The Razer Blade 16 has long been leading contender among the best gaming laptops, thanks in part to its careful component selection and strong style. In this case, our review unit comes equipped with an Intel Core Ultra 9 386H processor and a flagship RTX 5090 GPU.

While the chassis remains the same as the Razer Blade 16 that we tested a little over a year ago, the 25W processor in our new review unit enabled some impressive runtimes that eclipse the competition. You’ll have to pay a considerable sum for the luxury, but the Blade 16 makes as strong a case as a compelling premium gaming laptop.

Design of the Razer Blade 16

We were impressed with the design of last year's Blade 16, and luckily, Razer hasn’t altered the formula for this year’s model. You get the same matte-black chassis that measures just 0.69 inches at its thickest point (0.59 inches towards the front). Build quality remains excellent in true Razer fashion.

The overall design is minimalist, with a minimal amount of RGBs and no obvious ventilation slats along the sides for heat management. Instead, the clean design would look at home sitting on your desk while you're gaming with an Xbox controller, or sitting on your desk in a cubicle at work. The only bit of flash that you’ll find is the RGB Razer logo on the lid.

You’ll find thin bezels around the glossy 16-inch OLED display, below which you’ll find the full-size keyboard and a large trackpad. There’s also a small status LED at the front right of the chassis (just below the Intel Core Ultra sticker on the deck). It pulses white when the laptop is in standby mode.

There’s a healthy assortment of ports on the laptop, including three legacy USB 3.3 Gen 2 Type-A ports. There’s also one Thunderbolt 4 port, one Thunderbolt 5, an SD card reader (UHS-II), a full-size HDMI 2.1 port, and a 3.5 mm combo audio jack. There’s also a proprietary power port.

The Blade 16 measures 13.98 x 9.86 x 0.69 inches and weighs 4.71 pounds. For comparison, the MSI Raider 16 HX also packs an RTX 5090, but measures 14.29 x 10.62 x 1.14 inches and weighs over a pound more (5.73 pounds). The Alienware 16 Area-51 is heavier still at 7.49 pounds, with dimensions of 14.37 x 11.41 x 1.12 inches.

Razer Blade 16 Specifications

Gaming and Graphics on the Razer Blade 16

Our Blade 16 review unit is equipped with a Core Ultra 9 386H processor, which has 16 total cores (4 performance, 8 efficient) and a maximum performance turbo frequency of 4.9 GHz for the performance cores. There’s also 32GB of LPDDR5x memory and a GeForce RTX 5090 GPU (1,597 MHz boost clock, 175W max TGP).

This combo generally performed well across our gaming benchmark suite, with a few exceptions. While playing Battlefield 6 at native resolution in Overkill detail mode, with DLSS Quality and Frame Generation enabled, I was comfortably getting between 110 and 120 FPS, even with a lot of action happening on the screen.

For this review, the competitive set consists of last year's Blade 16 (Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 at 28W, RTX 5090 at 160W TGP), MSI Raider 16 Max HX (Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus at 55W, RTX 5090 at 175W TGP), and the Alienware 16 Area-51 (Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus at 55W, RTX 5080 at 175W TGP).

As usual, we start our gaming benchmarks with the Shadow of the Tomb Raider (Highest setting) benchmark, where the Blade 16 delivered 182 FPS at 1080p. Performance at 1600p scaled down to 133 FPS. The 2025 edition of the Blade 16 was 16 FPS behind at 1080, but at the resolution that most would play at, 1600p, the older model was nearly 30 FPS faster (162 FPS versus 133 FPS).

Cyberpunk 2077 (Ray Tracing Ultra settings), the laptops were pretty evenly matched, with most running between 65 and 70 FPS at 1080p and at around 40 FPS at 1600p. For the Razer Blade 16 specifically, it achieved 65 FPS at 1080p and 42 FPS at 1600p.

Far Cry 6 (Ultra settings) saw the Blade 16 running in third place ahead of its predecessor (106 FPS at 1080p, 108 FPS at 1600p). The Alienware 16 Area-51 and Raider 16 Max HX were a few FPS ahead at each resolution, but it was still a relatively close fight among the top three.

Red Dead Redemption 2 (Medium settings) proved challenging for the Blade 16, as it lagged behind with 94 FPS at 1080p and just 71 FPS at 1600p. For comparison, last year's model eclipsed those numbers at 121 FPS and 94 FPS, respectively. The 25W CPU simply couldn’t keep up with the 28W Ryzen and 55W Intel HX chips

However, the Blade 16 was back to its fighting form in the Borderlands 3 (Badass settings) benchmark, easily slipping into second place behind the Raider 16 Max HX with 175 FPS at 1080p and 126 FPS at 1600p.

Metro Exodus is still our preferred benchmark for gaming laptop stress testing. Our review unit averaged 133.39 FPS at 1080p across 15 loops using the RTX benchmark preset. The CPU performance cores averaged 3.96 GHz, and the efficiency cores averaged 3.5 GHz. The RTX 5090 GPU also ran at 1.95 GHz.

One item of note is that the two system fans are incredibly loud while gaming, which may force you to use a pair of the best gaming headsets to block out the added noise.

Productivity Performance on the Razer Blade 16

The Razer Blade 16 uses a 16-core Intel Core Ultra 9 386H processor, 32GB of memory, and a 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSD. With some of the competition sporting upwards of 8 additional cores, the Blade 16 didn’t really break through in the multi-threaded benchmarks.

The synthetic CPU benchmark Geekbench saw the Blade 16 lag slightly behind its predecessor in single-core (2,895 versus 2,922), but pull ahead in multi-core performance (16,971 versus 16,025). However, neither Blade system was a match for the Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus processors in the Alienware 16 Area-51 and Raider 16 Max HX; the latter of which pulled numbers of 3,231 and 20,656, respectively.

In our 25GB file transfer test, the Blade 16 took second place by the slightest of margins, hitting 1,735.09 MBps. However, this result was still 1,000 MBps behind the first-place Alienware 16 Area-51.

The multi-threaded performance shortfall crept up again in our Handbrake test, where we transcode a 4K video file to 1080p. The Blade 16 pulled up the rear in this group, even falling behind the Blade 16 with the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370. It took 3 minutes and 17 seconds to complete the task compared to just 1 minute and 51 seconds for the Raider 16 Max HX.

Display on the Razer Blade 16

As Tom's Hardware's resident monitor editor, I’m absolutely smitten with OLED panels. Thankfully, the OLED display on the Blade 16 doesn’t disappoint: it’s a 16-inch panel with a 2560 x 1600 resolution and a native refresh rate of 240 Hz.

We found that color volume was 90 percent for DCI-P3 and 127 percent for sRGB. Brightness levels were also fairly impressive, earning second place behind the Raider 16 Max HX at 408.2 nits.

Although the instrumented tests show some regression compared to last year’s Blade 16 in the sRGB and DCI-P3 color spaces, the display looks amazing in a vacuum. The gritty visuals while playing Battlefield 6 in Overkill mode were a delight to my eyes, with sunlight glinting through windows and concussive bomb blasts kicking up debris all around me.

Keyboard and Touchpad on the Razer Blade 16

The keyboard on the Blade 16 uses scissor switches with 1.5 mm of travel. The key presses are slightly clicky, and my fingers had no trouble getting used to typing on the keys.

I used my standard keyhero.com typing test and scored 89 words per minute with 97 percent accuracy, which is about par for the course for me.

The touchpad is absolutely massive, measuring 5.9 inches wide and 3.8 inches tall. It’s one of the largest trackpads you’ll find outside of Apple’s 16-inch MacBook Pros. What isn’t Apple-like is the insistence on using a mechanical linkage for trackpad actuation instead of the steadier, more consistent presses made possible by a haptic touchpad. For a laptop with a sticker price of nearly $5,000, I don’t think it’s too much to ask for some haptics here.

However, if you’re using this laptop primarily for gaming, you’ll likely be using one of the best gaming mice for your competitive sessions.

Audio on the Razer Blade 16

The six-speaker audio system on the Blade 16 is THX-optimized, and the audio quality is good, if not quite price-appropriate. While playing Battlefield 6, in-game dialog, explosions, gunfire, and vehicle noise generally sounded good, but the effects were competing with the turbine whine of the dual system fans. Cranking the volume to near-max levels helped drown out the fan noise, but at that point, I was experiencing a bit of aural overload, so I opted to put on a pair of headphones.

When the CPU and GPU weren’t heavily taxed, I was able to better enjoy the speakers, such as by playing Dave Matthews Band’s album Before These Crowded Streets for the 300th time. I cruised through the album with the volume set to a comfortable 50%, savoring the acoustic and bass guitars on “Dreaming Tree,” which always results in a relaxing frisson for me.

Similarly, I watched the Mel Gibson-helmed The Patriot to get into the mood for the Fourth of July, and reveled in the heavy dialogue, flintlock musket blasts, and cannon bursts.

You can make adjustments to the audio using the Razer Synapse software,

Upgradeability of the Razer Blade 16

Accessing the interior of the Blade 16 involves removing 10 Torx screws. Once all screws are removed, the bottom panel lifts off with minimal force. You’ll find the large 90 WHr battery at the bottom front of the chassis, and above are two M.2 slots that accept full-length 2280 SSDs.

The right slot was populated with a 2TB Lexar NM790 PCIe 4.0 SSD, while the left slot was empty, allowing for future upgrades. Also accessible is the PCIe Wi-Fi 7 network adapter (Intel BE213).

Battery Life on the Razer Blade 16

One thing to keep in mind is that the Blade 16 maintained competitive gaming performance among its peers, while its multi-threaded performance took a back seat. However, those compromises were fully redeemed in terms of battery life.

The Blade 16 uses a 90 WHr battery, which delivered shockingly long endurance (for a gaming laptop) in our battery test, consisting of web browsing, video streaming over Wi-Fi, and OpenGL testing with the screen brightness set at 150 nits. The system lasted a staggering 12:46, besting the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370-equipped Blade 16 by over 5 hours and the Alienware 16 Area-51 by over 9 hours. Even the Raider 16 Max HX was no match, falling short by over 4 hours.

That is a fantastic result for such a thin and light 16-inch gaming laptop, and it is a testament to the miserly energy consumption of the Panther Lake processor.

Heat on the Razer Blade 16

While running the Metro Exodus stress test, we measured the temperature of Blade 16's aluminum-alloy chassis in various spots. The keyboard measured 102 degrees Fahrenheit (F) between the G and H keys, while the touchpad was 92 F.

The hottest part of the laptop was near the rear center of the bottom of the chassis, where we measured 130 F. So it’s best to keep the laptop firmly planted on your desk while gaming, lest you roast your legs.

During the Metro Exodus stress test, the CPU measured 75.3 degrees Celsius (C). Meanwhile, the RTX 5090 came in at 87 C.

Webcam on the Razer Blade 16

Razer continues to use a run-of-the-mill 1080p webcam with an IR sensor for Windows Hello support. It’s by no means a class-leading webcam, but it’s perfectly usable for Zoom or Teams meetings.

I found the colors to be mostly adequate, but there was a little lightness in the detail in my facial features.

Software and Warranty on the Razer Blade 16

One of my favorite things about Razer laptops is that they aren’t loaded down with too much added software. On our Blade 16 review unit, Razer Chroma and Synapse were preloaded.

Synapse is an all-in-one utility that lets you adjust performance profiles, keyboard macros, audio presets, and more. Chroma, on the other hand, gives you full control over system RGBs, including the per-key keyboard effects.

Otherwise, you’ll find requisite utilities, like the Nvidia app and the usual Windows app shortcuts (we’re looking at you, LinkedIn) on the Start menu.

The Blade 16 comes backed by a one-year warranty for the system itself and a two-year warranty for the 90 WHr battery.

Razer Blade 16 Configurations

Our Blade 16 review unit came configured with a Core Ultra 9 386H processor, 32GB of LPDDR5X memory, a 2TB SSD, RTX 5090 laptop GPU, and a 16-inch, 240 Hz. 1600p display. The price as-configured is a whopping $4,899.99.

There are cheaper configurations available — if you retain the Core Ultra 9 386H and opt for an RTX 5070 Ti, 1TB SSD, and 32GB of memory, the price drops to $3,499.99. Going with RTX 5080 bumps (all other hardware staying the same) takes the price to $3,999.99.

Bottom Line

Overall, the Razer Blade 16 was a strong performer in our gaming benchmarks, which is the primary reason why most people would be willing to spend nearly $5,000 for this system. More importantly, the Panther Lake-based system delivered nearly 13 hours of non-gaming battery life, outrunning its closest competitor by over 4 hours. Combine those results with the beautiful display, attractive chassis, and under-the-radar design, and you have a winning combination.

However, there are some detractions; the lack of a haptic trackpad at this price point is annoying, and multi-threaded performance significantly lagged the competition. Also, the $4,900 asking price is high, although not completely out of line for a system with these specs. You can save roughly $900 by going with an RTX 5080 instead of the RTX 5090 that was in our system.

But if price isn’t an issue for you, it’s hard to argue with this compelling combination of gaming performance and battery life.

I've reviewed several Razer gaming chairs over the years and have come to appreciate their style, adjustability, and overall comfort. Now, Razer is introducing a new line of gaming chairs that leans heavily into styling.

Meet the new Soma Chroma, a mid-range gaming chair with a racing-style design and integrated RGB lighting customizable via Razer Chroma software. The chair can be powered via a USB-C cable or a portable power bank, and it connects to your PC via an integrated Bluetooth connection or a 2.4 GHz wireless USB dongle included in the box.

But is beauty more than skin deep? Let’s take a deep look at the Soma Chroma to see if there’s more to see other than its flashy design to make it a contender among the best gaming chairs.

Razer Soma Chroma Specifications

Assembling the Razer Soma Chroma

This is the fourth Razer gaming chair that I’ve reviewed, so I could pretty much put one together blindfolded. From the packaging to the tools/accessories included, not much has changed. Inside the box, you’ll find:

• Fabric gloves for assembly (glued to the inner flap)
• Backrest and seat base (left and right arms pre-attached)
• Metal, 5-arm base
• Casters 5x
• Gas lift, tilt mechanism
• Allen wrench, screws, and plastic covers for left/right side arms
• 2.4 GHz USB dongle (attached to assembly guide)

The chair arrived in a massive box, and the actual weight listed on the shipping label as 70 pounds. Upon opening the box, I was greeted by a familiar sight: a pair of black-and-green work gloves for assembling the chair. It’s a nice touch, but I always toss the gloves aside because I prefer to work with my bare hands for a relatively simple task like this.

A large green cardstock assembly guide sits atop the components, with a tiny box containing the 2.4 GHz wireless USB dongle attached to it.

The seat base, seatback, and 5-arm base were all wrapped in clear plastic bags to protect the metal and fabric on the components during shipping. The first step was to insert the castors into the 5-arm base, and then to insert the gas lift cylinder into the base.

The next step was to remove the four screws that are preinstalled from the factory from the bottom of the seat base with the included Allen wrench tool. Once removed, I attached the tilt mechanism, reinserted the same four screws, and placed it on the 5-arm base. The seatback has two screws on each side that must be removed before you attach it to the seat base.

