I won't bore you with another rant about the exorbitant cost of PC gaming in 2026. Buying RAM and storage is for the rich, browsing gaming laptops is wince-inducing, and don't get me started on pre-builds. I've been covering big sales events for PC Gamer for nearly a decade now and buying gear from any of these categories has never been more expensive. There's such a dearth of good deals, that these categories don't even exist on our Prime Day live blog.

Oops: that's a rant.

One thing this Prime Day has been good for is gaming monitors, especially if your budget is under AU$300, and especially if you're after a 1440p display.

The highlight is probably the Alienware AW2725DM 27-incher, at least in terms of the amount you're saving. The QHD display has a Fast IPS panel, a 180Hz refresh rate (more than adequate for mere mortals) and the usual adaptive sync compatibilities. It's usually AU$449.90, but Amazon is flogging it for AU$284.05. That's a good price for an Alienware display with these specs.

If that's still a touch pricey, you can pay around AU$70 less for the KTC H27T22C-3, which has comparable specs. Again, it's QHD, but the refresh rate gets pushed upwards to 210Hz.

I know what you're thinking: KT-huh? They're a Chinese monitor company who you may not have heard of, but this particular model is something PC Gamer can vouch for: it wins best budget 1440p display in our list of the best gaming monitors. You can read more in our full review, but the short of it? "This isn't a perfect display, but it is pretty nice by any reasonable metric. And in the context of the price, it's pretty darn brilliant."

Anyway, the already budget AU$289.99 price has been cut to AU$216.50 for Amazon Prime Day.

If you have less than AU$200 to spare, amazingly, there's an option just for you. The Lenovo LOQ 27Q-10 is, as the name kinda implies, another 27-incher with a QHD resolution. Like the Alienware above it has a 180Hz refresh rate on a Fast IPS panel.

This screen, usually bearing an RRP of AU$299, is currently AU$170 for Amazon Prime Day.

If you're looking for more expensive discounted monitors or, indeed, anything else going cheap during Amazon Prime Day, check out our rolling live blog.

Steam is an elephant, and we are all trying to describe it blindfolded. To bring order to this economic chaos, I have curated a list of must-play games—indies, cult hits, no brainer classics, all ones I like personally—that are $5 or cheaper in the 2026 Summer Sale.

Five bucks is my threshold for "not a big deal," and unless the economy is even worse than I thought, it's likely yours too. If you got everything on this list together, it would be about $100 total, which is none too shabby for 31 games.

RPG

Divinity: Original Sin

• Sale Price: $3.99
• Developer: Larian
• Released: 2014
• PCG Review: 87%

The start of modern Larian. I'm more bullish about its comedic tone and lighter story than a lot of other RPG fans, but no one can deny that it's still got genre-leading turn-based combat, even as the studio has only improved on its own work.

Divinity 2

• Sale Price: $2.99
• Developer: Larian
• Released: 2009
• PCG Review: I know we did I just can't find it

No, not Divinity: Original Sin 2. Despite some of the worst self-inflicted SEO out there, Divinity 2 is well-worth revisiting to this day. It's a relic of a different time, when Larian was following BioWare's lead rather than setting its own pace, resulting in something that visually calls to mind Dragon Age: Origins, but plays more like, I dunno, Jade Empire? That attempt at console-ization does make it a bit more approachable than Larian's other pre-Original Sin work these days.

Divine Divinity

• Sale Price: $0.89
• Developer: Larian
• Released: 2002
• PCG Review: 84%

Notable as perhaps the purest expression of Larian's vision for RPGs before the first Original Sin, Divine Divinity arrived at the tail end of the CRPG's late '90s golden age. Even at this early stage, you can still enjoy the studio's unique sensibility, and it's an important text for anyone with an interest in the history of RPGs.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker

• Sale Price: $3.59
• Developer: Owlcat
• Released: 2018
• PCG Review: 69%

A deranged, cruel, and irresistible RPG. Wrath of the Righteous and Rogue Trader are perhaps better introductions to Owlcat's work, but Kingmaker still got its hooks into me. I'm not a huge fan of this one's DLC, and honestly recommend skipping it unless you really gotta optimize your builds, so there's no sleight of hand to that $3.59 number.

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous

• Sale Price: $4.99
• Developer: Owlcat
• Released: 2021
• PCG Review: 76%

One of my favorite games of the 2020s, a vexing RPG with one of the deepest class systems I've ever seen, as well as some truly aggravating encounters. Still somehow a gentler and easier to grasp entry point than Kingmaker, by my reckoning. Unlike Kingmaker, I highly recommend the DLCs, even if it brings us over $5. Please don't tell anyone.

Dragon Age: Origins

• Sale Price: $2.99
• Developer: BioWare
• Released: 2009
• PCG Review: 94%

Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened at all.

Dragon Age 2

• Sale Price: $2.99
• Developer: BioWare
• Released: 2011
• PCG Review: 94% (and proud of it, baby)

Copy and paste environments, annoying enemies, a truncated development, and the best script BioWare's ever done. The studio was always better at characters than plot, so trading the hero's journey for something that felt more like three seasons of a TV show was a masterstroke. We may never see its like again.

Dragon Age Inquisition

• Sale Price: $3.99
• Developer: BioWare
• Released: 2014
• PCG Review: 87%

Does anyone else remember the multiplayer for this game? Did I hallucinate that? It was actually pretty brilliant: Repeatable co-op wave survival stuff that felt a lot like Left 4 Dead. It was smothered in its crib by the most deranged monetization I have ever seen anywhere, ever. Paying for gear and classes in a full-price retail game, the hubris is staggering.

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

• Sale Price: $3.89
• Developer: Troika
• Released: 2001
• PCG Review: 90%

A crusty game par excellence, a "realheads know" RPG that has never gotten the love it truly deserves. At its most basic level: 2D Fallout with worse combat but even deeper elements of simulation and reactivity, all set in a Forgotten Realms fantasy world going through its industrial revolution. Don't forget Drog Black Tooth's Unofficial Patch.

Mass Effect Legendary Edition

• Sale Price: $4.79
• Developer: BioWare
• Released: 2007 (original) 2021 (remaster)
• PCG Review: Various

Firmly in the "no duh" bucket of games to get, but no matter how many times I see it on sale, the Mass Effect trilogy for five bucks feels special to me. If you are unfamiliar with Mass Effect: Think Bush-era Star Trek, but Kirk is a spec ops commando operator who doesn't play by the rules. Turn off the part of your brain that makes it difficult to talk to strangers about politics and just enjoy yourself.

Disco Elysium

• Sale Price: $3.99
• Developer: ZA/UM
• Released: 2019
• PCG Review: 92%

Still one of the GOATs, and no amount of post-launch creative turmoil can change that. It has been the #1 or #2 game on our Top 100 list every year since it came out, and I think that says a lot.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 - The Sith Lords

• Sale Price: $3.49
• Developer: Obsidian
• Released: 2005
• PCG Review: 87%

Still the best Star Wars story ever told as far as I'm concerned, and if you don't trust me, why not hear out former PC Gamer editor Richard Cobbett instead? Be sure to grab the Sith Lords Restored Content Mod from the Steam Workshop. I'm currently replaying KotOR 2 myself on Steam Deck—I recommend grabbing Gravy's public controller profile to help with some camera wonkiness. I can also vouch for user revonvenom's cutscene crash fix outlined on Reddit.

