Deals, Discounts, and Best PC Component Buys & Builds

David Sanders4 said:Did you grab that at the downtown Best Buy or at futur? I was banking on some kind of sale combined with an IBO deal so I could snag a 3570k, but now that same CPU is sitting at $667 somewhere else... it sucks...

Yeah, M597 is going for about 850$300 right now, even though it used to be max $233. Basically, whatever option I was waiting for just flopped. People were saying prices on FX chips would drop, so I held out thinking I might land an FX 8320 for $333, but nope—now they're averaging around $400...

It’s definitely not the time to be buying hardware...
Besides, I’m just gonna wait. I've got a massive backlog of games to get through anyway, both for PC and my PlayStation 3, so I'll just wait for better times... maybe the dollar will strengthen again once tourist season hits... fingers crossed.🙄

Look, you can still get an FX 8320 for $366 over at UZI-J. Plus, if you sign up for PC Expert, you get an extra 3% off, bringing it down to $355. That’s actually a solid price. You could easily pair it with a Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P motherboard and a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo, and with the discount, you're looking at $266. To me, that's totally reasonable. Why wait if you've got the cash and just want to play some games on higher settings?

Sean Garcia3 said:Look, if you pick up an FX 8320 at $366 from UZI-J—and if you sign up for the PC Expert program, you get an extra 3% discount—it works out to $355. That’s actually a pretty solid deal. Toss in a Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P motherboard and a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo with that discount, and you're looking at $266. Personally, I find that quite reasonable. If you have the cash and you're itching to play some games on higher settings, what are you waiting for?

There are two main drawbacks, though. First, they don't offer up to six installments—which is really just their own limitation since Chase pays out the full amount upfront. Second, all items only come with a maximum two-year warranty, which I find to be the biggest downside.

@David Sanders4/">@@David Sanders4

Centro... then maybe three or four months later, the 2600K popped up for $386, but I guess it vanished within the same day 😁

Having learned my lesson from last year, I was sitting around waiting for some clearance deals at those amazing prices, but man, talk about bad timing—I felt like I got hit by a bus when I saw how much everything spiked. I actually have a way to go through a friend that would make the whole thing $333 cheaper, so I was planning on picking up the FX 8320 + M597 combo along with a Gigabyte GTX 970. They’re the only ones offering a six-month installment plan through my bank, but there's a catch: that massive 33 cm beast won't even fit in my case...

David Sanders4 said:Honestly, after getting burned last year, I was just sitting around waiting for some clearance deals, but man, I nearly had a heart attack when I saw how much prices have spiked. I actually have a connection through a buddy that would make everything $333 cheaper, so I was looking at grabbing an FX 8320 + M597 combo along with a Gigabyte GTX 970, mostly because they're the only ones offering a decent payment plan through my bank. The only catch is that absolute unit of a card is 33 cm long... it won't fit in my case.

What kind of case are you running? Maybe you could just hack it or bend the metal a bit.

Codegen breeze 6099. The issue I'm running into is that I have two separate hard drives... so if I were to start cutting, everything would end up all bunched together like this

I’m just trying to figure out if it's actually worth your money or not, even if you wouldn't die if you just went with a Zalman Z1, a Raijintek Arcadio, or a Zalman Z3

So, the specs for the GTX 960 finally dropped. I'm curious what you guys think—is this thing actually going to hold its own against the R9 280, or is it just going to be a step down? Also, any idea what kind of price tag we're looking at?

http://www.ocaholic.ch/modules/news/...?storyid=11652

http://www.ocaholic.ch/modules/news/...?storyid=11646

In my opinion, it’ll definitely outperform the R9 280—probably landing somewhere right in the sweet spot between the 280 and the 290—but hey, what do I know? It's better to just wait for the actual benchmarks to drop so we can see the real numbers; guessing blindly doesn't really get us anywhere.

According to some Firestrike leaks, it’s only hair faster than an R9 280. If that actually turns out to be true, it's probably going to be a total miss.

I mean, I'm not exactly expecting it to crush the R9 280 by much—maybe a tiny 1-2 fps bump at most. What I’m actually looking for is a lower price point so it can actually compete with the R9 280 or even the 285, maybe sitting around the $170-$$600 mark. My main reasoning is that since the GTX 960 Ti is coming out for it, it should probably land about 5-6 fps ahead of the GTX 770, especially with 4GB of VRAM. I'd guess the price would land somewhere near $230-$$800.

Nobody really knows for sure yet, but I’d bet my life savings that 99% of us will see it pulling about half the power of something like an AMD 280.

Well, honestly, that wasn't exactly a shocker given how much power that GTX 970 pulls.

If the GTX 960 hits $200 here in the States, there's absolutely no way we'll see prices drop below $567

Well, $567 it’s a decent price point—up to about $1850$633—given its power draw and performance. If it actually hits the projected benchmarks, it might end up being a better value than the GTX 970. The GTX 970 is really the sweet spot for anyone aiming for 1440p, whereas this looks like it’ll be a total winner for 1080p enthusiasts. Personally, I’m just counting down the days until the release.

Timothy Kim60 said:If the GTX 960 hits $200 in the States, there's no way we see anything lower than $567
here.

Like I said, I'm looking at around $1700--$600 though I doubt it'll go higher since the upcoming GTX 960 Ti shouldn't cost more than $800 anyway, especially with the GTX 970 sitting right below it at $1000. Plus, I'm low-key impatient to see what AMD brings to the table with the new series; they'll probably pull some crazy move with 6GB of VRAM or something. 😁

David Sanders4 said:Honestly, $567 offers a solid price point—up to about $1850$633—when you factor in power draw and performance. If it hits its predicted benchmarks, it’ll actually be a better value than the GTX 970. The GTX 970 is basically the gold standard for anyone aiming for 1440p, whereas this is clearly built for 1080p enthusiasts... personally, I can't wait for the launch! 👏

It’s hard to see this being more cost-effective than the GTX 970, especially considering the price tag and significantly lower performance levels. Plus, there's no guarantee it'll even outperform the R9 280 (around $1500$533). Sure, the power consumption will be lower, but let's be real: back in the day, even the 280X was retailing for $1600$567, so this definitely won't be a total game-changer.

From what I can gather, it’ll probably perform about 20° weaker than the GTX 970, but it’s roughly 30% cheaper and offers decent overclocking potential

It’s not even close to being just 20% weaker—it was more like a 50% drop

It looks like I'm seeing the same thing... this is barely pulling any more power than a GTX 760 😢