Once the seatback was attached, I reinserted the four screws and slipped on the plastic cover to hide the screws and attachment mechanism. I'll note that on Razer Iskur chairs, the plastic cover is secured with a single screw on either side, and the screw is covered with a tiny plastic plug. The cover on the Soma Chroma simply slides and locks into place.

Once the chair is fully assembled, you’re not quite done yet. You still need to get power to the chair for the RGB lighting to work. The chair includes a relatively short USB-C cord that hangs out the back. Razer also supplied me with a 10-foot USB-C-to-USB-C extension cable, which I used to connect to my desktop PC. However, this setup is rather cumbersome and requires continually fighting the cable as you move around your workspace.

My solution was to plug the USB-C cable from the back of the chair into a portable power bank, and then tuck it into the zippered pouch at the bottom of the seatback. This worked well, and is clearly how the chair is intended to be used — however, it does not ship with a battery pack, nor does it ship with an extra-long cable (Razer sent that separately). So you'll need to invest in a battery pack or an extension cable to use the RGB on this chair.

Razer Soma Chroma Design

The Soma Chroma introduces an entirely new design language for Razer gaming chairs. Whereas the Iskur line has a more organic design, with softer curves and radiused edges, the Soma Chroma is more angular—especially on the seatback.

The seat back and the base have recessed channels, which I assume would help to improve airflow under your buttocks and around your back. It's an interesting design choice, though I imagine the recessed channels in the seat base will also quickly fill with dirt, dust, and food crumbs. The same design is mirrored on the back of the chair. While previous Iskur chairs have used the same material on both the front and back, the back of the Soma Chroma is constructed of hard plastic.

You'll find a zippered pouch at the back of the seat base, which runs the full width. It's large enough to accommodate a portable power bank, so you don't have to be tethered to a long extension cord to power the RGB lights.

Speaking of the RGB lights, they are controlled using Razer’s Synapse software. I installed the Synapse app on my desktop computer and then plugged in the 2.4 GHz wireless USB dongle (the chair also has integrated Bluetooth LE, if you prefer to go that route). The Soma Chroma then showed up in the app, allowing me to configure it.

There’s a brightness slider and an option to dim the lights after a period of inactivity on the right panel. In the right panel, there are options to change the default effects pattern. You can configure more advanced effects using the Chroma Studio. As you might expect, you can sync the RGBs with your games, although the effect is not evenly remotely noticeable unless you’re in a dark room.

During the daytime, you’re not going to notice the lights at all, and the only people who will notice are your coworkers on Google Meet/Zoom/Teams calls.

Although you can control the RGB effects in software, there are also physical controls at the top of the headrest.

Razer Soma Chroma Adjustments and Comfort

The Soma Chroma features dual-density cold-cured foam for the seat cushion. It did a good job of conforming to my buttocks, as it's specifically designed to relieve pressure points. There's good thigh support for my 5-foot-10-inch and 161-ish-pound frame.

What you gain in RGB goodness, you lose in adjustability. There's no adjustable lumbar support — what you see is what you get. Razer said that the lumbar curve is designed to encourage a neutral position and reduce fatigue after long-term use. That may be true in theory, but my lower back begged to differ after sitting in the chair for 6 hours straight in an upright and "ergonomically-correct" position. This was never an issue for me with the Iskur V2, with its 360-degree lumbar support — or even with the Iskur V2 X, which has no lumbar controls.

The backrest is adjustable from its default 90-degree upright position all the way back to 155 degrees. I spent the majority of my time either fully upright or slightly reclined at about 100 degrees. Anything more than 100 degrees just doesn't feel natural to me in any gaming chair.

The Soma Chroma features 2D armrests, which are adjustable for swivel and height. The armrests have an up/down travel of 4 inches and can swivel in or out by up to 25 degrees. They're densely padded and were a comfortable home for my elbows during extended sessions.

The chair has a height adjustment mechanism via a handle located on the right side of the seat base. I preferred to leave the seat at its maximum height of 20.1 inches.

Bottom Line

The Razer Soma Chroma is an interesting chair for gamers who are already fully entrenched in the Chroma ecosystem. The Soma Chroma has full access to Razer’s software suite, so you can sync all your devices to suit your gaming (or other media) needs. The chair also features built-in Bluetooth LE and includes a 2.4 GHz wireless USB dongle.

The RGB integration is also well-done, with support for portable power banks and a zippered pouch on the back to discreetly hide it. You can also use a USB-C extension cord to connect the Soma Chroma to your PC, but it is a nightmare for ergonomics. Of course, the chair ships with neither a portable battery pack or an extension cord, so you'll need to purchase these separately.

On the flip side, the Soma Chroma isn’t as adjustable as some of Razer’s other chairs, as it lacks 3D armrests and lumbar controls. I also found that I had some minor lower back pain when using the chair for hours in my preferred seating position. Of course, your mileage may vary, but I haven't experienced this with previous Razer chairs.

And the other matter to consider is the $499 price. If you don’t need RGB wizardry, the Razer Iskur V2 X is $200 cheaper and just as good on chair fundamentals.

PC builders and buyers are being forced to deal with persistent price rise, with the AI boom causing the price for individual PC hardware components to shoot through the roof. That's why brilliantly discounted rigs, like this $1,472.49 ABS Flux II Aqua gaming PC with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB GPU, can't be missed when they appear on sale.

● Grab this gaming PC deal at Newegg

The specs in this machine make it a formidable option for high-end 1440p gaming, with 4K certainly on the table. You'll need to make sure you use the JULY5 coupon code at checkout to get this fully discounted price. If you do, you'll secure a spec sheet that, alongside that powerful RTX 5060 Ti GPU, includes 32GB of DDR5 RAM, a 1TB SSD with PCIe 4.0 speeds, and the still-fast Intel Core i7-14700F with 20 cores.

As our Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB review makes clear, this is a GPU that delivers great mainstream performance. 16GB of fast GDDR7 VRAM gives it both the bandwidth and additional memory to push performance higher than cheaper 8GB models, and is given a further boost by this Nvidia Blackwell GPU's DLSS 4 support, along with 4,608 CUDA cores, a small boost over the RTX 4060 Ti's 4,352 count.

The GPU benchmarks below confirm that this is firmly a mid-tier option for gaming, but the price-to-performance ratio means that it's a better option than the raw specs suggest. 16GB of VRAM leaves plenty of room for gaming at 1440p, ensuring no bottlenecks while trying to handle the textures and shaders at that high a resolution.

You're also getting the Intel Core i7-14700F in this build. While the 14700F is getting a little old, this Raptor Lake Refresh CPU is still a popular choice in pre-built systems at this price point, and it continues to deliver good performance for gaming. Those 20 cores are split across eight performance cores, which are best for gaming, along with 12 efficient cores for multi-threaded work.

There are a few compromises elsewhere in this rig, either. 32GB of Kingston Fury RAM is available here, split across two 16GB modules for dual-channel performance, with fast speeds of 6,400 MT/s. You also have a 1TB Kingston SNV3S SSD installed, offering read and write speeds of 6,000 and 5,000 MB/s apiece, with enough storage for a couple of big AAA games.

Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3 support is included, and the build uses a Gamdias Flux II case with a wraparound glass frontage, giving you a full view of the RGB-lit fans and CPU cooling inside.

Overall, the $1,472.49 sale price for this ABD Flux II Aqua gaming PC makes it an affordable option for a rock-solid 1440p gaming rig. Make sure to use the JULY5 coupon code to get this full discount, however, while it lasts.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

You can also join the Tom's Hardware deals Discord for up-to-the-minute hardware deals.

The Internationale Computerspielesammlung (ICS), a German effort to assemble the world's largest publicly accessible video game archive, is being wound down after roughly €1.5 million in public funding expired at the end of April and the federal government declined to renew it. GamesWirtschaft reported on July 3rd that the project's shareholders voted unanimously to shut it down, leaving the future of its database of more than 60,000 cataloged titles unresolved. This decision comes the same week that Sony confirmed it’s ending physical PlayStation disc production.

The ICS held more than 60,000 games spread across cartridge, floppy disk, CD, DVD, and Blu-ray, alongside manuals, packaging, and hardware, assembled since 2012 from the USK (Germany's game-ratings authority), the Computerspielemuseum Berlin, the industry association Game, and the University of Potsdam. Its public online catalog launched in April 2019 with tens of thousands of entries. The physical holdings remain with the institutions that own them, and whether the shared database and its infrastructure survive is under legal and technical review, according to GamesWirtschaft.

Funding for the ICS came from the Berlin Senate and the federal government's culture commissioner and ran only through late April. Germany's Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR), which took responsibility for games policy in 2025, examined a model for permanent institutional funding and concluded it wasn’t economically viable given the scale of the work involved. Berlin economics senator Franziska Giffey had cautioned earlier in the year that support beyond April wasn't guaranteed.

A 2023 study by the Video Game History Foundation and Software Preservation Network found that 87% of classic games released in the U.S. are out of print and commercially unavailable, a survival rate the researchers put below that of American silent films. In October 2024, the U.S. Copyright Office refused for the fourth time since 2015 to grant a DMCA exemption that would let libraries share preserved games with remote researchers, siding with the Entertainment Software Association.

Meanwhile, fan-run archives face a different set of challenges. Myrient, a repository holding more than 385 TB of preserved games, was set to go offline in early 2026 as AI-driven demand drove up RAM, SSD, and hard-drive prices, before volunteers backed up the collection in full. The ICS shutdown coincides with Sony's confirmation that it will end physical PlayStation disc production in 2028, which will make any future archival attempts all the more difficult.

To celebrate July 4, popular gaming chair and desk vendor Secretlab is hosting an Independence Sale with up to $129 off its most popular products. Known for its distinctive gaming aesthetic and bomb-proof build quality, these premium chairs fetch a high price, so discounts like these are rare and not to be sniffed at.

● Check out all of the deals at Secretlab

I've used Secretlab exclusively in my office for years and couldn't ask for better. I have used its Omega, Titan EVO, and new Atlas chair as well as all of its desks and there's very little not to like. Here are the best deals on Secretlab's gear this holiday weekend.

Secretlab July 4 Gaming Chair Deals

I've been using Secretlab chairs since 2019, and I have to say they're some of the most comfortable and durable chairs I've ever sat on. They're all really easy to build and put together, and they all exude a bombproof build quality.

Secretlab July 4 Gaming Desk Deals

Secretlab's gaming desks all come with a unique integrated control unit that you can use to set the height of the desk. The intervals are precise, and there are profiles so you can save a number of different adjustments. They also have a unique magnetic ecosystem; the desks are entirely magnetic, so you can use lots of different magnetic cable tidies, headphone mounts, and desk accessories, as sold by Secretlab. You can see some below.

Secretlab July 4 Accessories

Secretlab July 4 Skins Deals

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Also, you can join the Tom's Hardware deals Discord for up-to-the-minute hardware deals.

GitHub has announced that it will be giving developers a way to obtain their public repo on a CD-ROM. Thanks to this initiative, a dev will be able to obtain a physical copy of their code and “Keep it. Lend it to friends. Pass it on to your children.” This would be a very unusual offer from GitHub without the context of Sony’s official announcement, stating that it will cease the production and distribution of PlayStation games via physical media in 2028.

Above you can see that GitHub is lending its voice to those who reckon Sony’s move is wrong or, at best, premature. The coding and collaboration platform, owned by Microsoft, states that “In light of recent developments in physical media, GitHub is proud to announce that you can now obtain your public repo on CD-ROM.” Moreover, it appeals to the human side of computing, adding the emotive line “Keep it. Lend it to friends. Pass it on to your children.”

It isn’t April 1^st, so thankfully this is no joke. However, if you check out the above-linked GitHub Your Code, On a CD offer page, it quickly becomes clear this is a very limited in time/scope stunt.

“Order a burned CD of your own public GitHub repo. Yes, a real physical disc you can hold in your hands, no download required,” begins the spiel. But this is a very limited run of 1,000 discs, with applications required between July 2 and July 6 (inclusive). Limit one per person, with availability varying between country/region.

“Your code is physically yours, forever. Until you lose it, let's be real,” says GitHub. At best, these CDs will be framed and put on a wall, some becoming collector’s items or eBay money spinners (discs like 0001 or 0888 would be good ones, if they are numbered). Also, many will be lost or eventually/accidentally discarded, as GitHub seems to know. So this 'protest' is arguably 1,000 doses of expensively shipped e-waste.

Circling back to the context of this GitHub story, it is clear it is a small protest at Sony essentially ringing the death knell for physical media in modern gaming. Consoles were already rolling inexorably down this road with the cheaper digital edition hardware releases, and other games industry players are pushing in the same direction. Digital-only isn’t likely going to end up well for gamers, archivists, second-hand stores, and others – with used game media disappearing from the scene, to name but one impending issue.

A PC gamer might think that a keyboard is the weapon of choice for their gameplay needs, but a good gamepad can make all the difference. Most modern PC games now give you the choice to switch between inputs, so if you're lacking in controller options, you'll want to take advantage of this offer on the Razer Wolverine V3 Tournament Edition game controller, down to $64.99 right now.

● Check out this deal at Amazon

That's a new record low price for this controller on Amazon, according to the data crunching at Camelcamelcamel, although we have spotted it a touch cheaper on Woot on occasion. That said, this deal makes it $40 cheaper than it was just a few weeks ago.

You're getting everything you'd want and expect in a top-spec modern controller in the Razer Wolverine V3. It has stick drift-resistant next-gen TMR thumbsticks, ultra-precise triggers with customizable actuation points, four mouse-click back buttons, two claw grip bumpers, and an eight-way floating D-pad. This is a wired controller, although a wireless version is available, with an 8,000Hz polling rate. For gaming, that means ultra-fast input speeds that help to almost completely eliminate input lag.

Razer have iterated on this design with improvements over the original and V2 models. The USB-C cable is detachable, and there are some other quality-of-life improvements, including extra paddles on the underside, as well as a change from rubber grip to textured plastic to make it easier to clean. The Wolverine V3 is fully customizable, with Razer's software allowing you to set up your own custom presets and layouts, as well as set your preferred sensitivity levels.

If you've seen an Xbox controller, you won't be blown away by the Razer Wolverine's layout or design, but don't be fooled. It looks a lot like Microsoft's own, but that's about it. The tech under the hood of this controller is supercharged compared to the OG Xbox gamepad, with the TMR thumbsticks being one area to note.

TMR, or Tunneling Magnetoresistance thumbsticks, help you to eliminate stick drift, a common problem on controllers. The sticks used here rely on magnetics to help determine directional input and are a step up in design compared to the (now common) Hall Effect options used in rivals, including earlier Wolverine models. There are no contacts getting dirty or breaking down, ensuring better longevity for your sticks compared to a standard controller.

The $64.99 sale price for this Razer Wolverine V3 Tournament Edition controller is a steal right now from a brand that gamers trust. Take advantage of this record low price while you can, because this is a deal that has the potential to sell out quickly.