First Person Shooter (and more!)

Max Payne

• Sale Price: $3.49
• Developer: Remedy
• Released: 2001
• PCG Review: They gotta make these easier to look up, man. It was probably pretty high.

An unassailable classic of a shooter. Max Paynes 2 and 3 improved the storytelling and shooting, but there is a one-of-a-kind atmosphere to be found in the first game's snowy bloodbath.

Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne

• Sale Price: $2.49
• Developer: Remedy
• Released: 2003
• PCG Review: Please email me if you know.

Looking back, this feels like a turning point, when Remedy started getting quirky. One can observe the aspirations of a surreal shared world that we're now seeing come to fruition with the Control-Alan Wake continuum. The level set in the abandoned theme park of a Twin Peaks/Twilight Zone pastiche is an all-timer, and feels like it rhymes with the killer amusement park level in Alan Wake 2.

FEAR

• Sale Price: $1.99
• Developer: Monolith
• Released: 2005
• PCG Review: It's out there, somewhere

One of the original GOATs of bullet time, alongside Max Payne. It's funny: The thing I remember most from coverage at the time was how terrifying it was supposed to be. These days, fans seem to roll their eyes at Alma and stay for the tacticool shootouts. The sheer amounts of lore introduced by later games certainly didn't help.

Cruelty Squad

• Sale Price: $1.99
• Developer: Consumer Softproducts
• Released: 2021
• PCG Review: 93%

A game that still feels like the future of FPSes, five years on. It's abrasive, complex, and singular, despite tons of indie shooters cribbing off its notes in the intervening years. Thief or Hitman-style "real place" level design, but with zippy, movement-heavy shooting and some of the best level secrets and hidden stuff of any game.

Deus Ex: Invisible War

• Sale Price: $1.74
• Developer: Ion Storm
• Released: 2004
• PCG Review: 92%

A game doomed by circumstance: Virtually everything that made Invisible War feel inferior to Deus Ex was a result of console compromise design on behalf of the then-cutting edge Xbox. It's still an entertaining immersive sim nonetheless, as well as a work of sci fi storytelling that feels fresh and prescient to this day. All the love to the Eidos Montreal games, but Deus Ex and Invisible War are simply smarter works of science fiction.

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic

• Sale Price: $2.49
• Developer: Arkane
• Released: 2006
• PCG Review: 88%

Still the best kick in gaming, an all-time piece of melee combat design at the heart of one of the most slapstick games ever made. Dark Messiah's booby trap and bottomless pit-laden arenas still make it one of the GOATs of physics as gameplay. Even Arkane itself has never managed to fully recapture this aspect of Dark Messiah in its excellent later work.

Chop Goblins

• Sale Price: $1.99
• Developer: David Szymanski
• Released: 2022
• PCG Review: N/A

A snack of an FPS that still managed to steal my heart. It's the only boomer shooter David Szymanski has made since the much-beloved Dusk, and it has a similarly impish, pitch-black sense of humor. Chop Goblins' levels are few, but substantial, with tons of secrets and side paths. This is a great game to get with a friend too, thanks to its time trial-centric replayability and global leaderboard.

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

• Sale Price: $1.64
• Developer: Headfirst Productions
• Released: 2006
• PCG Review: I know we did.

One of the jankiest commercial products ever made with Valve's Source Engine, a game I and many others can't help but love despite its many, many flaws. The more horror and adventure-focused early areas alone are worth at least two bucks, before it all devolves into mediocre shooting.

Arx Fatalis

• Sale Price: $1.64
• Developer: Arkane
• Released: 2002
• PCG Review: 85%

Where it all began for Arkane. Arx Fatalis is a prickly, complicated game that rewards patience. The one of a kind atmosphere and attention to detail in its underground society make it an all-time videogame locale for me, with the trappings of "normal" medieval fantasy life desperately masking the harsh reality of an existence deep below the surface. This is all that remains of a world whose sun went dark just outside living memory.

Star Wars: Dark Forces 3 - Jedi Knight 2—Jedi Outcast

• Sale Price: $3.49
• Developer: Raven Software
• Released: 2002
• PCG Review: 91%

The fourth game in the Dark Forces series of FPSes and the second game in the Jedi Knight series of hybrid FPS/lightsaber combat games. Jedi Knight proved a strong foundation, but Raven produced a style of FPS-inflected lightsaber combat that's never been replicated, and only recently, arguably been matched by Fallen Order and Jedi Survivor.

Star Wars: Dark Forces 4 - Jedi Knight 3—Jedi Outcast 2; Jedi Academy

• Sale Price: $3.49
• Developer: Raven Software
• Released: 2003
• PCG Review: 70%

Jedi Outcast's even better sequel. About the only thing that took a dip was the storytelling, and even then, Outcast was hardly Shakespeare. Otherwise? You get your lightsaber from the get-go, and while Outcast's levels could be hit-or miss visually and from a design perspective, every stage of Academy is a heater with some Star Wars juice. My favorites are probably the early train mission, Darth Vader's castle, and the late game Jedi tomb complex.

Uncategorized esoterica

Blasphemous

• Sale Price: $2.49
• Developer: The Game Kitchen
• Released: 2019
• PCG Review: 70%

Bloodborne, but it's a 2D platformer trading Cthulhu for Catholicism. The Game Bakers took inspiration from early modern Spain to produce something truly captivating and unique in Blasphemous' visuals and story.

Card Shark

• Sale Price: $3.99
• Developer: Nerial
• Released: 2022
• PCG Review: 86%

The original "deckbuilder" was actually getting caught cheating at lansquenet during the ancien régime then killed in a duel. Aside from a wonderful setting that's underrepresented in games, Card Shark boasts a swashbuckling story and unique core mechanic: Actually cheating at cards with complicated controller combos.

Norco

• Sale Price: $4.94
• Developer: Geography of Robots
• Released: 2022
• PCG Review: 94%

An utterly haunting point and click adventure set in a cyberpunk Louisiana even closer to climate oblivion than the one in real life. Beautifully written, memorable, and boasting some of the most gorgeous images anyone's ever made in pixel art.

Iron Lung

• Sale Price: $3.99
• Developer: David Szymanski
• Released: 2022
• PCG Review: N/A

The movie the game.

Hypnospace Outlaw

• Sale Price: $4.99
• Developer: Tendershoot, Michael Lasch, ThatWhichIs Media
• Released: 2019
• PCG Review: 81%

Explore the internet I wish we had, a surreal, psychedelic expanse of GeoCities-esque webpages where something strange is afoot. Hypnospace remains one of the best "desktop simulation" games, even as others have attempted their own spin on the concept.

Halls of Torment

• Sale Price: $4.99
• Developer: Chasing Carrots
• Released: 2024
• PCG Review: 90%

Still my favorite Vampire Survivors-style game, which dresses the familiar format in the clothes of classic Diablo. I hit a wall of all the objectives and questlines I felt like completing a long time ago, but I still keep this one on my Steam Deck to noodle around in whenever I get that itch.

