB SSD sale, and GPU price drops. The weekend's most noteworthy sales include Crucial's MX200 M.2 500GB SSD for $155, the Intel Core i7-6700K Skylake CPU for $365 (which is, sadly, cheap), and an R9 390 8GB for $300.

Intel Core i7-6700K ($365): Using Amazon instant discounts totaling $55, this i7-6700K falls to $365 from its usual ~$420 price. The 6700K (and its 6600K sibling) has been all over the map with price, listed significantly higher than its Haswell and Devil's Canyon predecessors. Although DDR4 prices have now fallen, initial DDR4 kit prices did not aid adoption of the Skylake platform. Now, at $365, the 6700K is priced closely with the i7-4790K – soon to be phased-out.

Crucial MX200 M.2 500GB ($155): For motherboards with an M.2 slot – or if you've got a PCI-e adapter card (or a laptop, for that matter) – the MX200 500GB SSD from Crucial affords a favorable cost-per-GB ratio and ample storage. Most laptop users could pack their entire environment onto an SSD of this size, and would reduce battery life consumption in the process of transitioning away from traditional HDDs. Whether this goes into a desktop, mITX build, or laptop, make sure M.2 support for SSDs is present.

Sapphire Nitro R9 390 ($300): The R9 390 launched to unfavorable reviews from our staff, but critical driver updates by AMD have finally stabilized the card's ability to perform in gaming scenarios. Mostly, anyway. For gaming machines that need a tick above the GTX 960 or R9 380X – maybe for 1440p setups – the R9 390 fills a void. Granted, the GTX 970 is also closely matched in price right now.

Check back on Monday for a major benchmark from us. This one's pretty cool. Goes live in the morning.

- Steve “Lelldorianx” Burke.