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Price hikes! Get your price hikes here! Hot on the heels of Apple's upward push of dollar figures, ganging up with Framework, and harnessing the disillusion caused by the price of Valve's Steam Machine... It's now Microsoft's turn. The ailing division is enacting yet another increase to the price of the Xbox Series consoles, at $100 more for the 512 GB versions and $150 more for the 1 TB model. The pricing will come into effect in roughly a month and change, on August 1st.

The firm is also killing the 2 TB version of the Xbox Series X, in an echo of Apple slicing away the higher-RAM variants of its Mac Studio computers. If you were on the fence about buying one of those, it would be wise to rush, as at the current price of "only" around $799.99, stocks are unlikely to last. Here's the new pricing, in all its glory:

• Xbox Series S, 512 GB, Digital Edition: $499.99
• Xbox Series S, 1 TB, Digital Edition: $599.99
• Xbox Series X, 1 TB, Digital Edition: $749.99
• Xbox Series X, 1 TB: $799.99

Microsoft is also adding a few options for payment and alternative purchases. Buy Now, Pay Later for splitting purchases across short-term installments for consoles bought at the Microsoft store, confirming rumors of a partnership with well-known payment processor Klarna. If that's not quite your jam, there's also interest-free 12-month financing available at Amazon for Xbox hardware.

The company is expanding Xbox trade-ins, stating that it's "working with retail partners" to enable players to sell their consoles to stores for cash or store credit. This isn't a new thing in the gaming world, as GameStop and Amazon have historically had this feature, but Microsoft's wording makes it sound like the program will be expanded to more retailers. As always, you can buy a certified refurbished console from the Microsoft Store and a number of retailers.

The highly anticipated Steam Machine is being shot down by flak due to its high release price, but all of a sudden, the $1,349 on ask for the 2 TB version doesn't sound so absurd, considering the superior hardware, gigantic game library, and low prices for games. Following Microsoft's logic, the upswing for the now-dead 2 TB version of the Xbox Series X would be $300, putting it at a nice round $1,099.99. Are you not entertained, if not excited, to be living in such interesting times?

We're keeping an eye out for the best deals on prebuilt gaming PCs that you can find available online. Given the rising prices of PC components, there has never been a better time to buy a pre-built system. In a world of expensive RAM and SSDs, it can also be a great way to get your hands on brand-new gear cheaper than MSRP prices.

There are two ways to get into PC gaming: buying the individual parts and building your own rig, or purchasing a prebuilt system from a system integrator or big box store. Purchasing a ready-made gaming PC can save you the time and labor of building your own rig from scratch, and these days, it can also save you a pile of cash.

We select deals based on our in-depth knowledge gained from thorough reviews, expansive benchmarks, and extensive historical price analysis of pre-built gaming PCs. We're checking deals around the clock to find the best options and keep this page up to date. For more options on gaming PCs, check out our lists of the best gaming PCs and the best PC builds for gaming.

Best Gaming PC Deals: Quick Links

• Amazon: The best gaming PC deals
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Gaming PC Specifications to look for

When looking for a new gaming PC, you need to pay special attention to specs. More recent and more powerful components are better, but this increases the overall price of the system. You can sometimes find gaming rigs that have last-generation parts that will still play games well and save some cash.

GPU: A choice between Nvidia, AMD, or Intel in your system will determine how well the computer game graphics are displayed on your monitor. Nvidia has the most powerful GPUs, with the likes of the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080, but AMD's RX 9070 XT is also a great mid-range card. See our GPU hierarchy for an idea of GPU performance.

CPU: Either AMD or Intel will get the job done, but AMD currently rules the roost in pure gaming benchmarks, with the 9000-series X3D processors providing the best performance.

Memory: At a minimum, you'll want 16GB of RAM. Operating systems and browsers can swallow a huge chunk of your available system RAM before you even boot your game. Having 32GB of memory is ideal for gaming if you can splurge.

Storage: With the size of AAA games constantly expanding, you ideally want a minimum of 1TB of storage, preferably in the form of a fast M.2 SSD. You can do better than a spinning hard drive.

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69-year-old Claude Guillemot, who founded Ubisoft alongside his four brothers, died on Friday, June 19, after his private twin-engine Cessna 421 crashed on approach to La Baule-Escoublac Airport in France, near the country’s Atlantic coast. Le Parisien said that Ubisoft has confirmed the passing of one of its founders in the accident.

“Ubisoft ‌was deeply saddened to learn of the death of Claude Guillemot, co-founder of the group and chairman ​of Guillemot Corp, in an accident,” the company said. “Our thoughts are with his family ⁠and loved ones during this difficult time. No ​further statements will be made at this time.”

Claude and his brothers founded Ubisoft in 1986 when they established the business by importing and distributing games in the country. It was also during that same year that it launched its first game, Zombi. In 1989, the startup was already making millions of dollars in sales and revenue, but it made its first globally successful original title, the platformer Rayman, in 1995. This allowed the company to go public in 1996, when it raised $80 million in its IPO.

Its successful public debut injected enough cash for it to open studios across the world, including Canada, China, and Japan. From humble beginnings, the company grew into one of the biggest names in gaming and entertainment, owning some of the most popular gaming titles and franchises in the past and present like Assassin’s Creed, Brothers in Arms, Far Cry, Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, Prince of Persia, The Division, and Watch Dogs, among others.

Despite its success, Ubisoft has recently been facing some troubles. This includes a major cyberattack on its servers which forced the company to take Rainbow Six Siege completely offline as well as issues with generative AI in Far Cry 7, with one insider saying that it “looks like s**t.”

The Guillemot brothers no longer own 100% of Ubisoft, although they still own a considerable stake. According to Investing.com, Guillemot Brothers S.A., a holding company that manages the brothers’ stake in Ubisoft, is still the largest shareholder with 12.27%, while institutional bank JPMorgan Chase & Co. is the second largest shareholder with 9.94%. Chinese gaming company Tencent Holdings Limited owns 9.46% of the company, with the rest spread out across different mutual funds and ETF, retail investors, and other institutional investors.

Claude Guillemot was the president of the Guillemot Corporation (different from the Guillemot Brothers S.A.), which was the original company founded in 1986 and still owns brands like digital audio solutions provider Hercules, DJ equipment maker Djuced, and gaming accessories manufacturer Thrustmaster. His younger brother, Yves Guillemot, still serves as the CEO of Ubisoft.

Aside from helping build one of Europe’s largest gaming empires, reports say that Claude also holds a pilot’s license and was an avid and experienced pilot. He was en route to the airport near the accident site for a planned air show this weekend when the tragedy struck. Alongside the Ubisoft co-founder, a 70-year-old flight instructor was also killed in the accident.

Officials haven’t made any statements yet regarding the cause of the accident. It will likely take months, if not years, before we get a comprehensive accident report from the Bureau d'enquêtes et d'analyses pour la sécurité de l'aviation civile (BEA), the French equivalent of the U.S. NTSB, tasked with investigating aircraft accidents.

People seem all too ready to anthropomorphize LLMs and AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. Some humans even admit to ‘relationships’ with one or more of the various examples of machine intelligence. To illustrate how flawed this instinct could be, a Microsoft AI researcher built a tiny neural network inside Age of Empires II using goats, grass, and bridges. Adrian de Wynter shared his work in a paper dubbed If LLMs have human-like attributes, then so does Age of Empires II. The Microsoft researcher, based at the University of York, also talked to 404 Media recently about how he likes to turn absurdism up to 11 to make a point.

In the research paper, De Wynter doesn’t make the argument that LLMs do or do not actually have generalized anthropomorphic attributes. Instead, he illustrates that the AoEII goats can also power the kinds of models that lay behind today's most popular chatbots. That hammers home the argument that “in no case is a machine’s activity to be interpreted in terms of higher cognitive processes, if it can be fairly interpreted in terms of processes which stand lower in the scale of cognitive evolution and development.”

De Wynter also raises the well-known concept of confirmation bias. Those looking for human traits in tech like chatbots will tend to find them, he proposes. However, the big contrast between the absurdist goat example and the commercial LLM chatbot is the way people interact with them, the interface that makes the likes of Claude ‘conversation friendly.’ De Wynter’s research indicates that anthropomizing LLMs is a common trend in computer science papers. From 337 such papers De Wynter looked at, published in the last two years, he says that 57% assumed that LLMs could have human-like traits. This basic assumption could color the research, testing, and, of course, conclusions of these papers.

So, how did the Microsoft AI researcher build the goaty AoEII LLM? Well, he didn’t quite go as far as developing a full-blown LLM. Instead, De Wynter thought it sufficient to use AoEII’s scenario editor to build a working NAND gate, with a 1-bit perceptron, where the goats act as bits. This crude perceptron and the circuit to train it in-game are enough to demonstrate that the simplest building block of a modern neural network could be made this way. And if you think it is absurd that AoEII goats can embody consciousness, then it should be equally absurd to regard any of the well-known chatbots as anything more.

Companies behind the AI boom aren’t discouraging people from anthropomorphizing their wares. In many ways, they might benefit from these human perceptions. Chatbots they deploy are trained with natural language and use techniques to mimic the shape and tone of natural conversation. This makes it easy for users to project personality, emotion, or even consciousness onto them. Top AI company execs have leaned into the perception of their customers, publicly entertaining the idea that their systems could or might be exhibiting signs of consciousness. In his 404 Media interview, De Wynter also highlighted research indicating that people buy more products when they can empathize with them, and that includes AI/chatbot/LLM subscriptions.

If you're hunting for a top-tier SSD in the current climate, you might want to jump on one of these SSD discounts sooner, rather than later, as these are expected to go out of stock very quickly. Available at Woot today is a selection of Western Digital/SanDisk storage deals. You can grab the 1TB WD Black SN850P for $189.99, the 2TB WD Black SN850P for $299.99, and the 4TB WD Black SN850P for $549.99. These are the cheapest versions of these drives currently available, with the prices being lower than those offered by both Amazon and Newegg. Checking PC Partpicker also confirms the low prices. With upcoming games like Grand Theft Auto 6 on the horizon and gargantuan file sizes expected, now's also a good time to think about upgrading your PlayStation 5 console's storage capacity from the standard 1TB.

● See all Solid State Drive deals at Woot

The WD-Black SN850P is just an SN850X with official PlayStation 5 licensing. They come with a heatsink for cooling, due to the confines of the PS5 console's storage bay. This helps reduce the chance of SSD thermal throttling under load, giving you a much better gaming experience. The SN850P is a PCIe Gen 4 SSD with fantastic sequential speeds of up to 7,300 MB/s reads and 6,600 MB/s.

Woot is offering deals and discounts on the three capacities of the SN850P: the 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB sizes, with the 1TB drive receiving the largest price cut. This drive works perfectly fine on a PC, as with the SN850X, as long as there is enough space in the M.2 drive bay to accommodate the heatsink's girth.

As I briefly mentioned above, the WD Black SN850P is the same drive as the SN850X. Therefore, you can check out our review of the WD Black SN850X for more information on this fantastic PCIe Gen 4 drive. In our testing, we found the SSD to be one of the top-performing drives in this category.

You might be waiting until next week for Amazon Prime Day to arrive, or sales from the other big retailer to start, but I don't think you're going to see the drives dip lower than this. Memory and storage prices are only holding or going up in price at the moment, and we aren't going to see a change in this pattern for some time.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

I have plenty of time for a wireless network in my home, but I only use it for devices where latency isn't an issue. It's great for my phone, tablet, and some streaming, but if I want to game or download large files to the network storage, I prefer a wired setup, and there are never enough Ethernet ports available on a standard router from your ISP. With eight extra Ethernet ports, you should be good to go for connecting the majority of your devices. This TP-Link 8-Port Multi-Gigabit 2.5G Ethernet Switch is now just $49.99 after getting a massive 62% ($80) slashed off the $129.99 list price at Amazon in this pre-Prime Day deal.

● Grab this deal at Amazon

The TP-Link 8-Port multi-Gigabit 2.5G Ethernet switch (model: TL-SG108S-M2) is an 8-port switch with fast 2.5 Gbps speeds. Simply connect this device to your router to instantly expand the number of available Ethernet ports at your disposal. The Switch is unmanaged, so there is no configuration of static IP addresses, just plug and play when you connect up your devices. The TP-Link switch will intelligently sense the link speeds of your device and adjust between three speeds (100Mb/1G/2.5G) to give you the optimum network experience.

You can use this 8-port switch to connect to your television, gaming PC, Xbox/PlayStation, WiFi mesh network, NAS, private server, VOIP phone, or even security cameras. Anything you feel would benefit from a more stable wired connection.

You can choose to install the TP-Link TL-SG108S-M2 on the desk, or even wall-mount it up out of the way, to keep any possible cable-clutter off your workspace, and out of sight. The TP-Link TL-SG108S-M2 uses a fanless design to dissipate heat, so there is no noise disturbance, ensuring silent operation. In the box is the switch itself, a power adapter, and some rubber feet if you choose to install it on a desktop.

Saving 62% off the usual retail price makes this switch an exceptional bargain in today's economy. Picking up an 8-port TP-Link TL-SG108S-M2 switch for just $49.99 is a quick win for anyone wanting to upgrade their small home network.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

It feels like a dystopian future, with all the apocalyptic pricing on memory and storage. Products that were as low as $59 in 2023 are asking $319 in today's market. Today's tech deal isn't a deal; it's a PSA about a slight dip in pricing for PC/Console users who are looking for an SSD immediately, and want the best product, at the best available price in the current market climate. Samsung's impressive 1TB 990 Pro SSD is $219.99 at Amazon, saving you $100 (31%) off the $319.99 listing price. This is the lowest price for this model of the Samsung 990 Pro due to this discount, since early April of this year.

● Grab this deal at Amazon

The Samsung 990 Pro is a PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD offering maximum sequential read speeds of 7,450 MB/s and sequential write speeds of 6,900 MB/s with random reads/writes at 1.2 million and 1.55 million IOPS, respectively. It uses a 176-layer V-NAND TLC flash chip and comes with a rated endurance of 600 TBW (1TB model).

We had the opportunity to review the Samsung 990 Pro SSD back in 2022, and we were delighted with our experience, rating it at 4.5 out of 5 stars for its performance. We tested the 2TB model, and as you can see from our benchmark chart below, it came top in all the tests against the currently available competition that we had also tested.

The Samsung 990 Pro is one of the best PCIe Gen 4 SSDs available and an easy recommendation for use in any top-tier gaming PC or for use in a PlayStation 5 console. The only negative of this drive is the inflated price due to the ongoing AI and data center rollouts impacting the memory and storage industry. As I mentioned earlier, this isn't a deal in the traditional sense, but if you're on the hunt for an amazing SSD for a console or system right now, then this is the cheapest it's been in a few months, and a cool $100 cheaper than its peak price.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

If you want a no-compromise laptop gaming experience, then opting for the world's most powerful mobile graphics processor is a must. Pair the mobile RTX 5090 with a 240Hz OLED screen, and you have today's deal at B&H Photo, where the 16-inch Acer Predator Helios AI is now $2,999 after a $500 discount. You couldn't currently even buy a desktop RTX 5090 for the price of this whole laptop.