FlyKnight

• Sale Price: $4.79
• Developer: Wabbaboy
• Released: 2025
• PCG Review: N/A

Tons of indie devs are turning their hands to homages of FromSoftware's foundational King's Field series, but I've always loved how focused FlyKnight is. I beat it in about six hours, but it still sticks with me. Already a steal at six bucks, a 20% discount has made it relevant to this list of recommendations on an arguable technicality.

Divinity: Dragon Commander

• Sale Price: $3.99
• Developer: Larian
• Released: 2013
• PCG Review: 85%

I'm not much of an RTS guy, but this one lets you hop on the back of a dragon and intervene in the fights, which I've always thought was sick. I wish more strategy games would let me do this, just go Dynasty Warriors mode on a line of Napoleonic Musketeers in Total War or something.

The Aussie PC Gamer team spent all last week hunting for Black Friday PC gaming deals. Our voluminous Black Friday (now Cyber Monday) hub currently has over 70 deals, which is a hell of a lot, even if it does conspicuously lack some crucial categories (good luck finding a cheap GPU out there, folks).

As weirdly proud as we are to have found so many PC gaming deals, it's obviously a little too much to take at once for some mere mortals. So I figured it might be useful to take a personal approach: below, Ben Mansill and I have selected five each of the Black Friday PC gaming products that we ourselves want to buy or already own.

I've ordered the list in ascending price order, so you can nope out of the page just as soon as your budget bottoms out.

Update, December 1: We published this article last week for Black Friday, but all the deals are still live for Cyber Monday. So we've made some tweaks to the text.

📣 Shaun says: If I was looking for a cheap and cheerful gaming headset, possibly as a stocking stuffer for a kid gamer (don't read this, my children), I'd snap this up immediately.

📣 Shaun says: If I hadn't already played this modern JRPG classic at launch, I'd dive bomb to exploit this 55% discount. This game will go down in history, just you wait.

📣 Shaun says: This is my favourite gamepad for PC and I use it every single day. I reviewed it very favourably upon launch—its pro features and affordability blow most of the competition away.

📣 Shaun says: This is the gaming keyboard I use every day. I'm using it to type this little blurb. You could knock a man out with it. I love it.

📣 Ben says: I've never seen a ROG keyboard that hasn't blown me away with its design and construction quality, so finding the ROG Falchion RX at a hundred bucks off is pretty exciting.

📣 Ben says: Are you serious? A Samsung G5 QHD HDR10 27-inch 165Hz curved monitor for AU$199?! Get me some of that.

📣 Shaun says: Every big sales event I consider buying a VR headset, but chicken out at the last moment. Will 2025 be the year I finally cave? I kinda hope so.

📣 Shaun says: I'm well overdue a new chair that could double as a gaming throne and a home office seat. This is a touch out of my price range, even with the discount, but I can dream.

📣 Ben says: If I didn't already have a nice lappy, I'd be all over this MSI Thin 15. It's basic with a Core i5 and RTX 5050, but it's also going for just AU$899 right now.

📣 Ben says: Once you've gone down the ultrawide path, there's no going back, so to see this Philips Envia 8000 34-incher so cheap is wild. AND IT'S A QD OLED!

• 70+ great PC gaming Black Friday deals
• Amazon's PC gaming Black Friday bargains
• A gaming headset for AU$5

In keeping with modern trends towards flagrant excess, Amazon kicked off its Black Friday sale in Australia on November 18—a full 10 days before the official Black Friday date of November 28. Now, a full day after Cyber Monday, many deals are still in effect. In other words: it's still not too late to grab a PC gaming bargain. Don't believe me? Check out the list below.

If you're not an Amazon Prime member, it's worth getting a trial for this sales event. While most deals should be available to all, it might help for certain Lightning deals and, crucially, will get you free shipping in most cases.

Amazon Black Friday laptop deals

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Amazon Black Friday gaming monitor deals

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Amazon Black Friday gaming keyboard deals

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Amazon Black Friday gaming mouse deals

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Amazon Black Friday gaming headset deals

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Amazon Black Friday gaming controller deals

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Amazon Black Friday PC accessories deals

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Amazon Black Friday gaming chair deals

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• Looking for more Black Friday PC gaming deals? Check out our Black Friday live hub for dozens of deals and live updates

Black Friday 2025 FAQ

A pre-built gaming PC is probably the most exciting purchase you can make. We're talking about an entirely new system—perhaps even your very first one. But it can be a little daunting, too, seeing component after component, spec after spec, and trying to separate the wheat from the chaff. We've all been there.

In fact, I've been there enough to know that actually, it doesn't have to be as daunting as it might at first seem. And I've helped others who have been there enough to know what the most common pitfalls are and what to focus on to get cracking and make a good gaming PC purchasing decision.

Once you approach it systematically by narrowing down your choices bit by bit, buying a prebuilt gaming PC becomes a rather straightforward process. Which is great, because unfortunately gone are the days where we could realistically recommend you build your own gaming PC from scratch. It used to be a great way of nailing the best price/performance ratio possible, but sadly your buying power does not match those of established PC builders, and at a time where the prices of core components have been spiking horribly DIY builds are more expensive than prebuilt.

Thankfully there are plenty of systems at pretty reasonable prices right now, and we've updated this page today hoping that over Amazon Prime Day this year there might be a chance of discounts on full PCs. We're going to keep curating the best Amazon Prime Day gaming PC deals throughout the event, so save that page to check back for the best discounts on Amazon as well as all the other retailers getting in on the act, such as Newegg, Best Buy and Walmart. If you keep the following tips in mind I think you'll have a much easier time figuring out which PC to go for.

1. Start by choosing a graphics card
2. Ideally get 32 GB of DDR5 RAM, but 16 GB is fine on a tight budget
3. Make sure it has an NVMe SSD with 1 TB capacity, preferably 2 TB
4. Consider your CPU's general performance and socket upgradeability
5. Remember you can always upgrade later, but it might cost more

1. GPU first

Start by choosing a graphics card

A gaming PC isn't so much a single product as it is a collection of components, each with its own merits to consider. While this can initially make it a little overwhelming to decide on a PC, all it really means is that you have to narrow down what you want step by step. And the best way to do that is to start with the GPU.

After you've figured out your budget and eliminated options outside of it, start thinking about what graphics card you want in your gaming PC. Provided all the other components are at least passable, a good graphics card will have the most impact on your gaming performance.

The Nvidia RTX 50-series is with us, now, as is the AMD RX 9000-series, and these are what most of you should be looking for in a new gaming PC. That's whether it's a budget RTX 5060 build, a mid-range RX 9070 XT build, or a high-end RTX 5080 build.

You can check out our GPU hierarchy chart to get a quick feel for how all the different graphics cards stack up against each other, and of course, you can check out the full run-down of the best graphics cards, but here's a super basic breakdown.

The RTX 5090 is the absolute fastest graphics card, but it's super expensive. The RTX 5080 is what you'll want if you don't have an unlimited budget but want something very high-end, as this should still net you high frame rates at 1440p and be able to play any game at 4K.

