This week has been another slow one in the hardware sales department, as we seem to say every week that flash-based storage and GPUs continue to stay high in price. Upgrading or building a new PC is difficult right now; however, this week we found some decent prices on a 16GB kit of DDR4 from G.SKILL and a 120GB SSD from Kingston. With the GPU cryptocurrency mining craze still going on, mid- to low-end cards are all but sold-out and overpriced for gaming, but the GTX 1080 however can still be found for at or just under $500 in some cases. This week also provided us with a slight discount on the new Corsair K63 keyboard with Cherry MX red switches.
Corsair K63 TKL Keyboard ($70) - Corsair announced and launched their new K63 TKL keyboard with Cherry MX Red switches in late March of 2017 for $80. In that short time, the price has already dropped and the board can be picked up on Amazon for $70. The K63 keyboard is comparable to Corsair’s K65 RGB TKL keyboard ($170), the main differences being the K63 has a plastic body construction and Red LEDs, whereas the K65 RGB features an aluminum body with RGB LEDs. The K63 Keyboard has additional dedicated media keys on the top providing a bit more functionality over the K65 line, as well as a Windows lock key and brightness setting button for the Red LED backlighting.
Gigabyte GTX 1080 Windforce ($500) - If interested, a few weeks ago we talked with GPU manufacturers about what they think of GPU mining and how it affects the gaming market. The GeForce GTX 1080 line are some of the only cards that still hover around their MSRP of $500. Currently on Amazon, you can pick up the GTX 1080 Windforce card for $500. Last week, the Gigabyte GTX 1080 Gaming G1 was on sale for the same price but has been sold out. The GTX 1080 Windforce is a triple-fan design card, and adheres to the standard GTX 1080 GPU specs listed in our initial review from May of last year.
Kingston 120GB A400 2.5” SSD ($55) - SSDs have also been subject to price increases as of late, for those looking to install an OS to an SSD for faster boot times the 120GB A400 SSD from Kingston presents itself as a decent option. The A400 is certainly not the fastest SATA-based SSD with read and write speeds of 500 MB/s and 320 MB/s respectively, but given its current price of $55, it is one of the more budget-friendly options available. If you need a bit more speed than the A400, consider the Kingston 120GB UV400 SSD (550 MB/s read, 340 MB/s write) for $60.
G.SKILL Ripjaws V 16GB (2X8GB) DDR4 3200 ($127) - DDR4 kits at reasonable price have been hard to come by. Until Wednesday, July 19th, a 16GB kit of DDR4 from G.SKILL is available on Newegg for $127. Sadly, this is a good deal in the current market, as comparable kits at this speed (3200 MHz) are anywhere from $135 to $165. The G.SKILL Ripjaws 16GB kit has a black heatspreader, making it mostly color neutral, and has timings of 16-18-18-38 and CAS latency of 16.
These are some of the best deals we found this week, be sure the check back this week for more review coverage.
Editorial: Ryan Greenberg