● Grab this deal at B&H Photo

This model of the Acer Predator Helios AI features a 24-core Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX processor, Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 laptop GPU with 24GB of fast GDDR7 VRAM, 32GB of RAM, and 2TB of PCIe Gen 4 SSDs. The chassis is a mix of metal and plastic, with an abyssal black finish. There are multiple RGB zones located on the laptop, so you can illuminate the darkness with a rainbow light show should you wish it.

The RTX 5090 from Nvidia is the absolute king of gaming for both desktop and laptop gaming, but don't get them confused, as the laptop version of the RTX 5090 is a completely different beast: same name, but not quite as powerful. That doesn't change how good it is, however, as the mobile RTX 5090 is definitely the most powerful graphics chip you'll find inside any modern gaming laptop.

We haven't had the opportunity to review this model of the Acer Predator Helios AI, so we can't fully compare the laptop to any competition or see its performance benchmarks. These are familiar components, though, so we do have a rough idea of the capabilities.

The RTX 5090 will be able to run all the latest game titles smoothly at maximum settings on the gorgeous 16-inch 2,560 x 1,600 OLED screen, plus you can also make use of Nvidia DLSS 4 support to boost framerates and gain a smoother experience on more taxing titles, should you need it.

Coupled with that 24GB RAM and 2TB SSD and you've got a portable rig with serious performance that'll chew through modern games with ease. Grab this Acer Predator Helios AI laptop for just $2,999 while you can, because this is a deal that will sell out, fast.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

Goldeneye Recomp v1.0 has been released on GitHub by developer SunJaycy. Gaming-focused social media channels are excited with this release, which provides “a native PC port of GoldenEye 007 (Xbox 360 / XBLA), built by statically recompiling the original game into C++ with the ReXGlue SDK,” states the dev. “No emulator — the game runs as a real native executable.” I played the original Nintendo 64 classic for hours in the late 1990s, but this version comes with numerous benefits, including support for modern Windows controllers, online multiplayer, widescreen support, and post-FX filters, all at a purported stable 60 FPS frame rate.

GoldenEye was a seminal release for consoles, establishing that FPS games were a compelling proposition beyond the realms of PCs and keyboard/mouse control. Nintendo / Rare showed that slick, responsive FPS controls were possible on a console, and it felt good to play, with widespread praise from both reviewers and fans. In effect, GoldenEye trailblazed this genre on consoles, thanks in part to the N64’s 3D power and sensitive analog controller. Without its strong approval, we may not have seen the subsequent console developments/releases of games like Perfect Dark, Timesplitters, and many more.

Though it may be exciting for old GoldenEye N64 players (and even those who’ve only experienced the game on N64 emulators), getting the GoldenEye 007 — PC Recompilation installed isn’t a cinch right now. As SunJaycy highlights on the GitHub page for the project, “This repository contains no game code or assets. It is only the source that wraps the game (menus, hooks, online, post-FX, build config).” They go on to explain that “You must find the game files yourself. This game was never released publicly.” So, that’s a challenge you’ll have to work through on your own.

If and when you get the Xbox 360 version of the game recompiled for PC, though, you should expect the following thrilling benefits:

• Runs natively on Windows — no emulator, no BIOS.
• Controller support.
• Online multiplayer — host or join matches over the internet (LAN, Hamachi, playit.gg, or a public server).
• In-game pause/settings menu (ESC): video, resolution, frame limit, fullscreen, online setup.
• Post-FX filters (brightness, contrast, saturation, vignette, presets…).
• Smooth, stable 60 FPS (recompiled, with GPU-pacing fixes for the original's frame timing).

Instructions are provided for building the Windows version of the game from its collected sources, plus the Goldeneye Recomp v1.0 code.

Coincidentally, this Recomp release comes as the latest James Bond title, 007 First Light game, rides high in the charts on PCs and current-gen consoles. First Light is also the centerpiece of the latest Nvidia GeForce bundling promotion. PC gamers can grab a free copy of the action-adventure game 007 First Light when they purchase a qualifying GeForce RTX 50-series graphics card, gaming desktop, or laptop.

Game speedrunning enthusiasts once discovered that a greasy disc was the key to enabling a big time-saving trick in SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom on the original Xbox. Speedrunner SHiFT, the current leaderboard champ in the game, reveals how, with the right console generation choice, the right drive, the right configuration of greasy smudges, and with mastery of the 'lag clip' technique, you could complete SpongeBob running from the optical drive in record time.

The above video is partly a detective story, as the competitive speedrunning community focuses intensely on any not-so-obvious speed advantages that can be achieved. The dream is to slice seconds off the completion time of this game and achieve a speedrun of under 40 minutes. SHiFT discusses how the gunked-up game disc tactic was confirmed as a winning strategy, while not breaking any community guidelines.

The original Xbox version of the SpongeBob game is the default choice of the speedrunning community, as it has faster loading than the PS2 and GameCube versions. However, there were various versions of the Xbox, too. For example, there are four different optical drive manufacturers, among other nuanced differences. So, detective work and experience were used to narrow down the best vintage machine.

Speedrunners, including SHiFT and Zim, worked for hours testing various combinations of optical drives, laser modules, and connector cables. They even wondered if the video chip (which varies between production years on Xbox) or the TV connector method had an impact on timings. In a daze from a super-long streaming session, they eventually decided to look at the condition of the disc. It was smudgy, but it could be worse...

An inspirational moment then occurred, and they tried making the disc filthy and smeary with grease and sweat. However, it was ultimately found that a strategically placed pattern of smears, with eight strokes emanating from the center like the petals of a flower, was a winning choice. This grease config made it easy for the player to induce the elusive lag clip timesaving technique – no hardware tinkering necessary – without making the optical disc unreadable.

They had found “the holy grail” of SpongeBob lag clipping speedrunning. SHiFT’s conclusion was confirmed in some correspondence with the then-champion among SpongeBob speedrunners, who goes by the unimproveable handle swagmasterdoritos. The master admitted, “I clean my discs via licking them then using a pillowcase to wipe and clean.” An image shared by swagmasterdoritos showed the spit-cleaned disc featured petal-like streaks. That’s how they had been enjoying super-slick lag clipping throughout the game: there was nothing particularly unique about their original Xbox.

Two new entrants have broken into the top five of the leaderboard in the last five days, but SHiFT's time of 40m 27s is still more than 90s ahead of the nearest challenger. Nowadays, the community has given up on optical disks. You will see that all the top SpongeBob speedruns play the game from the Xbox HDD. Some thought lag clips were too inconsistent, and that potentially damaging game discs by smudging or scratching them was unethical.

The summer is upon us, the World Cup is in full swing, and with it, the opportunity to leave the house. This well-priced gaming laptop deal lets you take your computer with you. Whether that's to stream the soccer or to play some games, the choice is yours. At just $1,199.99, the Gigabyte Gaming A16 with RTX 5060 sees a $300 saving in today's Walmart deal. The original list price is $1,499.99, which is still pretty good for a 16-inch gaming laptop, but the $300 saving makes it a superb value. So if you're looking at purchasing a gaming laptop on a limited budget, then definitely take a peek at this offer.

• Grab this deal at Walmart

The IPS display on the Gigabyte A16 has a screen resolution of 1080p but uses a taller 16:10 aspect ratio, giving you a little more screen space. The FHD display will still look sharp on a 16-inch panel, plus a speedy 165Hz refresh rate will keep the gaming motion nice and smooth. Powering the laptop is an 8-core, 16-thread AMD Ryzen 7 260 processor, an Nvidia RTX 5060 GPU with 8GB of VRAM, 16 GB of DDR5 RAM, and a 1 TB SSD.

The laptop also packs plenty of connectivity options with both Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth. For video connections to a monitor or television, there's an HDMI 2.1 port and a USB Type-C port that supports DisplayPort 1.4. The Gigabyte A16 is a well-rounded budget gaming laptop offering from a trusted brand, perfect as a portable gaming PC or for taking away to college for the new year.

At just $1,199.99, the Gigabyte Gaming A16 is worth taking a look at. You can boost your game library with the $300 you save on this gaming laptop.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

With World Cup soccer action just around the corner, you may be stoking up EA's FC26 or Sports Interactive's Football Manager 26 on your PC, but do you have a powerful enough graphics card for all the action? Well, the good news is that AMD's top-tier Radeon gaming graphics card is on sale at Amazon. The Gigabyte Gaming OC Radeon RX 9070 XT GPU is only $649. A saving of $90 from its original $739.99 sale price. You can also pick up the same graphics card at the same price in white if you're looking for a GPU for an icy-white build.

● Grab this deal at Amazon

The Gigabyte Gaming OC Radeon RX 9070 XT comes with 64 RDNA 4 compute units, 4096 stream processors, and an out-of-the-box factory overclock. Shipping with an increased boost clock speed of 3,060MHz. The RX 9070 XT is also equipped with 16GB of GDDR6 VRAM on a 256-bit bus, operating at a memory speed of 20 Gbps. Essential memory capacity for playing 1440p gaming at higher settings and not running out of memory for textures and shaders.

In our RX 9070 XT review, we found that this GPU offered a generational improvement over the previous AMD generation of cards and also offers stiff competition to Nvidia's RTX 5070 Ti at a much lower price point.

If you're looking for a stellar 1440p graphics card for gaming with a hefty 16GB of VRAM, then this is the lowest-priced RX 9070 XT GPU model currently available. This particular variant, made by board-partner Gigabyte, launched well above the original touted MSRP, but luckily has been coming down in price. With improvements to drivers and advances in FSR software tech, the RX 9070 XT is a potent alternative to Nvidia's RTX 5070 Ti 16GB GPU, and also, much cheaper.

Some caveats are that the Radeon RX 9070 XT is not as good a performer as Nvidia cards in ray tracing, but for rasterization and pure frame throughput, the playing field is more than level. It's also worth stating the value for the performance ratio. Competitive performance and that all-important 16GB of memory make this card viable for years to come.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

As PC gaming costs continue to rise thanks to the AI crunch, pre-built PCs and gaming laptops continue to be a rare source of solace for gamers who want to upgrade in 2026. Right now at Walmart, you can get an MSI Vector gaming laptop with RTX 5070 Ti GPU for just $1,499.

● Grab this deal at Walmart

Not only is that a $500 discount off the $1,999 list price, but it's also just $200 shy of the price we saw on this laptop during Black Friday last year. Considering RAM has increased in price by 400% since then, and given SSDs aren't much cheaper, that is a relatively excellent deal on a decent gaming laptop.

The highlight of this laptop is the RTX 5070 Ti, which is a potent mobile GPU that should provide very solid gaming performance at the 2,560 x 1,600 resolution this laptop supports. With 5,888 CUDA cores and 12GB of VRAM, that should be ample memory for most titles at this resolution, although it stops short of the 16GB of VRAM available in higher-end models.

The aforementioned display is a 240Hz 16-inch IPS panel, so while it isn't OLED, that'll save you plenty of battery life for when you're gaming without nearby power.

The processor in this laptop is AMD's Ryzen 9 8940HX. This mobile Zen 4 CPU has 16 cores and 32 threads, with base clocks of 2.4 GHz and up to 5.3 GHz boost clock. It also features 80MB total cache.

Other specs include 16GB of DDR5 RAM. 32GB would be ideal, but in this economy, that's a good deal at this price, as is the 1TB SSD. Otherwise, this laptop comes with a stealthy grey gaming aesthetic, and the laptop has a 24-zone RGB keyboard. You'll also get Wi-Fi 7 for great internet, as well as Bluetooth 5.4 for connecting accessories. If you want to save even more money, Walmart is also selling this 15.6-inch Cyborg with RTX 5070 for just $1,378, featuring the same RAM and SSD, Intel Core 7-240H, and Wi-Fi 6E.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

If you want to jump into PC gaming but don't have a massive amount of money in the budget or a lot of room for a full desktop setup, then this compact gaming PC from HP is a great choice. Packing the latest generation of PC hardware in a small form factor, the HP Omen Transcend 14 is just $1099.99 direct from the HP store, in their 72-hour flash sale. The original list price says $2599.99, but that seems a little excessive, and I'd take that with a pinch of salt. But the fact that this gaming laptop is only just over a thousand dollars and still contains some potent hardware and a gorgeous OLED screen makes it a standout deal.

• Grab this deal at HP

The Omen Transcend 14 features a 14-inch, 2880 x 1800 pixel display. Not only that, but the display is an OLED panel with up to a 120Hz refresh rate and a bright, colorful display. The system is powered by an Intel Core Ultra 7 255H 16-core processor and an Nvidia RTX 5060 laptop graphics card, all stuffed into a svelte 3.6-pound white anodized aluminum chassis.

The HP Omen Transcend 14 still incorporates a full-size keyboard, even given its small size. The keyboard features pudding-style keycaps with a 4-zone RGB backlit keyboard and 26-key rollover anti-ghosting key technology. It also features Intel Wi-Fi 7 BE200 (2x2) and Bluetooth 5.4 for wireless connectivity. Plenty of USB ports adorn the sides of the laptop, with 1 USB Type-C Thunderbolt 4 port with 40Gbps speeds, power delivery, and DisplayPort integration.

A competent gaming laptop with a decent graphics card and an acceptable 16GB of precious memory, the lower limit for a gaming machine. The storage at 1TB is large enough for a few AAA games to be installed, and an RTX 5060 with 8GB of VRAM isn't going to set any framerate records, but used in conjunction with DLSS 4, it will let you achieve a very smooth gaming experience. For just $1,099.99, the HP Omen Transcend 14 is a superb pick.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

Not a great time for buying some of our favorite PC components with all the high prices and shortages, but if you're still on the lookout for an all-in-one gaming and work solution, then you might want to consider a gaming laptop over a larger desktop PC. A powerful laptop that you can use for both work and a bit of play, Gigabyte's Aero X16 is now just $1389.99 at Best Buy, down $610 from the $1999.99 list price. This is one of the best prices for an RTX 5070 laptop, even more so, considering the large amount of RAM and 1TB SSD.

• Grab this deal at Best Buy

Inside the Gigabyte Aero X16 in this deal are the following components: an Nvidia RTX 5070 graphics card with 8GB of GDDR7 VRAM, an AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 (8-core, 16-thread) processor, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, and a 1TB SSD for storage. This is a larger laptop that sports a 16-inch IPS screen with a resolution of 2560 x 1600 pixels. That's a sharp image on display that size, plus you also have an up to 165Hz refresh rate for incredibly smooth motion while gaming.

In our review of the Gigabyte Aero X16, we found the laptop to be a well-rounded offering from Gigabyte, with plenty of gaming prowess thanks to the dedicated RTX 5070 graphics card, solid hardware choices, and a competitive price. This laptop is suitable for gaming and daily productivity tasks. During testing, the Aero X16 had an excellent battery life that lasted longer than the average workday, and came top compared to other similar spec laptops that we've had the chance to test.

The Gigabyte Aero X16 is a slimline 16-inch laptop with a slate-gray chassis, large screen, and RGB backlit keyboard for playing in darker environments, or just showing off the gamified aesthetic. There are plenty of USB ports and video ports for easily connecting up extra monitors to either its HDMI 2.1 port, or via the USB Type-C port with DisplayPort 1.4.