At the mid-range, you have the RTX 5070, RTX 5070 Ti, and RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT. The RTX 5070 Ti and RX 9070 XT offer close to high-end territory and are great value for 1440p and even some 4K gaming, but the RTX 5070 and RX 9070 can be worth it if they drop down into close-to-budget prices.

At the budget end, the RTX 5060 Ti and RX 9060 XT are great choices and should get you by at 1080p and even 1440p on medium or medium-high settings in most games. There are 16 GB versions of these cards that you should try to go for if you can, but the 8 GB versions are fine if you're on a budget—just don't expect to be able to use the highest-resolution textures or play at high resolutions in all games with that amount of VRAM.

Below this, you have RTX 5060 builds, along with some Intel ones, RTX 5050 builds, previous-gen RTX 4060 and RTX 4060 Ti builds, and even integrated APU gaming PCs. These are fine if you're on a strict budget and can be a stepping-off point to upgrade your GPU down the line. As such, with these builds, unless you're opting for something incredibly cheap, try to at least get one with a motherboard and CPU platform that has a little longevity.

If you figure out what kind of performance you'll be happy with, you can pick the graphics card that'll net you that level of performance, filter out all PCs that have graphics cards you don't want, and go from there. Starting by doing this is a great way to narrow down your options.

2. RAM

Ideally get 32 GB of DDR5 RAM, but 16 GB is fine on a tight budget

It seems like only yesterday that 16 GB of RAM was the gold standard for gaming PCs, but that's no longer true. Today, 32 GB is the gold standard. This, however, has led some to assume that gaming PCs with 16 GB of RAM should be avoided entirely. But this isn't true, either—at least if you're on a very strict budget. And especially at a time when RAM has become one of the most valuable components of your PC.

16 GB of RAM will bottleneck you in some games, especially if you have a lot going on in the background, but if you close most of your background apps, 16 GB should get you by in most games. And for some games it'll be fine even with background apps open, too. It won't be the best RAM in the world, but it'll get you by if you're on a strict budget.

The main reason to opt for 32 GB of RAM, though, is for the peace of mind to know that you could play pretty much anything, at any settings, without memory capacity being a bottleneck. That, and knowing you won't have to fork out a lot of money for new RAM down the line.

While RAM is super easy to upgrade, I can no longer say that it's cheap to to do so. There's a memory shortage right now, and it doesn't look like it'll be letting up any time soon. The price of RAM is going to continue increasing, so don't rely on being able to upgrade your memory for cheap anymore. It's best to get memory that will last, right now.

We're already seeing an increased push for single-DIMM systems, too, where retailers are saving costs by only providing single sticks of memory for gaming PCs. This immediately halves the memory bandwidth compared with using two sticks in a dual-channel setup, but perhaps surprisingly doesn't have a great impact on pure gaming performance. It's not pretty, I would recommend trying to find systems with dual-channel memory ideally, but at a push for budget pure gaming PCs it's not a complete deal-breaker. Which is a damning indictement of the PC industry right now.

You should pay attention to your memory's generation, too, and try to go with DDR5. If you get a gaming PC with DDR4 memory, your motherboard won't support DDR5 so you won't be able to upgrade to it. DDR4 should really be avoided these days, unless you're going for a very budget-oriented build.

3. NVMe SSDs

Make sure it has an NVMe SSD with 1 TB capacity, preferably 2 TB

Most PCs these days come with an NVMe SSD for their storage, but occasionally you'll come across one with an old-school hard drive or SATA SSD, and these you should avoid. They're great for extra mass storage, but not as main system drives.

A few years ago, NVMe drives were nice-to-haves but far from ubiquitous. Plenty of people still rocked SATA SSDs as a primary storage device, and this was fine, even when PCIe NVMe drives started hitting the market. That's primarily because, at the time, NVMe drives were so much more expensive.

Sadly SSDs are back up in price again, all thanks to AI and the RAMpocalypse, which means it might be harder than ever to find affordable gaming PCs with 1 TB drives in them, let alone affordable 2 TB options. It will also likely mean that you're going to only see bargain basement drives, with slow transfer rates, in budget machines with 1 TB capacities.

So yes, capacity is very much king these days, and it's not even worth getting bogged down in the 'should I get a PCIe 5.0 drive?' debate. Such are the prices that you really shouldn't worry about that.

The other point is that yes, you can upgrade it down the line, but you risk running out of space well before you'd like if you only have 512 GB of storage, for instance. Unless you're on a super-strict budget, given game and application install sizes these days, 1 TB capacity is a minimum, and 2 TB or more is ideal.

4. CPUs and sockets

Consider your CPU's general performance and socket upgradeability

When you're buying a gaming PC, of course, you're going to care about its gaming performance. But it can be easy to forget all the other things you might use your PC for, things that might require a more powerful CPU.

Budget CPUs such as the Intel Core i5 13400 and the six-core AMD Ryzen 5 7600X, although not the best CPUs on the market, are perfectly fine for gaming. However, you might be kicking yourself for not getting better if, for example, you end up doing CPU-intensive work such as encoding further down the line.

Similarly, if budget's no concern and you want something ultra-high-end, you might go for an X3D chip such as the Ryzen 7 7800X3D or 9800X3D, because these will offer the best gaming performance without a doubt. But if you want the absolute best productivity performance, you might be best sacrificing a little gaming performance and going for a high-end Core i9 or Ryzen 9. There are no hard rules, just don't forget to consider performance in areas other than gaming.

Don't forget to think about the CPU and motherboard socket, either. When you're building your own gaming PC you have to consider the motherboard socket to ensure it's compatible with your CPU, but when you're buying a pre-built gaming PC, you don't have to consider compatibility at all. In fact, sockets often aren't even listed in a PC's specifications. Here's a chart showing which sockets go with which CPUs:

So, if you don't have to worry about compatibility with a pre-built, why care about the socket? The answer is upgradeability. While a gaming PC's socket obviously supports the CPU sitting in it right now, it might not support the CPU you choose to upgrade to down the line.

Right now, what this mostly means is that you should take care when considering a gaming PC with an Intel 13th or 14th Gen CPU, because these are the last generations that fit the LGA 1700 socket, meaning you'll need a new motherboard to upgrade to a new CPU whenever you decide to upgrade, and Intel motherboards can be expensive. AMD 7000-series CPUs, on the other hand, fit the AM5 socket, and this is compatible with a 9000-series upgrade and will be compatible with the generation after that, too.

Upgradability

Remember you can always upgrade later, but it might cost more

There's a lot to think about when it comes to gaming PCs because they're essentially a collection of modular parts. But while this might make things seem a little overwhelming at first—something this guide has hopefully helped with—it's also a massive boon. That's because it means pretty much everything is upgradeable.

What this means practically, if you're buying your first PC, is that you shouldn't worry too much about getting something wrong and being stuck with it forever. There's so much you can upgrade in your computer, from its graphics card to its CPU, memory, motherboard, storage, and plenty more.

There are a few things you need to keep in mind to ensure it'll be easily upgradeable, but I think we've covered those, here.

