BLACK FRIDAY

Limited quantities of certain products for short periods of time will be at unfathomable prices both at newegg and other stores like frys and even best buy. You usually have to be fast and lucky to get in on them before they run out.

Intel's "Sandy Bridge" processors are coming out Q1 2011. These will replace all of the LGA 1156 processors (i3-530 through i7-875k). Intel's fastest processors on LGA 1366 (i7-950/960 through i7-990x) won't be replaced until ~Q3 2011.

New AMD processors are also likely for Q1 2011. We don't know as much yet about how these will fit in.

The AMD/ATI HD 6XXX cards should arrive before December for the holiday season, and offer a 20% performance increase. They will be DX11 and manufactured at 40nm just like the HD 5XXX cards so they won't really make the HD 5XXX series cards obsolete.

+1 for above posts. As far as Black Friday goes, keep an eye out for SSDs. Considering the sales on the OCZ Agility 2/Vertex 2,etc drives, I would bet that you'll be able to find a good deal on SSDs for use as a boot drive.

i'm looking to score a ssd and 24" monitor. and new laptop if funds permit.

^ Imo, I highly recommend waiting for Sandy Bridge before buying a laptop. The Sandy Bridge IGP is WAYYYY above any other IGP out now.

I highly recommend waiting for Llano (Q2 2011) before buying a laptop if you're waiting for Sandy Bridge anyway (Q1 2011). Its IGP will be way way way above Sandy Bridge's (~4x better).  

^ True that. HOWEVER, we do not know how Llano will perform. There are no reliable tests done by 3rd party at this time. At least with SB, we have AnandTech's review.

Current rumor is AMD will pull an NVidia: the 6770 will be a 5770 that is die shrunk, like the 250 GTS is a die shrunk 8800

We know it's going to be on manufactured using TSMC's 40nm process. ATI/AMD had to scrap a die shrink because TSMC wasn't ready. It's just going to be a refresh of the 5000 series.

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/09/06/what-amds-northe...

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/08/27/first-radeon-hd-...

This applies to all of the 6000 series cards that are coming out this year; anything "Northern Islands." Since the 67XX cards are launching first, they must be 40nm parts.

Umm, no.
There is simply no possible process to shrink to as 32nm was canceled at both TSMC and GloFo. I'm not sure where you're getting your info, but its completely inaccurate.

HD6000 is either going to be a minor architectural update + more shaders and refinement, or a full architectural overhaul.