With 32GB of precious memory, a 1TB SSD, and an RTX 5070, the $1,389.99 asking price for the Gigabyte Aero X16 is a good price. Comparing it to various other laptops on sale with similar specifications, it's one of the best prices on the market currently.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

A software engineer has shared a video demonstrating their brand-new gamified running app for the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses. Highlights of the app, made by Stijn Spanhove, include a ghost racer to help you to keep pace with your best prior runs, coin pick-ups, sprint zone bonuses, and a mini leaderboard. This is only possible now because Meta recently added display capabilities for devs in the Meta Wearables Device Access Toolkit and the Web Apps pathway.

The embedded video shows several compelling features of the unnamed gamified running app. As you run, you can see the route with you and your ghost racer’s position superimposed on it. There are also status details such as run distance, completed distance, vs ghost distance, coins collected, and even a score in the HUD. We also note that the wearable feeds the display with pace and distance info, with the compass used to keep the map oriented in the forward direction.

Spanhove makes developing this app for the Ray-Ban Display sound like a walk in the park. “I built a web app for the glasses, loaded a previous GPX from Strava, and dropped game mechanics on top,” he summarized. GPX is a standard GPS file format that contains a route’s data and Strava allows users to export any past run as a GPX file. So, Spanhove just took a previous run and exported it for this gamified web app project.

The software engineer also told folks not to worry about having to run with their chunky flagship phone in their pocket. With this web app, processing is light enough to run smoothly directly on the device, assured Spanhove. “Been wearing a lot of AR glasses, these feel ok. Honestly, comfortable to run in,” he surmised.

Meta's Ray-Ban Display glasses

Meta launched its Ray-Ban Display glasses last year, with early adopters being able to get hold of these wearables starting in October. As you may infer from the name, these were built on Meta’s earlier glasses designs by integrating a micro display in the right lens. The new waveguide display meant wearers would be able to enjoy new apps with AR overlays. So, in effect, Meta’s Ray-Bans were upgraded to include a lightweight AR HUD.

On May 15, Meta opened up developer access to the display on the Meta Ray-Ban Display⁠ glasses with two build paths: mobile apps and web apps. This unlock means devs and enthusiasts can unleash their imaginations. Quickly, there were examples of the new AR glasses being used for quirky fun like boxing games, Tetris, Breakout, and even a utility to interact with your car. Our headlining gamified running example may be the most compelling new use for the glasses yet, though.

We reviewed the original Meta Ray-Bans in Feb 2025.

Best Buy is back with yet another absolute banger gaming laptop discount, this time on an OLED Asus model that's nearly $600 off. Right now, you can score this Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 16" 2.5K OLED 240Hz gaming laptop for just $1,574.99, giving you $575 off.

● Grab this deal at Best Buy

The heart of this gaming laptop is Nvidia's GeForce RTX 5070 GPU, replete with 8GB of VRAM for solid gaming performance. That's paired with the flagship Intel Core Ultra 9 285H Arrow Lake, a blistering CPU for both work and play. Also included are 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and a delightful OLED 240 Hz display with a resolution of 2560 x 1600.

There are quite a few headline specs on this build, starting with the aforementioned RTX 5070. Nvidia's mid-range mobile GPU comes with 8GB of GDDR7 VRAM, with support for DLSS 4 and the more recent 4.5 update.

The CPU is Intel's Core Ultra 9 285H, with 16 cores (6P, 8E, and 2 LP) and 16 threads, along with a CPU base clock frequency of 2.5 GHz that can boost to 5.4 gigahertz. This blend of power and efficiency should give you good gaming performance while also preserving battery life on the go.

The display is also an eye-catching 2560 x 1600 OLED with a 240Hz refresh rate and 500 nits of brightness.

The 1TB SSD is plenty for storing games, with the 16GB of RAM enough for multitasking. While 32GB would have been ideal, you'll struggle to find a better laptop at this price thanks to this generous discount.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

If you're in the market for a monster gaming laptop that wil serve you just as well on the go as it will at home, then Best Buy's $1,000 discount on this eye-catching Lenovo Legion Pro 5i might be the deal for you. Right now, you can score this 16-inch laptop, replete with one of Intel's top Arrow Lake mobile processors, 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and Nvidia's RTX 5070 for just $1,749 at Best Buy. That's down from its usual price of $2,749 and even brings you within spitting distance of the savings we saw on this same model last year, pre AI-price crunch.

● Grab this deal at Best Buy

The CPU that powers this laptop is the excellent Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX. This 24-core beast has eight performance cores and 16 efficiency cores, with max boost clocks of up to 5.4GHz. Overall, given the current state of the PC market, this is an excellent gaming laptop at a very enticing price, just $150 more than when we saw it in October last year. While those prices are a thing of the past (and unlikely to return soon), this is one of the best gaming laptop deals we've seen in some time.

While we haven't reviewed this specific model of Lenovo Legion laptop, we have reviewed its big brother, the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10, which features many of the same specs and a few key differences. One of the most impressive aspects of this laptop is the OLED display. You're getting the same 16-inch OLED panel with 2560 x 1600 resolution, which performs very well in testing versus rivals, as you can see from our benchmarks below.

Crucially, the model on sale is "only" 165Hz refresh rate, rather than the 7i's 240Hz. The screen is rated for 500 nits of brightness.

The Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX features in not one but two of our best gaming laptop picks, including the best choice overall, the Razer Blade 18, so you know you're getting a great CPU that can handle productivity and games alike. The RTX 5070 comes with 8GB of GDDR7 VRAM and should make light work of most games at this resolution.

As mentioned, you also get 1TB of SSD storage and 32GB of DDR5 5600 RAM. Connectivity-wise, there's one HDMI 2.1 port, one Thunderbolt 4 port, three USB-A 3.2 ports, and a single USB-C 3.2 port (four total). There's also a headphone jack and a microphone, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi 7, as well as an Ethernet port. Finally, there's a 5MP webcam.

This would make a fantastic gaming companion or a college laptop for a student who can also support a bit of downtime on the sides. As noted, this is a really excellent discount on a great all-around gaming laptop.

The Lenovo Legion Pro 5i can be bought from Best Buy online or collected in store, but you'll want to move fast to secure one at this excellent price.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

Herman Miller is synonymous with high quality and high prices when it comes to office hardware, so any type of saving is a welcome relief for those who want a truly premium gaming chair, office chair, or even a desk. Right now at Herman Miller, there's up to 25% off all three in the brand's Memorial Day sale from now until May 28. Spend enough, and you'll even get free shipping.

• Shop the Herman Miller Memorial Day sale

We've tested a range of Herman Miller gear at Tom's Hardware and have awarded the excellent Embody and Vantum models a spot on our best gaming chairs roster, the latter as our top pick overall.

So whether you're in the market for a gaming chair like the Embody, a more premium office number like the Aeron, or indeed anything else, here are all the main discounts in this weekend's sale.

Herman Miller Gaming Chair Deals

These 25% discounts are pretty decent, but it's worth noting that HM has increased some of its prices since we last saw it hold a sales event in April. The Embody list price has increased by $210, for instance. As such, these discounts broadly bring prices back down to the best we've seen them this year.

Herman Miller Office Chair Deals

Herman Miller Gaming Desk deals

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

Great news for Apple MacBook lovers, as Best Buy has two fantastic Apple MacBook deals going on at the same time during its Memorial Day sales event. You can save a huge $300 off the 13-inch MacBook Air with M4 chip and 24GB of RAM, paying only $1099. Or, you can opt for the very latest 15-inch Apple MacBook Air with the impressive M5 processor for just $1149, saving $150 off the $1299 price. Both laptops are available in Midnight, Silver, Sky Blue, and Starlight colors with no change in price. So you can choose your favorite without having to compromise.

● Grab this MacBook Air 15 (M5) deal at Best Buy
● Grab this MacBook Air 13 (M4) deal at Best Buy

Apple's latest M5 chip, incorporated in this 15-inch MacBook Air, uses a 10-core CPU and a 10-core GPU with incremental gains in speed and performance over the previous M4-generation of MacBook products. This slimline laptop also packs in Apple’s N1 wireless chip for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 connectivity, along with a 15-inch Liquid Retina display, a 12MP center stage camera, and Touch ID.

This MacBook Air M4 on sale is the 13-inch model, a very similar construction to the newer M5 variant, with minor differences in CPU and GPU cores and performance. You also get a substantial increase in memory with the 24GB of onboard unified RAM.

Despite being supplanted by the newer M5 chip, the M4 is no slouch, and Apple silicon continues to offer some of the best bang for your buck in processing when it comes to battery life, efficiency, and performance. In our benchmark testing, we found the M4 to be very competitive with similarly positioned laptops.

This laptop will chew through pretty much any day-to-day task, and thanks to impressive battery life from the M5 and M4 chips, you can use the laptop for longer when on the go.

In a time when tech and computer prices have astronomically risen. It's nice to see some actual price cuts for a change.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

Having recently covered a deal on the HP Omen 45L with an RTX 5090, it's unusual that we would revisit the same product so soon, but thanks to a new discount code and even more RAM (32GB, up from 16GB), that deal just got a lot better. You can now pick up the HP Omen 45L (GT22-3000t 5090) Gaming PC direct from HP for just $3,794.99. Astonishingly, this whole system is now $5 cheaper than the cheapest RTX 5090 graphics card on the market. You will have to manually configure the PC options yourself, as HP's configuration page doesn't store the choices. Then add code PCGLOWUP25 at checkout to receive a $1,265 discount on your order.

● Grab this deal at HP

The configuration of the HP Omen 45L that we are covering in today's deal includes the world's most powerful consumer graphics card, the Nvidia RTX 5090 with 32GB of superfast GDDR7 VRAM. The other hardware components we chose were an Intel Core Ultra 7 265K CPU, an upgrade to 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD for your operating system and games library. You will, by default, need to upgrade the power supply to the 1200W option when choosing the RTX 5090.

The code will work on a variety of configurations, so you can always dial down the GPU if you want to spend a bit less.

In our review of the RTX 5090, we found through our extensive benchmark testing that this GPU was the new dominant king of graphics. Topping the charts across the board, this behemoth of a GPU is the go-to card if you must have the absolute best in your gaming rig. Its large 32GB of VRAM also makes it a viable choice for running local LLM models.

The desktop features the gimmicky cryo chamber built into the case with a 360mm AIO liquid cooler inside, Wi-Fi 6 wireless connectivity, and Bluetooth 5.3. For the front I/O, there are two USB Type-A 5 Gbps ports, two USB 2.0 Type-A ports, and a headphone/microphone combo jack. The rear I/O includes four USB 2.0 Type-A​ ports, a USB Type-C 10 Gbps port, two USB Type-A 5 Gbps ports, ​a USB Type-C 40 Gbps Thunderbolt 4 port, Ethernet, and standard audio ports.

This is a ready-to-go system out of the box, so if you're not comfortable building your own PC, then this is a great option. You wouldn't even be able to build your own PC at this price, as the GPU alone costs more to buy than this entire PC. The cheapest available RTX 5090 GPU on the market as of now costs $3,799.99, so one way of thinking about it is that you're getting a free PC with a purchase of an RTX 5090, plus a $5 rebate. Yes, the prices of parts are still extortionate, but this is the state of things, and they aren't going to change any time soon, unfortunately.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

Get your hands on AMD's flagship Radeon gaming graphics card whilst it's at its lowest-ever price on Amazon. The Gigabyte Gaming OC Radeon RX 9070 XT GPU is only $629 while stocks last in this lightning sale at Amazon. At $29 above the MSRP launch price, but $110.99 below its usual $739.99 sale price, this is an absolute bargain if you're looking for a stellar 1440p gaming graphics card with a comfortable 16GB of essential VRAM. This is the lowest price this Gigabyte-made graphics card has been, according to the price-tracking website Camelcamelcamel.

● Grab this deal at Amazon

The Gigabyte Gaming OC Radeon RX 9070 XT comes with 64 RDNA 4 compute units, 4096 stream processors, and an out-of-the-box factory overclock. Shipping with an increased boost clock speed of 3,060MHz. The RX 9070 XT is also equipped with 16GB of GDDR6 VRAM on a 256-bit bus, operating at a memory speed of 20 Gbps. Essential memory capacity for playing 1440p gaming at higher settings and not running out of memory for textures and shaders.

In our RX 9070 XT review, we found that this GPU offered a generational improvement over the previous generation in the same tier and offers stiff competition to Nvidia's RTX 5070 Ti at a much lower price. See the chart below for a performance comparison.

The Radeon RX 9070 XT may not be as good as the Nvidia competition in pure ray tracing, but for rasterization and pure frame throughput, it's there. Not every game features ray-tracing, and sometimes it just isn't worth taking the performance hit, whatever the make of card, so in that respect, this is a great graphics card, at a currently superb price. But hurry, this Gigabyte Gaming OC Radeon RX 9070 XT deal at $629 isn't going to stick around for long.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

If gaming on a small laptop has always put you off leaving the desktop PC for your gaming, then the gateway laptop for tempting you to switch probably looks like today's deal. The Acer Predator Helios Neo 18 AI is reduced to just $1799 at Walmart and features a huge 18-inch IPS display with a fast 240Hz refresh and 3ms overdrive response time. This model also includes an Intel CPU and RTX 5070 Ti laptop graphics card, so there's plenty of oomph for playing the latest and greatest games. Best of all, the laptop is $400.99 cheaper than it should be.

● Grab this deal at Walmart
● Add 32GB of RAM and 2TB of storage with this deal at Amazon

This model of the Acer Predator Helios Neo 18 AI features an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX processor, Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti laptop GPU with 12GB of fast GDDR7 VRAM, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD. The chassis is a mix of metal and plastic, with an abyssal black finish. There are multiple RGB zones all over the laptop, so you can dial it up to 11 if you want to go for the full gamified lightshow.

Also on sale is the slightly beefier version of the same Acer Predator Helios Neo 18 Ai laptop, available from Amazon for $2399.99. This more potent variant sports double the RAM at 32GB and double the storage at 2TB, but does cost significantly more. The original list price of the 32GB Acer Predator Helios Neo 18 Ai was $2699.99.

We haven't had the opportunity to review this model of the Acer Predator Helios Neo 18 AI, so we can't fully compare the laptop to any competition or see its performance benchmarks. These are familiar components, though, so we do have a rough idea of the capabilities. The RTX 5070 Ti will be able to run games smoothly on the 18-inch 2560x1600 WQXGA+ screen, and can also make use of Nvidia's DLSS software to increase framerates for a smoother experience on more taxing titles.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

Pick up a new gaming PC for a song with this fantastic price on a new RTX 5060 Ti Lenovo gaming rig, which is on a limited-time sales discount at Woot. The Lenovo Legion Tower 5i is only $1149.99 while stocks last, or the sale timer runs out - whichever occurs first. The original list price for this gaming rig is $1559.99, so you're pocketing a substantial $410 saving on today's deal. Full of current PC hardware, the Legion Tower 5i is a good pick for a competent gaming machine, capable of playing the majority of games comfortably at 1080p and 1440p resolutions on medium to high settings.