You want to ensure you get a PC that supports DDR5 memory if you want to be able to upgrade that without switching motherboards. And ditto the socket: AM5's the way to go if you want upgradeability, which means an AMD 7000-series or 9000-series chip.

Intel's 13th and 14th Gen chips use LGA 1700 and so are incompatible with the latest Intel generation, and it's unlikely that the next Intel generation will use the same socket as the current Core Ultra 200S generation.

Apart from those caveats, though, have at it. You're not committing yourself to a never-changing rig. Most people who buy a gaming PC will probably end up upgrading some component or other before long. If you do so and you catch the PC building bug, you might even be in for a ship of Theseus scenario, perpetually rebuilding your gaming PC into eternity. There'll always be a "later", so don't stress it too much.

Equally, though, don't assume prices will remain the same or get cheaper, especially when it comes to RAM and possibly even graphics cards as they become increasingly affected by the memory shortage. As we've mentioned about the buying power of PC builders, they will always be able to get components cheaper than you, so it's worth considering spending that little bit more on increased SSD storage or RAM capacity from the outset if you can, as it will likely be cheaper than upgrading either in six months or even a year yourself.

So, you're thinking about buying a gaming headset. Good for you! A great gaming headset is one of the biggest quality-of-life upgrades you can make to any PC, and we spend all year long testing candidates for our best gaming headset guide.

However, there are some things you should know before you make your purchase, and luckily for you, I've put together a tips list that should guide you towards buying the right gaming headset for you.

I've spent countless hours immersing myself in audio, from my early days knocking around recording studios, to live music, to boutique headset reviews. That means I've got a good set of ears on me, and more than that, I take both music and gaming audio very seriously indeed. There are plenty of potential pitfalls to avoid here, but follow my tips and you won't go far wrong.

We've updated this page specifically because Amazon Prime Day will soon be upon us, and we'll continue to curate the best deals on gaming headsets to help you find your way to audio nirvana. So grab a cup of coffee and a snack, get comfortable, and let me tell you all the things that are most important to remember when buying a great gaming headset.

1. Wired might mean ultimate audio, but wireless has come a long way
2. Drivers make the difference
3. If it looks uncomfortable, it usually is
4. Built-in mics are nice to have, but not necessarily essential
5. Battery life = quality of life

1. Wireless or wired?

Wired might mean ultimate audio, but wireless has come a long way

First up, are you going to tie yourself to your PC with a cable, or go wire-free? There are good arguments to be made for both here, and it's probably one of the biggest considerations to make early on.

Wired headset fans will argue that it's the best way of guaranteeing excellent audio quality, and removing any concerns about connection issues and latency. And to be honest, they're not wrong. That being said, wireless connections have come a long way in recent years, and you'll find that a good RF 2.4 GHz connection provided by a dedicated dongle will sound great, connect robustly, and have zero-perceptible latency in most cases.

There's a fairly large caveat here, so let's get it out of the way early on: I'd avoid Bluetooth-only sets for gaming. Bluetooth is useful for taking your headphones on the move, transforming a gaming headset into one that you can also wear on your daily travels. However, even the most recent versions of the connection standard (Bluetooth 6.0 at the time of writing, but 6.0 is pretty rare) still introduce latency, so for gaming, it's no bueno—as you're likely to notice your audio lagging a little behind the action on screen.

Still, as a bonus feature, it's definitely worth looking out for. Headsets like the SteelSeries Arctis Nova 5X Wireless come with both a 2.4 GHz wireless dongle for lag-free PC connection and Bluetooth for travel purposes. Sets like these are definitely worth considering if you'd like your gaming headset to transform into a great set of regular headphones for day-to-day usage.

That being said, a tried and tested wired connection will remove any concerns about connection issues or battery life. If all you want your next set of cans for is for sitting in front of your PC, wired may be the way forward for you—but proper 2.4 GHz wireless cans are well worth considering regardless.

2. Drivers

A quality set of drivers should handle both music and gaming with aplomb

Inside the earcups of a headset lies a set of drivers, and these are the things that will transmit sound to your earholes. Essentially, what we mean when we say "drivers" in relation to headphones is "small speakers", and so the quality of these units makes all the difference to the sound you're going to receive.

Size is important, to some degree. 40 mm or up should be capable of rumbling your eardrums with appropriate weight and substance, although there are certainly slightly smaller units that can still deliver properly great sound. Of course, earbuds have tiny, weeny little drivers, but because they nestle deep in your ear canal, they still provide the appropriate effect.

What you'll really want to know here is whether you should be buying gaming-focused drivers or all-purpose ones, and my answer is categorically the latter. While plenty of headsets advertise their gaming and potentially even surround-sound prowess, a really good set of drivers is a really good set of drivers.

Basically, if they sound great for music, they should sound great for gaming, too. Good speakers are good speakers, after all, and while it might be tempting to go for hyper-positional gaming audio setups for immersion's sake (or for detecting enemy footsteps in a multiplayer game), unless you're an esports pro, it really isn't going to make that much difference.

Quality drivers from respected brands like Razer, HyperX, Beyerdynamic, Corsair and many others will sound fantastic for games, movies, music, and anything else you might wish to listen to through them. Buy from a known brand, check the reviews to find out other people's impressions of them, and look out for trusted reviewers gushing about the sound. They should do you nicely.

One quick side note: Our favourite wireless audiophile headset, the Audeze Maxwell, makes use of planar magnetic drivers, and they're truly fabulous. Pricey, though, but well worth considering if you're looking for the best sound imaginable for all purposes.

3. Comfort

If it looks uncomfortable, it usually is

Comfort is one of those horribly subjective categories that depends on so many variables; it's often very difficult to get across in a headset review. We like to bring our headset samples into the office to hand them around to various members of the team because we've all got differently sized heads, differing amounts of hair (or complete lack of), and in Jacob Fox's case, 'weird little ears'.

There you go, that should have made me popular. Anyway, I like to follow a general rule: If it looks uncomfortable, it usually is. No matter what your particular head shape or hair configuration, you're likely going to want some proper padding inside the headband to cushion the top of your bonce over long gaming and listening sessions.

Earcup padding is important, too. Many headset manufacturers use synthetic leather substitutes on the earcups, and some are brilliant for sound isolation, audio dampening, and overall comfort. Others, though, can get a bit sweaty over long sessions, and any good reviewer should point out if this is the case. Some headsets, like the truly magnificent Beyerdynamic MMX 330 Pro, make comfort a top priority, with super-plush velour pads that really can make a difference over a long day.

Again, it's difficult to give general advice here, but I'd seriously pay attention to any mention of comfort in a headset review before putting down your hard-earned cash. After all, it doesn't matter how wonderful your new headset sounds if it leaves you a sweaty, headache-filled mess after a few hours.

Another thing to watch out for is any mention of clamping force. Some headsets seem very comfy on the first wear, but want to slide off your head the second you look down at your phone, or mess with a cable. A good test here when receiving your new headset is to put it atop your head and then tilt from side to side. If it wants to fall off, I'd consider sending it back and trying something else instead.

4. Microphones

Built-in mics are nice to have, but not necessarily essential

It'll be no surprise that, as an audio nerd, I care about microphone quality. Any good gaming headset with a microphone included should have some degree of richness to the tone, a clarity that allows it to cut through a frantic multiplayer audio soundscape, and a rejection of ugly distortions and plosive sounds, like "puh" and "buh" that can become blown out on cheaper models.

However, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that, to many, this may not matter. If you hardly ever voice chat or don't plan on using your headset for work meetings, I wouldn't blame you if microphone quality is a low priority.

Still, it's a nice thing to have regardless, so I'd look out for headsets with cardioid condenser microphones like the Audio Technica ATH-M50x STS StreamSet to ensure that when you do enter your next voice chat, you sound like a real human being and not a robot attempting to make a long-distance call to Mars.

I also prefer headsets with a removable microphone, as this means you can detach it entirely for travel purposes or to get it completely out of the way for comfort.

Still, if you've found a fantastic pair of headphones but the mic reviews aren't great (or something from our best audiophile headphones for gaming guide, some of which eschew mics entirely), there's always the possibility of buying a separate mic that's likely to do an even better job of picking up your vocal tones. We test the best gaming microphones all the time, so you're spoilt for choice if you want to go for a standalone unit instead.

In fact, for streaming and podcast purposes, I'd highly recommend it. Still, a good mic is a nice thing to have, so don't ignore it entirely when picking out your next headset if you plan on using it on the regular.

5. Battery

Battery life = quality of life

So, let's say you've decided to go wireless for your next headset purchase. To be honest, I don't blame you, as (to reiterate my earlier point), wireless headsets are darned good these days. One thing you really should be aware of, however, is that battery life ratings make a huge difference to your quality of life—and as a result, should be high on your list of priorities when picking the right wireless gaming headset for you.

Our top pick for wireless gaming headsets is the HyperX Cloud Alpha, and a big reason for that is its 300-hour battery life. It's such a large number that even its follow-up, the HyperX Cloud Alpha 2, couldn't top it at 250 hours. That's a simply astonishing figure and means that you can potentially go weeks without plugging into the wall.

It's a bit of an outlier, though. In fact, most decent gaming headsets come in somewhere around the 25 to 50-hour mark these days, and that's a perfectly respectable figure to aim for. It's worth noting that gaming headsets in 2.4 GHz wireless mode tend to drain faster than Bluetooth, and RGB affects battery life too, so this will affect your moment-to-moment use.

Less than that, though, and you'll find your day being interrupted by the annoying beep of a low battery indicator on the regular, and that's a pain in the proverbials. It might not matter too much if you keep a charging cable free at your desk, but trust me when I say that not having to think about your headset's battery life very often does make you feel like you've bought a product from the future, and not one that makes itself an annoyance several times a week. A charging stand, like in the Fractal Design Scape, can certainly help with the annoyance of keeping a headset battery topped up, though.

We all wish battery life were longer on our devices, but good wireless headsets are leading the charge in that regard. Battery life = quality of life, and as a result, I'd pay proper attention to that figure on the spec sheet, and cross-reference it with the reviews to ensure that it actually delivers the figure that it says on the box.

A gaming laptop can be a fine investment in this age of mobile computing. With GPU prices increasing every year and the added expense of fitting out a desktop with a monitor, memory, and more, investing in one svelte, portable machine is a pretty good way to save some cash. Though that's only true if you don't buy a gaming laptop you come to regret.

That's the thing with gaming laptops: you can't upgrade them all that much once. While it's possible to swap out the SSD and even often the RAM, unless you bought a modular Framework, you're stuck with the screen, processor, GPU, trackpad, webcam, and more. Some of which you could upgrade with a discrete product—just plug in a gaming keyboard or webcam—but if you still want a portable PC, it's what's inside that counts.

So it's important to choose wisely. That means heading to the checkout with a firm idea of what you're after, some helpful tips from your local hardware journo (i.e. a glance at our best gaming laptop guide), and a pocket full of change.

I've updated this page because the Amazon Prime Day deals are upon us, and we're hoping there will be some decent discounts on actually good machines—we only recommend products we think are actually any good, which means sifting through piles of crap. So if you save our Prime Day gaming laptop deals page you'll have direct access to a full list of the hand-curated discounts we've picked out for you this sales season.

I've been doing this for over half a decade now and these are the things I look out for when choosing a gaming laptop, which will hopefully help you make an informed decision yourself—even if it's buying one that we've not recommended ourselves.

1. A 16-inch gaming laptop is almost always ideal
2. Check for a spare NVMe SSD slot
3. Spend your money on the better GPU
4. Make sure you're not missing out on memory
5. Do the laptop's specs make sense together?

1. 14-inch or 16-inch

A 16-inch gaming laptop is almost always ideal

In the modern era of laptops there are two dominant form factors: 14-inch and 16-inch. Those two inches make a big difference, but before we get to that I should note that 18-inch laptops, such as the MSI Titan 18 HX A14V, make less sense for your average laptop user. That's not to say they don't serve a niche, but that niche is effectively acting as a replacement for a desktop PC tower or pulling maximum performance for more creative endeavours—you probably won't want to whip an 18-inch laptop out onto a tray table during a long-haul flight, for example.

No, if you're after an all-rounder for work, school, travel, and leisure then you'll want to go with a 16-inch laptop most of the time. Some are pretty compact, such as the ROG Zephyrus G16, while other budget models are quite a bit thicker. Generally, though, you won't struggle to fit a 16-inch laptop into a standard laptop-friendly backpack, and they tend to offer a good blend of performance and battery life.

The 16-inch screen size is also a good balance of being large enough to actually benefit from higher resolutions, such as 1440p, and being able to make out exact details; but not too big to be convenient. On the flipside, if you go for a smaller 14-inch gaming laptop, it might be a little too cramped for the best visibility in games.

One game I play a lot of is Hunt: Showdown. The game has a handful of maps all based in various locations in the American South, but they all share a common graphical style. No reflection on where these maps are based, but they're the site of a horrific haunted invasion and as such are filled with dirt and mud, they're run-down, a little hazy, filled with bogs, bog-dwellers, and broken buildings. The reason I bring this up is it's a good test of a gaming laptop's screen size: it's tough on a full 32-inch monitor to make out an enemy player, a hunter, wearing brown and black hiding in the bushes. It's tougher still to do that on a 14-inch gaming laptop. Even the leap to a 16-inch screen helps a lot here, and that's something to consider if you're considering a 14-inch design.

But the 14-inch form factor has many other benefits. I use a 14-inch laptop for work and travelling, as it's far more convenient than a 16-inch design for this use case.

Combined with a sleek chassis, you can score yourself a truly portable device that can slip into a backpack without much of a thought to its size or weight. You might have to deal with a slimmer battery life or more cramped controls, but a 14-inch gaming laptop can still offer many of the same features and functionality as its larger siblings, such as the excellent Razer Blade 14.

Just note, performance can be a little lower on a 14-inch laptop that's trying to save space, on account of the restricted thermal solution. A really good 14-inch gaming laptop might also cost a pretty penny, whereas a larger model may be more affordable.