● Grab this deal at Woot

The hardware components used inside the Lenovo Legion Tower 5i include the aforementioned RTX 5060 Ti from Nvidia, with 8GB of GDDR7 VRAM, an Intel Core Ultra 7 265F processor with 20 cores and 20 threads, a B860 mATX motherboard, 16GB of DDR5 RAM, and a 1TB SSD for your games and operating system. The Intel CPU used in this config might not be the absolute best for gaming, such as an AMD X3D chip, but it's still a very competent CPU for gaming, and has the added bonus of being more effective for multi-threaded applications, perfect if you intend to use this PC for more than just gaming.

The Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti comes in two flavors: an 8GB and a 16GB version. This Legion Tower 5i is using the smaller 8GB variant, and that reduction does have an effect if you're intending to play games at higher resolutions. At 1080p, there shouldn't be any issues, but at 1440p with ultra settings and even 4K, you're going to start running out of precious VRAM very quickly. Below is a comparison chart between the 8GB and 16GB versions in our array of benchmarked gaming tests.

As gaming PCs go, this Lenovo Legion Tower 5i for just $1,149.99 is one to seriously consider, especially if you're looking for a capable rig from a trusted brand for under $1500. Gaming PCs with similar specifications are hard to find near this price point, and with a substantial $410 saving, you can pick up a bunch of games or some new peripherals to go with it.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

Newegg has another awesome combo deal that will help you get the best set of components for your next PC build or upgrade. The tech retailer has you covered with a deal that brings together the AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D with a Gigabyte-made RTX 5070 Ti for just $1,264.99, netting you a $253.99 saving in the process.

● Grab this combo deal at Newegg

These are formidable components for a high-spec machine, but the savings make them an even more appealing option if you're worried about the cost of an upgrade. The 9850X3D, in particular, is one of the most powerful gaming CPUs you can buy, as our AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D review explains. Meanwhile, the RTX 5070 Ti is a top-tier powerhouse that will smash through high frame rate limits at 1440p and 4K.

While the 9950X3D2 is a little bit faster, the CPU benchmark data below will confirm just what a beast the AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D is for gaming. This new Zen 5 CPU knocked the gamers' favorite 9800X3D off its pedestal when it launched earlier this year, placing it just behind the productivity-focused 9950X3D at the top.

All eight of the 9850X3D's cores can take advantage of AMD's 3D V-cache technology, boosting the available L3 cache capacity to 96MB to reduce latency and deliver the best possible gaming performance. It comes with a 4.7 GHz base clock speed, which boosts up to 5.6 GHz, and is fully unlocked, meaning you can overclock this CPU if you've got the build to handle it.

Coupled with the 9850X3D is a Gigabyte Eagle RTX 5070 Ti. One of Nvidia's latest-gen GPUs, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti is a mid to high-tier option for gaming that lets you ditch 1080p for higher resolutions and higher frame rates. It includes 8,960 CUDA cores, along with 16GB of GDDR7 VRAM. The VRAM boost is important here, giving your PC the opportunity to switch to 1440p or even 4K, with games able to run with high and even ultra graphics presets at those resolutions.

One of the advantages of this Nvidia Blackwell GPU is the software, too. While features like multi-frame generation in DLSS 4 can prove controversial, they do provide you with some breathing room to push to higher frame rates in the most resource-heavy games, especially if 4K is your target. This particular Gigabyte-made card comes with three fans and is Nvidia SFF ready, meaning it'll be a good option for a small form factor build.

On its own, that GPU would set you back $1,059.99, while the 9850X3D would cost you $458.99. This $1,264.99 Newegg combo deal means you're saving over $250 on the two combined, dropping the overall cost of this powerhouse AMD X3D CPU to just $205 as a result. We'll be expecting this deal to sell fast, so if you're interested, make sure to grab it before the price goes up.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

Drop everything and pay attention, as this is the best deal on the SanDisk WD Black SN8100. As of late, all we've been seeing is an astonishing increase in prices as AI-madness grips the tech space and gobbles up NAND production. Today, Adorama has a sale on the 1TB WD Black SN8100 with Heatsink for a staggering $209.99, this is the cheapest this PCIe Gen 5 x4 M.2 SSD has ever been. It's not only PCIe Gen 5, but it's also one of the fastest SSD storage drives on the market. This deal is not going to last very long for obvious reasons, so if you want in with a chance of picking up this latest SSD on the cheap, you'd better act fast.

● Grab this deal at Newegg

The WD Black SN8100 is a superfast PCIe Gen 5 x4 NVMe 2.0 drive with some of the fastest read and write speeds available. This 1TB model offers read speeds of 14,900 MB/s and write speeds of 11,000 MB/s with random read/write speeds of 1,600K/2,400K respectively. The drive uses a Silicon Motion SM2508 controller and Kioxia 218-Layer BiCS8 flash memory, delivering a 600TB endurance rating on the 1TB drive. The offer is for the SN8100 with an integrated heatsink, which is a bonus, as these PCIe Gen 5 SSDs can run rather hot, and the heatsink reduces the risk of thermal throttling.

We reviewed the slightly larger 2TB WD Black SN8100, and at the time, it was the fastest solid-state drive ever to grace the Tom's Hardware test bench. It crushed competition from Crucial and Micron in the 3DMark Storage test for latency, bandwidth, and overall score, as you can see from the results below.

Trace testing with PCMark 10's storage benchmark yielded a similar story, with chart-topping scores for bandwidth and latency.

This is a top-tier SSD for a productivity or gaming system. With superfast read and write times, plus an integrated heatsink for keeping cool under load, this is a deal you do not want to miss whilst it is at this low price. Having checked Camelcamelcamel, PC Partpicker, and a few other price tracking sites, we can see this drive hasn't been on sale for less than today's $209.99 sale price from Adorama.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

Today at Newegg, a combo deal close to a complete build, at a great price, that includes many top-tier components for an amazing gaming PC that will give you plenty of gaming action for years to come. Today's deal includes an AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D CPU, Gigabyte Eagle GeForce RTX 5070 Ti GPU, Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro motherboard, MSI MAG Coreliquid A13 240mm AIO CPU cooler, Samsung 2TB 9100 Pro SSD, and 32GB of Corsair Vengeance RGB RAM; all for just $2074.99. The original list price for all of these parts is $2843.94, but with today's combo offer, you're first saving $758.95, and then a further $10 via a rebate. You only need a Case and a PSU to complete the PC build.

● Grab this deal at Newegg

Included in the Newegg bundle is the fantastic AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D processor, an absolute beast when it comes to pure gaming prowess, thanks to its huge 3D V-Cache. The 8-core, 16-thread processor has a base clock of 4.7 GHz and a max boost of 5.6 GHz, and outperforms almost every other CPU at 1080p resolutions. Paired with this RTX 5070 Ti, you'll be getting high framerates in whatever games you choose to play.

The Gigabyte RTX 5070 Ti is a high-end graphics card that's very capable at 1080p and 1440p gaming, and steps into 4K gaming as well. In our review of the RTX 5070 Ti, we found the 16GB GPU to be a great performer for the price (if you could get it at a sensible price). With DLSS help, the 5070 Ti can use multi-frame generation to increase its 4K capability even further.

A large 32GB of Corsair Vengeance RGB DDR5-6400 RAM is more than enough for a gaming PC, and this Corsair Vengeance kit is a well-known and recognised brand. It has a CAS latency of CL36 and timings of 48-48-104. A perfect complement to AMD's 9850X3D CPU, thanks to its 6400 MT/s speeds.

Next, we have a Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro AM5 motherboard. Not only is this one a good-looking motherboard, perfect for an all-black stealthy build aesthetic, but it's also packed with the latest features. A 16+2+2, power design with 80A smart power stages, PCIe 5.0, four M.2 slots, USB4, USB-C, Wi-Fi 7, and 2.5GbE LAN.

One of the components to get severly impacted by the component shortage and high pricing is Samsung's 2TB 9100 Pro SSD. It is one of the fastest PCIe 5.0 SSDs on the market, with blistering read/write speeds of 14,700/13,400 MB/s, respectively, and random read/writes of 1,850K/2,600K, with a 1,200 TBW endurance rating. 2TB of capacity is a very good start for a gaming PC, with plenty of space for the operating system and a good selection of games.

Also, included in the Newegg combo is MSI's MAG Coreliquid A13 240mm liquid AIO CPU cooler, a twin-fan cooler with a minimalist design and some ARGB lighting. Small enough to fit in the majority of PC cases in any orientation.

Overall, this is a stellar PC parts bundle, and at a good price. Everything is compatible and ready to go, with just a case and PSU needed to complete the entire build. By making use of combos like this, you can negate some of the price increases on the more expensive components like the SSD and RAM.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

This latest Newegg PC hardware combo deal is one of the best we've seen all year, saving you a fortune on building a brand new AM5 gaming PC with one of AMD's fastest and newest gaming CPUs, while also scoring critical SSD and RAM that doesn't break the bank. Right now at Newegg, you can score an AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D, a Gigabyte X870E motherboard, a 240mm liquid cooler, a 2TB Samsung 9100 Pro SSD, and 32GB of Corsair DDR5 6400 RAM for just $1,215.

● Grab this deal at Newegg

That's a total saving of $558 on all of these parts combined, but of course, RAM and SSD prices are inflated, so just how good is this deal really? If you subtract the $458 CPU, $309 motherboard, and $85 CPU cooler from this bundle, you're left paying just $363 for the 2TB SSD and 32GB of RAM. That's less than the list price of both the SSD and RAM alone, both of which are priced at $459 and $469, respectively. The going rate of 32GB of DDR5 RAM is currently $360, and you'll also struggle to find a 2TB SSD for much less. While not quite pre-AI crunch pricing, $363 for both is pretty astonishing.

The headline of this build is AMD's potent Ryzen 7 9850X3D CPU. As you can see from our latest benchmarks, it is one of the fastest gaming CPUs on the market, beaten only by the decidedly more expensive 9950X3D. With 8 cores and 16 threads, 5.6GHz max boost clock, and AMD's leading 3D V-cache technology, this will chew through any game on the market. Paired with the right GPU, it's going to unlock 4K performance across pretty much any title.

The X870 Aorus Pro from Gigabyte comes with everything you'd need in an AM5 motherboard, with support for up to four DDR5 DIMMs, 16+2+2 power staging, Wi-Fi 7, a plethora of USB-C and A ports, and, of course, PCI 5.0 support for that Samsung SSD, so you can unlock all the power and speed of the Gen 5 storage. The Aorus also has some DIY-friendly add-ons, such as EZ-Latch tech for the M.2 and PCIe slots, making building your rig that little bit easier.

The CPU is kept cool by an MSI Mag Coreliquid A13 240mm, which will keep your temperatures under control and even unlock some overclocking headroom should you wish to push the boat out on the 9850X3D.

Samsung's 9100 Pro 2TB SSD boasts eye-watering read speeds of up to 14,800 MB/s, making it one of the fastest SSDs on the market today. 2TB of storage should be plenty for a library of big titles, and hopefully you won't need to upgrade your storage for a little while, giving time for prices to settle down a bit.

RAM comes in the form of 32GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR5-6400, a household name when it comes to memory. With 36-48-48-104 timings and RGB lighting, this is plenty for gaming and makes this bundle an absolute steal. If you want to save even more, this bundle comes with V-Color Manta XSky DDR5 RAM. The specs are identical, as are the other components, but the price is ever so slightly lower, offering the same bundle for just $1,194.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

With the prices of memory and storage at record highs, the amount of laptop you get for the money has shrunk significantly. We've used our knowledge and experience, informed by our extensive testing and benchmarking program, to find the best available gaming and productivity laptops on sale for under $1,000 to help you find the right laptop for you. We're updating this page constantly with the best deals available, but be aware that these deals often expire quickly, so you'll need to act fast.

A giant desktop gaming PC isn't for everyone! Price, space, and portability are negatives of a giant desktop gaming rig. These are things a compact and powerful gaming or productivity laptop can help to solve, especially if you can get your hands on one for under $1,000. There are, of course, obvious compromises that you'll need to make if you're going to try to find a budget machine. Things like dedicated graphics, the amount of onboard RAM, storage space, and even the size and quality of the screen and chassis.

Apple has jumped to the rescue with the likes of the MacBook Neo, but Windows users haven't been as lucky as of late. For gaming laptops, you're going to be looking at the lower end of GPUs from Nvidia's RTX 5050 and even graphics chips from older generations. The same goes for the processors used. Expect to see previous-gen CPUs in lower-priced laptops that are available for under $1,000.

Best Gaming and Productivity Laptops Under $1,000: Quick Links

• Amazon: Top gaming laptops under $1,000 at Amazon
• Amazon: The best productivity laptops under $1,000
• Dell: Our favorite Dell laptop deals
• HP: Amazing HP laptop discounts
• Lenovo: Deals on Lenovo laptops

Best Gaming and Productivity Laptops Under $1,000

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The DIY landscape for building your own PC is particularly grim at the moment. Outside of decent combo deals or the evermore rare individual discount, it's getting harder to source components and afford to build your own machine in 2026. With prices of components skyrocketing so much, it can be scary to think about constructing your own PC and perhaps making a mistake or breaking something. Enter the prebuilt PC; usually way more expensive than building your own, but not anymore. Now, you can find plenty of prebuilts that are in fact cheaper than trying to build your own, much like this iBuypower Element 9 gaming PC - available at Newegg for just $1599.99. Featuring some excellent component choices from the Ryzen 7 7800X3D gaming CPU, to the RTX 5060 Ti with 16GB of VRAM, whilst also saving you $500.

● Grab this deal at Newegg

Inside the iBuypower Element 9 gaming desktop PC is a 16GB RTX 5060 Ti graphics card, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, 1TB M.2 SSD, and an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D processor. The 7800X3D CPU, although last generation, was the fastest pure gaming CPU on the planet for a time, and is still very competitive versus the 9800X3D, so you're getting a superb CPU for gaming in this prebuilt PC.

The other main highlight of this build is the inclusion of an RTX 5060 Ti 16GB graphics card; our testing and benchmarking results placed it in the middle of the pack in our GPU charts. This is a much better card than the charts let on, when you consider its price-to-performance ratio and its large 16GB of GDDR7 VRAM, letting it handle the latest games at 1440p, with plenty of memory for textures and shaders.

For the $1599.99 price tag, you're getting a competent gaming PC that won't struggle with modern games at all. For 1080p and 1440p gaming, this machine will shine. Plus, it's ready to go straight out of the box, and includes a gaming keyboard and mouse - just in case you don't already have the peripherals.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

Gaming laptops can be pricey, and in the past few years, they have only gotten more expensive. The components inside laptops have gotten more expensive, the market below $1,000 has effectively been decimated, and finding a good deal is harder than ever. But we're still testing, and while the goal posts of what defines a budget gaming laptop may be a bit more expensive than they used to be, there are still ways to save.

At Tom's Hardware, we test many gaming laptops every year at a range of prices with different features and parts, so we know what to expect at every price point, no matter what your budget. While even the budget gaming laptops may not be cheap, we can still point out where you get the most for your money. We thoroughly benchmark all of the best budget gaming laptops in numerous games, extensively measuring gaming performance under a wide range of graphical conditions to suss out the best cheap laptops on the market.