2. Optional NVMe

Check for a spare NVMe SSD slot

One thing I always look for when either reviewing a new model of gaming laptop or scouting for a good deal is check whether there's a spare NVMe SSD slot available. This isn't just needless future proofing—a spare NVMe SSD slot means you can both upgrade your storage with another SSD or transfer your existing storage to a bigger drive with ease.

This is especially important as most gaming laptops only come with 1 TB of storage, or possibly less, and that will be gobbled up very quickly by any of today's biggest games. It's a bugbear of mine with so-called 'premium' gaming laptops that spare no expense… except the SSD capacity.

It's a more common issue than you'd think. Even the Zephyrus G14 and Blade 14 usually come with no more than 1 TB and no spare NVMe slot.

I was hoping manufacturers might get the memo and start shipping more 2 TB SSDs as standard in 2026, though given the cost of flash memory, that's unlikely to happen for years. For now, just make sure you have access to a spare slot and you can upgrade your storage with either an old one you have from another PC, or if you can afford it, one of the best SSDs for gaming, with just a few simple steps.

Generally, gaming laptops come with a a handful of cross-head or Torx screws holding on the underside cover. These can be easily removed with a good electronics screwdriver set. You might need to use some sort of plastic prying device to get under the edge of this cover, but it should come away relatively easily without too much force. I've only reviewed a handful of laptops where this felt like a hassle—if in doubt, don't force it. Once removed, look for a spare NVMe slot, as per the image above.

3. GPU rich, CPU poor

Spend your money on the better GPU

When searching the web for laptop deals, I often find gaming laptops with budget GPUs inside them. However, they're usually not on sale for the sort of discount you might expect relative to their performance. An RTX 5050 isn't a bad GPU for 1080p gaming, but it's not always much more affordable to buy than an RTX 5060 with a decent discount.

Sometimes you'll end up with a better model of CPU in exchange for a lower-end GPU. That's fine for people that are only relying on the GPU for acceleration, encoding/decoding, or the odd spot of gaming; and who otherwise would use a more powerful CPU to its fullest. But for most PC gamers, it's better to buy a more powerful GPU and accepting the slower CPU—your frame rates will thank you.

Sure, the CPU is a part of the processing equation and matters for frame rates, but often it won't matter anywhere near as much as the GPU.

The other thing to think about is what the designated power limit is for the GPU in the laptop you're looking at is. With desktop GPUs they have a set power limit, or total graphics power (TGP), but on the mobile side they come with a range to suit different chassis with different thermal limitations.

But it's not always thermal limitations which limit the power of the GPU. Sometimes it's about segmentation. Frustratingly, it's often difficult to find out whether the laptop you're looking at has an RTX 5060 running at 100 W or one running at 45 W, for example, and the difference can be huge.

In fact an RTX 5050, a GPU tier down, running at 100 W will often outperform an RTX 5060 running at 45 W. So it pays to do your homework looking at specs sheets and potentially reviews for this info. It's something we list as standard in all our gaming laptop reviews.

4. Remember memory

Make sure you're not missing out on memory

Single-channel memory winds me up. This is when a manufacturer uses a single stick of RAM inside a single SO-DIMM slot and leaves the second SO-DIMM slot empty. It doesn't sound that bad, but that's performance left on the table for a monetary saving, and one which it doesn't appear to me is passed along to the consumer that often.

When memory prices are increasing by the day, it is even more common to find a gaming laptop that's short on memory sticks, and that's an increasingly expensive upgrade for a user to carry out after making a purchase. So ensuring you have plenty from the get-go is more important than ever.

What you want is two SO-DIMM slots occupied, as this means all the channels available on a CPU are being utilised at once for higher bandwidth. Higher bandwidth equals more performance. When you only use one stick, the bandwidth is fairly needlessly halved. It depends on what you're doing at the time as to how much performance you might lose: in some memory-intensive workloads it could be double digit performance loss, in others, even often games, it might not be anywhere near as much.

My advice then is to always check the full specs of any laptop you're thinking of buy and check to see if it either specifically says "dual channel" in the memory specifications, or instead denotes it as, for example, a 16 GB (2x 8 GB) setup.

5. Clever combo

Do the laptop's specs make sense together?

This is as much about a screen's resolution as it is your choice of GPU. If you have an RTX 3050 inside your machine, you probably don't need a 1440p screen with a refresh rate above 144 Hz. You won't see much of a benefit in any sort of moderately demanding game. I'd even go as far to say you can probably spend the same money you were going to spend on that 'premium' RTX 3050 gaming laptop on a more sensibly balanced machine with a better GPU and a smarter screen choice. That's depending on the deals at hand, but it's not as unrealistic as it sounds.

I'd recommend sticking to 1080p with an RTX 5060 laptop or below. For an RTX 5070 or above, you can dive into 1440p, unless you want to push high frame rates for competitive gaming. In which case, 1080p is likely still the pick for you.

For gaming laptops alone, I'd generally recommend steering clear of 4K, as even the best RTX 5090 laptop is using a power-limited GPU akin to a desktop RTX 5080. While that's still plenty powerful, 4K gaming is a tougher ask of a laptop than it is a desktop, and you won't be able to extract your screen's top performance without a large dose of DLSS. Even then, 4K does feel a little wasted on a gaming laptop with a compact display, whereas it makes much more sense for a content creation device.

It's worth mentioning that it's common to find gaming laptops with irregular resolutions. I'm talking about 2560 x 1600, mostly. That's a result of pushing the vertical resolution higher on a 2560 x 1440 screen to accommodate the 16:10 aspect ratio. Some of our favourite laptops have this resolution today, such as the Zephyrus G16, though it does pair that with a 240 Hz refresh rate, which can get a little too much for its components in a thermally-constrained chassis.

A 2560 x 1600 resolution with a 165 Hz refresh rate is a golden combo.

You can always drop down to 16:9 from 16:10 for a little performance boost in a given game, and still enjoy the same clear picture quality. However, if you drop a 4K laptop down to 1080p or 1440p, and it's not a dual-mode screen like the one found on the Razer Blade 16, the picture can get pretty fuzzy. That's why it pays to pick the best resolution before you buy.

Bonus: downsides

Bonus: Gaming laptop or gaming PC—be aware of the downsides

Noise, heat, longevity—these are three very important factors to consider when deciding between a gaming laptop and a gaming PC. The benefits of a gaming laptop are clear, but when it comes to these three things, you will find a gaming PC easily outflanks even the best gaming laptop around.

A gaming laptop might not always be empirically louder than a comparative gaming PC, but it's almost certainly more noticeable to the user. You're closer to the fans, and those fans are working harder. A gaming PC, on the other hand, will usually have a higher quantity of larger fans. These can run slower and therefore will operate at lower noise levels. Combined with the fact you'll have a gaming PC under a desk, or at least not directly under your nose, it can be a much quieter experience. This also helps the gaming PC cool off quicker than a comparable laptop.

As mentioned earlier, you're largely stuck with your choice of components in a gaming laptop when you buy it. Maybe you can upgrade the RAM or SSD, but the CPU and GPU are soldered in place and not removeable (at least easily) compared to the PCIe add-in cards and socketed CPUs on desktop. Compared to an easily repaired or replaced gaming PC, you might find a broken part kills your laptop prematurely, and you're reliant on a warranty claim with the manufacturer or an expensive repair elsewhere.