Most gaming laptops under $1,500 will use Nvidia's GeForce RTX 5050 and RTX 5060 graphics cards. Many of them will use the latest Intel Core Ultra or AMD Ryzen mobile processors, though sometimes you'll still find last-gen options. Above $1,500 (which, unfortunately, is still on the low end with all-new components these days), you should have the latest. That being said, don't cut corners so far that you settle for 8GB of RAM or just 256GB of storage. Those are outdated specs for gaming laptops.

With a budget gaming laptop, you'll be able to play most games — even graphically intensive ones — on medium or high settings, if not better. If you're playing lighter games, like esports, you should still be able to achieve high frame rates.

Best Budget Gaming Laptops You Can Buy

Best budget gaming laptop overall

The Acer Nitro V 16S AI is, as of this writing, typically selling around $1,500. This laptop is great for those who are willing to trade off some gaming performance for a bright and colorful screen and a ton of ports, including a microSD card slot.

Those ports, paired with a speedy storage drive in our tests, make the Nivro V 16S AI a solid productivity machine alongside one that can play most games. Acer is using an RTX 5060 with an 85W graphics card, so it's not the most performant system out there, but it's well-balanced if you're going to use just one laptop for gaming, work, or school.

The 16-inch, 1920 x 1200 IPS screen goes up to 180 Hz, allowing for smooth gameplay for esports and indie games. Our system came with a 1TB storage drive, which should hold a few games, and there's room to add another inside. It also came with 32GB of RAM, which should be a bit future-proof.

There is a bunch of bloatware that you'll probably want to uninstall, and the webcam is just 720p.

Read: Acer Nitro V 16S AI review

Best budget gaming laptop for work and play

We had previously seen this laptop as high as $1,800, but lately it's been on sale closer to $1,500. The machine is another good mix of productivity and gaming. Like many other budget systems, it's using an 85W GPU (in this case, an RTX 5070), which means you won't get the most powerful gaming performance.What it does allow for, however, is strong battery life, lasting 9 hours and 13 minutes on our test. We also found the keyboard and touchpad to be quite comfortable.

The Ryzen AI 7 350 is a recent chip, and one that offers strong productivity performance, should you be using this system for work other than just gaming.It would have been nice to see Wi-Fi 7 at this system's full price, though on sale, Wi-Fi 6E is more forgivable. That being said, the display and audio are both middling, so this may be best if you use a monitor or speakers to bump up your experience.

Read: Gigabyte Aero X16 review

Best for battery life

If you want something a bit more minimalist, the Alienware 16 Aurora, the gaming brand's stripped-down machine, may work for you. This one has been consistently available.

The Aurora has an attractive chassis that mixes its plastic body with an alumium lid. The indigo color seems almost black, but has a navy shimmer in the right light.

The biggest benefits we saw were in the 16-inch, 2560 x 1600 IPS display, which goes up to 120 Hz. That screen was brighter and far more vivid (112% of sRGB color volume, 312.2 nits) in our measurements compared to other budget machines.

We also appreciated the Aurora's 96 WHr battery, which helped the system last for 9 hours and 41 minutes on our battery test.

The 80W RTX 5060 is fairly low-power, which might help with the longevity, but means you'l have to set your expectations while gaming. Additionally, the storage could be faster, though you could consider swapping that out down the line.

Read: Alienware 16 Aurora review

Quick Shopping Tips

What to Expect From the Best Budget Laptops for Gaming

Prices of individual PC hardware components are all over the place at the current time. RAM kits can easily surpass $1000 for configurations larger than 64GB, and speedy M.2 SSDs have gone from under $100 to almost $300 for even lower-capacity 1TB Gen 4 models. It's getting harder to source components and afford to build your own machine in 2026, making prebuilt PCs look like a much better bargain than building one yourself. Keeping an eye out for good value prebuilt PC builds, we happened upon this ABS Flux II Aqua with an RTX 5060 Ti (16GB) graphics card for just $1424.99, thanks to a combination of a $500 discount and a further $75 (5%) saving when you use code ABS5MAY at checkout, for a total of $575 off the original $1999.99 list price.

● Grab this deal at Newegg

So what's inside this SKU of the ABS Flux II Aqua? Well, the star of the show is the 16GB Asus Dual OC RTX 5060 Ti graphics card ($557), 32GB of Kingston Fury DDR5-6400 RAM ($445), 1TB Kingston SNV3S PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 SSD ($165), and Intel Core i7-14700F processor ($329). Just these parts alone add up to more than the cost of the entire PC if you were to buy the components individually at today's prices, and you would still need to source the case, motherboard, PSU, cooler, OS, and any other little extras.

When we reviewed the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB graphics card, our testing and benchmarking results placed it in the middle of the pack in our GPU charts for the relative competition. However, the price-to-performance ratio makes this a much better card than it looks in just the charts alone. A large 16GB of VRAM means it can more than handle the latest games at 1440p, with plenty of memory for the textures and shaders.

This is a great prebuilt gaming PC deal when you consider the overall cost for the individual parts. Yes, the Intel Core i7-14700F is a last-gen processor, but it's still a very competent CPU for gaming, and it's not going to be a bottleneck for the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB GPU. Plus, you get a warranty for the PC if something should go wrong, and you don't have the hassle of trying to troubleshoot each individual part yourself.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

Google will leverage data from one of the most complex and multi-layered sci-fi MMORPGs to train its AI. With a quarter million monthly active users, Eve Online's deep living simulation of economics and politics, with strategic aspects involving exploration and combat, presents the opportunity to expand the capabilities and horizons of AI. Google DeepMind is now primed to learn from interactions in this expansive game world after acquiring a minority stake in the newly independent Fenris Creations, reports Bloomberg.

Readers are likely more familiar with Eve Online being stewarded by CCP Games. Fenris Creations was recently formed when the developers sought to buy back the Eve Online game rights from Korean game-maker Pearl Abyss. The new Icelandic company paid $120M in cash and crypto to set up. While that may sound like a huge sum, Pearl Abyss spent more than double that amount to acquire the game maker back in 2018.

It is important to understand why Google DeepMind would part with "millions" to secure a minority stake in Fenris Creations. Thankfully, Bloomberg has spoken to executives from both firms to more clearly assess how the deal benefits both parties.

A DeepMind director quoted by the source indicates that success in Eve Online relies on skills that are far from mastered by current-generation AIs. This MMORPG is (in)famous for some of its players succeeding using tactics ranging from politics to deceit to outright scams. Eve Online is also lauded for the long-term planning and continual learning involved in success.

DeepMind has previously dabbled with gaming, and among all the big names of AI, it seems like it is the most interested in tapping into this rich vein for training.

From the perspective of Fenris, the deal looks pretty irresistible too, earning millions from a partner with deep pockets and what seems to be a hands-off stance. The Fenris CEO is quoted as previously joking that Eve Online would be “the final boss for AI in games.” He went on to ponder that Eve Online gameplay shines a light on society and the human condition. We are also getting hints that AIs learning from Eve Online could learn something about humans pushed to extremes…

It is stated by Fenris that DeepMind’s initial research will look at player behavior on isolated servers, having no impact on the live game. Moreover, there may be benefits from this research outside of AI training to improve the game, or even inspire new experiences, according to the Fenris CEO.

Fenris is beginning to start work on the successor to Eve Online, dubbed Eve Frontier, as well as an extraction adventure shooter dubbed Eve Vanguard (see video above). So we’re sure the extra cash injection will be very useful.

Eve Online is 23 years old in 2026, but it still attracts a devoted following with between 200,000 and 300,000 monthly active users. Q4 2025 was the game’s second most lucrative ever, with November being notable for breaking records.

Are you looking for a shiny new gaming mouse and want something a little larger, but still ergonomic and comfortable for long gaming sessions? Then check out today's deal on this fantastic Razer peripheral. Woot is offering a 15% discount on a brand new Razer Basilisk V3 Pro wireless gaming mouse, now costing only $84.99. Not to be confused with the original Razer Basilisk, Basilisk V3 X HyperSpeed, Basilisk V3 35K, Basilisk V3 Pro 35K (yes, there are that many variations), the Razer Basilisk V3 Pro in this deal is still available directly from Razer for $159.99 and Amazon for $99, making this deal a real winner.

● Grab this deal at Woot

The Razer Basilisk V3 pro comes with 11 programmable buttons, a dual-mode tilt wheel that can switch between tactile and free-spin scrolling, and a right-handed ergonomic design that’s pretty comfortable despite being relatively large. Inside the mouse is Razer's Focus Pro 30K optical sensor, which has a maximum sensitivity of 30,000 DPI, a maximum speed of 750 IPS, and can handle up to 70 G’s of acceleration.

For the main left and right mouse buttons, the Basilisk uses Razer's Gen 3 optical switches. On the left side of the mouse, there are two thumb buttons and a raised sniper button - useful for those twitchy FPS titles like CS:GO, and Battlefield 6.

On the underside of the Basilisk V3 Pro are moderately-sized pure PTFE skates and a round, removable puck that can be swapped out for Razer’s Wireless Charging Puck (sold separately) or for storing the mouse’s 2.4GHz wireless dongle.

The battery life on the Basilisk V3 Pro wireless is pretty good, with 150 hours on Bluetooth and up to 110 hours using the 2.4GHz wireless dongle with 1000Hz polling. You can also purchase a separate magnetic Razer Mouse Dock Pro with wireless puck later on down the line, if you don't want to charge the Basilisk V3 Pro via the included cable. Also, the Mouse Dock Pro lets you reach wireless polling rates of up to 4,000 Hz if you connect through it. But that's, of course, separate to this deal as it only includes the Razer Basilisk V3 Pro mouse, a USB-A to USB-C braided cable, a USB extender, and a 2.4GHz wireless dongle.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

A great day for making a nice saving on another Newegg combo bundle. This time it's a pairing of the current fastest processor for pure gaming - the Ryzen 7 9850X3D, with an Asus Prime GeForce RTX 5070 graphics card, and a Rosewill VMG 850W Gold-rated power supply for just $940.99. This fantastic deal saves you $293.98 off the $1,234.97 total for the components if you were to buy them individually. This bundle includes the core hardware components of any new PC build. This combination of hardware is a good start for a high-spec gaming machine that can excel at 1080p/1440p gaming. You also get a free copy of Capcom's latest game, Pragmata, with the purchase of an Nvidia GPU.

● Grab this deal at Newegg

The RTX 5070 is a competent mid-tier GPU that's good for 1080p and 1440p gaming. With 12GB of GDDR7 VRAM on a 192-bit memory bus and 6144 CUDA cores, the RTX 5070 is designed to handle gaming and ray-tracing needs. As a 50-series GPU, it's also fully compatible with the latest versions of Nvidia's DLSS software, and can make use of multi-frame generation technology to help boost framerates in more demanding game titles, to help smooth out gameplay.

Rosewill's VMG 850W 80+ Gold power supply is fully ATX 3.0 & 3.1 compatible with fully modular cable connections. Only connect the cables you need for less clutter in your PC case. The PSU features a low-noise design, with a quiet 120mm FDB Silent fan. There is a dedicated PCIe 5.1 12V-2x6 power connector for the latest graphics cards, and the Rosewill PSU comes with a 5-year warranty for peace of mind.

AMD's Ryzen 7 9850X3D processor is the current fastest processor for pure gaming. In our testing, the 9850X3D topped the charts thanks to its huge 3D V-Cache and slight clock boost over the 9800X3D. The 8-core, 16-thread processor has a base clock of 4.7 GHz and a max boost of 5.6 GHz, and shines at 1080p resolutions. Paired with this RTX 5070, it has no bottlenecks.

This a great deal if you're in the market for CPU and GPU combo. The cost of the GPU and CPU alone is $1,144.98, so it's easy to see the savings. With a decent 850W power supply worth $89.99, and a free $59.99 game, the combo looks even sweeter.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

Recent Steam surveys suggest most gamers are sticking to 1080p displays, but upgrading your monitor can still have the biggest impact to your setup, especially if you're making the change from an LCD to an OLED. Luckily, this Samsung Odyssey gaming monitor deal at Woot knocks $349 off the price of the G60SF model to make it just $649.99, giving you one of the best ways to upgrade your gaming display without paying $1,000 or more for the privilege.

● Grab this Samsung monitor deal at Woot

Gaming is all about the visual impact, after all, and OLED displays like this one are known for delivering the deepest blacks and most stunning contrast levels, especially compared to their cheaper LCD rivals. Our G60SF review makes clear what a gem this display is, scoring it 4.5 stars, with the description "as close to perfect as a gaming monitor can get." High praise, indeed.

This is a flagship panel with pro gaming in mind. This monitor, which only launched last year, was the first QD-OLED panel to come with a 500Hz refresh rate. For gaming, that means that the G60SF can keep up with your GPU's output, even if you're hitting frame rates as unbelievably high as 500fps. Meanwhile, Nvidia G-Sync and AMD FreeSync support will sync the panel up to your GPU to ensure absolutely no screen tears or stutters. Combine this with a high-end GPU like the RTX 5090, and you won't be struggling here.

The Samsung Odyssey G60SF offers a max screen resolution of 2,560 x 1,440 across a 27-inch panel size. There's an advantage to this size at 1440p, because you're getting a higher pixel-per-inch count compared to a bigger 1440p display, ensuring sharper image clarity as you're playing games.

The S27FG60 uses a Quantum Dot panel, meaning it can cover more than 100% of the DCI-P3 color gamut. Our review found color accuracy "almost perfect" out of the box, with HDR10+ support offered for those who enjoy more vibrant colors in-game and while watching movies. It comes with a DisplayPort 1.4 and two HDMI 2.1 connections, along with a 3.5mm aux connection for a headphone, as well as three USB 3.2 ports. It also has an LED light built in.

This is a high-end, top-spec monitor with a build quality that few can match. Impeccable image quality, very low input lag, and a headline-grabbing refresh rate make this Samsung display a must-buy, but a $349 discount makes it all the sweeter. The $649.99 sale price for this Samsung Odyssey G60SF gaming monitor won't be around for long, however, as this Woot sale is expected to end soon. If you want the best, you'd best be quick.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

For just a snip over a $1000, you can land a fully prebuilt gaming PC with an RTX 5060 Ti 16GB graphics card. This is an excellent price for a ready-to-go gaming PC, and thanks to some stackable discount codes, you can make a tidy saving. The Shadow 4 gaming PC from Skytech Gaming is just $1063.99 when you apply discount codes MAY100 (-$100) and SWARM (-$36) at checkout. The Shadow 4 list price is $1399.99, but with an initial discount of $200 to $1199.99, and then the added price reduction from the coupon codes, we come to the final $1063.99 price.

● Grab this deal at Skytech Gaming

Inside the Shadow 4 is what counts, and it has the components for quite the budget performer. For the CPU, we have an Intel i5 14400F processor, a 10-core, 16-thread CPU with a mix of six performance cores, which are best for gaming performance, along with four efficient cores. The 14400F is an older CPU now, but it still performs well for gaming. For the graphics, we have an Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti GPU with 16GB of VRAM. This is the better of the two RTX 5060 Ti GPUs, thanks to having double the memory capacity: a much-needed resource for modern games. The cheapest price of this graphics card alone is $514 right now, which gives you an idea of how good a deal this system is.

The rest of the components include 16GB of DDR5-6000 RAM, a 1TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD, a B760 motherboard, and a 650W Gold-rated power supply. These parts are all wrapped up in a compact mid-tower case with a glass side panel and mesh front panel. The case includes 4 fans, three at the front, and a single exhaust fan at the rear.

This is a great-value prebuilt gaming PC for $1,063, and if you're looking to upgrade on a budget, you would struggle to build a gaming rig with these specs yourself for less money. With the GPU costing around $514, the RAM at $217, and the CPU at $188, you're at around $919 before you even think about the cost of a motherboard, SSD, cooler, PSU, and case. Plus, this PC comes with a one-year warranty and a preinstalled copy of the Windows 11 operating system. It's a pretty good deal, so jump on it while the coupon codes are still valid.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

One of the biggest Newegg combo deals I've witnessed so far in 2026, today's bundle includes every component you would need for a complete PC build (minus a cooler). It's not just a standard rig either, as some of the components in the bundle are top-tier gaming hardware that will make this an absolute gaming beast of a machine, able to chew through games and deliver high framerates at even higher resolutions. Saving a massive $1385.95 of of the original $4235.93 list price for this list of hardware components, you can pick up a powerful Nvidia RTX 5080 graphics card from MSI, an AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D CPU, 64GB of Corsair Vengeance RGB DDR5-6400 RAM, ASRock X870E Nova WiFi motherboard, 2TB Samsung 9100 PRO SSD, Corsair 3500X RS-R ARGB Mid-Tower PC Case, ASRock Pro Series Pro-850B 850W ATX 3.1 power supply, all for just $2849.98. Oh, and there's also a copy of Capcom's latest smash hit game, Pragmata (worth $59.99), included with the purchase of the graphics card in this bundle.

● Grab this deal at Newegg

This is an outstanding deal, when you consider that even the cheapest available RTX 5080 GPU is priced at $1289.99, and you're also getting the current fastest CPU for gaming, in the form of the 9850X3D, and a large 64GB of DDR5 RAM. With the explosion in pricing of RAM and SSDs in the current market, you're slicing off hundreds of dollars in this combo bundle as you're picking up the RAM and potent PCIe Gen 5 9100 Pro SSD from Samsung for a relative $600.

The RTX 5080 is the second most powerful current-generation graphics card available to buy right now. Only topped by its big brother, the RTX 5090. Last generation's flagship RTX 4090 also pulls ahead in performance, but doesn't reap the benefits of full compatibility with the latest Nvidia DLSS features and MFG performance. See our review of the RTX 5080 graphics card for more benchmarking results and performance stats.

MSI's Gaming Trio OC RTX 5080 comes with 16GB of superfast GDDR7 VRAM running on a 256-Bit memory bus. It features 10752 CUDA cores, supports PCIe 5.0, and has 1 x HDMI 2.1b, and 3 x DisplayPort 2.1a ports for video output.

The second most expensive part of our bundle is, of course, the RAM. It's priced well over a thousand dollars at $1225.99, a terrible price for 64GB of RAM compared to this time last year. This large 64GB of Corsair Vengeance RGB DDR5-6400 RAM has a CAS latency of CL32 and timings of 40-40-84. A perfect complement to AMD's 9850X3D CPU, thanks to its 6400 MT/s speeds.

AMD's Ryzen 7 9850X3D processor is an absolute beast when it comes to pure gaming prowess, thanks to its huge 3D V-Cache. The 8-core, 16-thread processor has a base clock of 4.7 GHz and a max boost of 5.6 GHz, and outperforms almost every other CPU at 1080p resolutions. Paired with this RTX 5080, it has no bottlenecks.

ASRock's X870-E Nova WiFi motherboard comes with all the bells and whistles, including a 20+2+1 phase power design, with 110A SPS for VCore+SOC1. Five M.2 slots, one of which is PCIe Gen5x4, three PCIe Gen4x4, and a PCIe Gen3x2 slot. There's also 5Gb LAN, and WiFi 7 for speedy network connectivity.

Corsair’s 3500X RS-R ARGB mid-tower PC case is an attractive mid-tower ATX case with tinted tempered glass panels, letting you see into the case, but also diffusing any RGB lighting you may want to place inside. The case comes with 3 x pre-installed Corsair RS120-R ARGB fans with space to install up to 10 x 120mm fans total. Extra features include a GPU anti-sag bracket and compatibility with the most recent reverse-connector motherboards.

Samsung's 2TB 9100 Pro SSD is one of the fastest PCIe 5.0 SSDs on the market, with blistering read/write speeds of 14,700/13,400 MB/s, respectively, and random read/writes of 1,850K/2,600K, with a 1,200 TBW endurance rating. 2TB of capacity is a very good start for a gaming PC, with plenty of space for the operating system and a good selection of games.

Finally, we have the ASRock Pro 850-B power supply. It's an 850W 80+ Bronze-certified PSU with full ATX 3.1 support. It has the power to support the RTX 5080, but it is also the weakest point in this bundle. It lacks modular cables and isn't particularly efficient. I would swap this out for a better power supply if I'm spending this much on the rest of the top-spec components. Otherwise, all you'll need to add to this build is a CPU cooler of your choice, as the AMD CPU doesn't include one, according to the listing.

Overall, this is an amazing deal and is sure to sell out very quickly, due to how much money you can save here. Hop on it quickly if you don't want to miss out.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

A PC gaming enthusiast and tinkerer has shared a video demo of the new DS5Dongle. As its name suggests, this is a Windows PC dongle for users of the Sony DualSense controller. Its raison d'être is that it allows users of Sony’s well-regarded controller to enjoy wireless connectivity without the lack of adaptive triggers and haptic feedback that this connectivity choice on Windows PCs previously entailed. We would also give bonus points for the low cost (<$20) and purported low latency of this generously MIT-licensed dongle design.

PSA: Since Sony won't make a PC dongle for the DualSense, you can build your own for less than $20 using a Raspberry Pi Pico 2W. Wireless Adaptive Triggers and Haptic Feedback finally work natively. from r/pcmasterrace

The brains behind this project are provided by a developer known as awalol on GitHub, linked above. However, the video and Reddit announcement from SlaveKnightSoman neatly encapsulate the experience of using a DS5Dongle. The Redditor explains that they were attracted to this GitHub project as they had “spent way too much time trying to get the ‘PS5 Experience’ on PC without being tethered by a 3-meter cable.”

There are some technical reasons behind the reduced DualSense features on Windows PCs using wireless connectivity. Windows Bluetooth can’t handle the full non-standard use of Bluetooth bandwidth that Sony leverages to make its controllers work so well on the PS5. In contrast, the full gamut of controller features is available if Windows users use a wired version.

This is where the new DS5Dongle comes in, and it is also succinctly described as a “Pico2W DualSense 5 Bridge” by the developer. In brief, the dongle pairs with the DualSense over Bluetooth, receives the full gamut of haptic, trigger, audio, and other controller data, then exposes itself to its Windows host as a wired DualSense, and neither side is the wiser.

As what might be described as a ‘handshake spoof’ rather than some kind of emulation or translation layer, the latency should stay low. The experience of Redditor SlaveKnightSoman goes a long way to confirming that important factor, and they assert that “I didn't feel any difference to wired. But I only play single player games.” See the Reddit embedded Days Gone gaming footage to help judge for yourself.

DS5Dongle plans, details, and other useful resources are available via GitHub, so you can make your own. SlaveKnightSoman says they built one for under $20, including the cost of the Raspberry Pi Pico 2W, central to the dongle’s functionality. That could be worth it if you feel that the DualSense is one of the best controllers out there.

If you're in the market for a brilliant ultra-wide monitor from one of the best brands in the business, the exceptional Alienware AW3425DW WQHD QD-OLED has just dropped back to the all-time low price we saw over Black Friday. Right now, you can score one on Amazon for just $649, $150 off the list price of $749, and $100 less than you'll find it on Dell's website, too.

● Grab this deal at Amazon

Like its forebear, which we also loved, the Alienware AW3425DW is a 34-inch ultra-wide monitor with an aspect ratio of 21:9 and a resolution of 3440 x 1440. The panel is a 1800R curved QD-OLED, boasting 0.03 ms response time and 99.3% DCI-P3 color coverage.

However, it also offered some meaty upgrades over the old version, notably a 240Hz refresh rate, rather than 165 Hz, along with HDMI 2.1, and DisplayPort 1.4.

There's a reason we gave this fantastic monitor a Tom's Hardware Editor's Choice award and a 4.5-star rating. We were blown away by the bright and sharp images, as well as by the remarkable out-of-the-box color accuracy. Screen uniformity testing, as shown below, revealed the best-ever score in this field at just 1.78%.

The HDR performance was also impressive, with vivid color and bright highlights, and overall, we said the color performance was "near-perfect."

This is one of the best monitors out there in this category, and comes with a host of features. You'll get one DisplayPort 1.4 connection, two HDMI 2.1 slots, USB 3.0 (both Type A and Type C), and a three-year warranty. As mentioned, we haven't seen a price this good on this particular monitor since late last year, when it fell to the same price during the Black Friday sales.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

A Redditor shared their prototype for a true single-handed controller combining the function of a mouse and keyboard in one device. u/Adventurous_Tie_9031, who also called themselves Joe, initially shared their design about a month ago, which they built after losing their right arm in an accident. They discovered that it’s difficult to continue playing games with just a single hand — whether using a mouse and keyboard combo or a traditional controller. Because of this, they decided to take matters into their own hand and created the ERCHAM MK1.

The one-handed gaming controller I designed after losing my right arm just made Top 5 from r/pcmasterrace

The prototype controller is heavily influenced by the Razer Tartarus but is way more than just a single-handed keyboard. It features an optical sensor to function as a mouse, but its keys have been replaced by a fully programmable 28-key keypad, allowing you to assign specific functions to each key. There also appear to be joysticks or thumb-controlled D-pads plus clickable scroll wheels on either side of the controller, allowing for left- and right-handed use without needing any modifications.

This project is a great way to let more people play games and accomplish work comfortably on their computers. Gaming PCs and consoles often require two-handed use, so anyone who has reduced functionality or lost the use of one hand would definitely be disadvantaged. But by combining the keyboard and mouse into a single seamless device, it could allow them to discover or return to gaming. Joe said that the ERCHAM MK1 is specifically created for “amputees, nerve injuries, RSI, stroke survivors, and anyone who struggles with a traditional keyboard and mouse setup.”

Many Redditors showed interest in the project, with the creator saying that their original post reached more than a million views. According to their latest Reddit update, that interest allowed them to hit to reach the fourth place of the Entrepreneur of Impact competition. Should they win the top prize, Joe plans to use the proceeds to “accelerate development and get this project moving faster toward production,” although they also said that they’ll push forward with manufacturing it either way.

Building a gaming peripheral such as this from scratch is already a challenge, but setting up a company to market and sell it will be an even bigger one. Nevertheless, the ERCHAM MK1 already has a potential captured market, especially as most peripheral manufacturers do not sell gaming equipment designed for single-handed users.

Are you looking out for a little set of desktop PC speakers on a tight budget? If so, you may be interested in this latest Woot offer that brings the price of a set of Razer Nommo 2.0 speakers to a bargain $69.99. This saves you a substantial $40 off the original $109.99 price tag. Razer is well known for making PC peripherals, which include speakers, keyboards, headsets, and, of course, mice. Razer products often command high prices, especially direct from Razer, but there are some deals to be found from other retailers that stock Razer products.

● Grab this deal at Woot

The Razer Nommo speakers are a simple 2.0 configuration, with no added subwoofer, so don't expect a tsunami of bass. But this can be a good thing, especially if you're going to be using these speakers in an environment that doesn't need to hear thumping sub-bass rumbling through the property. Making a small set of speakers like this is ideal for some PC or console gaming in the bedroom, or even a dorm room at college, where you want to limit disturbances.

The speakers themselves are attractive little cans hoisted on small stands with 3" woven glass fiber drivers mounted in the front and a bass port at the rear, to add a little kick to the bass frequencies. Volume and bass controls are mounted on the right speaker's stand and let you pump the bass (as much as you can on a 2.0 set of speakers) with its automatic gain control. These are older Razer speakers and have been replaced by newer models on the Razer store, which is one of the reasons these speakers are much cheaper now.

A downside to these speakers for PC use is a lack of USB connectivity. You need to connect these Razer Nommo speakers to your PC via a 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable to an appropriate audio port on either the rear IO of your motherboard or the headphone jack of your PC's case. Yes, there are newer variants of these speakers, including the Razer Nommo V2 2.1, which comes with a subwoofer and is our pick for the best 2.1 gaming speakers. But for just $69.99, these speakers are a great little deal, while stocks last, or time runs out on this limited Woot offer.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

When eyeing up parts for a gaming rig, the eyes are naturally drawn to the bigger numbers. Everyone would like a flagship component in their build, but unfortunately, not everyone has access to unlimited funds. With GPUs like the RTX 5090 selling at a minimum of $3599, and the latest AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 costing $899, it's easy to see builds surpassing $6K, or even more. If you still want to game with decent settings and have a much more frugal budget, however, then component combo bundles like this Newegg deal featuring an AMD Ryzen 5 9600X, Asus B850 Max Gaming WiFi, 16GB Team Group T-Force Delta DDR5-6000 RAM, and a Cooler Master Elite Liquid 360 AIO CPU cooler for an amazing $479 are a great start.

● Grab this deal at Newegg

With today's deal, you're saving $139.99 off the original $619.97 list price and picking up this bundle of components for just $479.98. Plus, you're also getting a free Cooler Master Elite Liquid 360 all-in-one CPU cooler worth $89.99. A useful addition as the Ryzen 5 9600X in this bundle does not come with a stock cooler, and the 360mm Cooler Master AIO will be more than ample to keep this processor chilled under load.

The Ryzen 5 9600X was one of the first Zen 5 processors to release for AMD's new AM5 platform and is still a great processor now, thanks to an excellent price-to-performance ratio. With 6 cores and 12 threads, plus a lower TDP rating of just 65W, the 9600X is cool to run and power-efficient. As you can see from our benchmarking chart below, it might not compete with the 9800X3D for pure out-and-out gaming performance, but it's still up there in the chart, and at a fraction of the price.

The Team Group T-Force Delta DDR5-6000 RAM has timings of 38-38-78 with a CAS latency of CL38 and a voltage of 1.25V. It is only 16GB, but that's plenty for modern gaming. It's only going to struggle if you start to use memory-heavy applications or like to have over a million browser tabs open. RAM is also one of the easiest components to replace in the future if you need more, as long as you can find some at a reasonable price.

Finally, we have Asus' B850 Max Gaming Wifi motherboard. This mobo features an 8+2+1 phase power design, Wi-Fi 6E wireless networking, 2.5Gb Ethernet, Bluetooth 5.3, and two M.2 SSD slots, with the primary slot supporting PCIe Gen 5 SSDs.

This great little bundle for only $479 that is a brilliant base for a low-cost gaming PC that won't destroy your savings. Just add an SSD, graphics card, and case, and your build is complete.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.