This might sound like I'm trying to dissuade you from buying a gaming laptop. I'm not. They can be extremely convenient and flexible in a way that a gaming PC could never. They can cover a multitude of use cases—not just gaming but school or office work, too. Though it's good to be sure of your reasons to buy a gaming laptop over a more traditional gaming PC before you head to the checkout. Otherwise, if you are planning to keep your machine mostly tethered to your desk, you can usually score a better deal on a gaming PC that can be upgraded easily.

There are few parts of your gaming PC setup that will happily make the transition between multiple generations of your own system, but a good gaming monitor will absolutely be one of them. Pick well and you can end up with a display that lives with you through several different graphics cards and PCs, and still deliver an outstanding gaming experience through it all.

Though, it must be said, where once there was a somewhat beneficial state of stagnation in the monitor market, one that enabled a high-end screens to be at the top of the game for a decade, things have changed and are moving apace. Where a 2560 x 1440 IPS panel with a 144 Hz refresh rate could have been considered top spec for the longest time, we're at a point when OLED screens have taken hold, offering 4K resolutions and 240 Hz+ refresh rates for the best gaming monitors. For a price.

That, however, is great on multiple counts. On one hand, you get high-end panels with the sort of image fidelity we could only have dreamed of a couple years back, while on the other, such is the sky-high pricing of peak OLED technology, and its cemented position as the de facto top pick, that the sort of screen you can now get for a couple hundred dollars or a few hundred quid is nothing short of stunning. The top screens of two years ago are now phenomenally affordable.

The other boon right now is that OLED technology is marching on apace, so last-gen panels we swooned over before are now going into far more affordable ~$300 monitors now more advanced versions have been born. So yes, OLED screens are now actually something to recommend outside of the top-set of PC gaming pocket money. About time we had some positive PC hardware news on pricing. I'm sure AI will mess that up, too, but while it's here you might as well take advantage.

And the time to do that could be upon us as we're about to roll into Amazon Prime Day (week), which has been my impetus to update this page itself. We're expecting some great deals on screen over the event, so save our best Prime Day gaming monitor deals page, as we'll be curating the very best display discounts on Amazon as well as the usual Newegg-y, Best Buy-y suspects, too.

So, here's what you need to think about before buying your very first gaming monitor:

1. Can you afford an OLED?
2. HDR is a nice-to-have not a need-to-have
3. How many screens do you want?
4. What's your GPU?
5. Don't go unnecessarily chasing refresh rates

1. To OLED or not to OLED

Can you afford an OLED?

OLED gaming monitors are the current pinnacle of screen technology. The latest LG and Samsung-built 4K panels—the highest resolution OLED gaming display you can currently buy—are some of the best monitors we've ever seen. But they are incredibly expensive. When you can buy a 55-inch OLED TV for $900, it feels a little hard to swallow having to pay over $1,000 for a 32-inch monitor that doesn't even have a tuner or OS inside it.

But why would you want an OLED monitor? The simple answer is that OLEDs deliver perfect, genuine blacks and a level of contrast that is impossible to find from any other current monitor technology. The technical reason is that each pixel is self-emissive, which means it doesn't require a light source behind it, and therefore means there is no bleeding of light between them. That's what makes the contrast so crisp and the blacks so deep.

They don't have the same sort of full-screen brightness as something like a mini-LED display, but a good modern OLED will deal with what it's got better than any other panel technology.

You no longer have to spend the big bucks to get one, however. With OLED gaming monitors now getting multiple generations into the segments lifetime, earlier generations of panels (that we loved) are now far more affordable. You can now get a great OLED gaming monitor for as little as $350 new. That's a big change. Obviously the latest and greatest screens are still big bucks, $1,200+ displays, but there's now a range.

The flip-side, as I've said earlier, is that the emergence of genuinely great OLED gaming monitors has crushed the prices of panels we would've thought of as top-spec just a short while ago. So, even if you can't afford an OLED monitor, there are stunningly good value IPS and VA panels (the other two panel technologies we recommend) available right now that will still look great in-game and on your Windows desktop.

2. Oh no, HDR

HDR is a nice-to-have not a need-to-have

It's very easy to get caught up in the marketing buzzwords of the day, and the HDR (or high-dynamic range) performance of a screen has been used for the past five years or so to denote whether a monitor is a particularly good gaming display. The problem is that HDR gaming on PC is, at best, a mess and, at worst, replete with what seem like obfuscating certifications.

My issue is with the DisplayHDR certification brought in by the VESA group, an organisation lead by monitor and panel manufacturers. Ostensibly, the certification was designed as an open standard which purported to show the HDR performance of a screen. Unfortunately, when you label something as the lowest standard—DisplayHDR 400—the expectation is that it is capable of HDR gaming. While that is technically true, it's not a great experience.

The '400' bit means that a certified screen is capable of a peak 400 nits brightness, which isn't all that bright if we're being honest. That's absolutely fine for a standard dynamic range screen, and you can have a great time gaming on a 400 nit display, just not a great HDR time. You won't get the little peaks in brightness which really make a HDR image pop.

To get a proper HDR experience you need either an OLED with true blacks and almost infinite contrast, or a screen with a ton of bright backlights, such as an expensive mini-LED panel. Even then, even then, HDR on PC is a cludge. It's a mess of mismatched settings and awkward features which contradict each other and need to be manually enabled each time you game or your display experience suffers outside of gaming.

If you can get a DisplayHDR 600 or 1000 rated panel, then fine, you're going to get a decent HDR representation, but I wouldn't specifically pay over the odds to get that specs box ticked if you're not 100% certain that you need HDR in your life.

3. Multi-monitor

How many screens do you want?

Are you content with running your gaming PC with just a solitary monitor, or do you feel the need, the need for moar? Personally, I'm a multi-monitor kinda guy because I spend a lot of time working on my machine, and I like to play games full-screen on one and have something else going on with a second screen.

But you can almost get the best of both worlds with a single screen, so long as that screen is wide enough. Or ultrawide enough. That is a species of gaming monitor with an aspect ratio of at least 21:9, and can get even wider if you pick a ludicrously broad 57-inch wide boi.

Some of these screens are effectively a pair of 32-inch 4K panels smooshed together in a holy ultrawide union. And some will even allow you to enter into a mode where you can split them up again to use each half of the screen as an individual screen before flipping back into ultrawide mode again.

The most arresting use, however, is in gaming.

An ultrawide gaming monitor can deliver a level of gaming immersion and visual splendour that is unrivalled by any mere 16:9 panel. Long gone are the days of having to hack-in ultrawide support for games (except you, Elden Ring, damn you) and having something like Red Dead Redemption 2 writ wide across such an expanse of screen real estate can be a stunning experience. And think about what that extra width can get you in flight sims or racing games, and you'll start to see why there are so many ultrawide gaming converts.

4. Pixel pushing

What's your GPU?

This has to be a key thing to ask yourself before you spend big on a gaming monitor. The native resolution of a display is key to your PC's performance, and we would always recommend aiming to run at the native res of your screen where at all possible. Anything else is a recipe for muddy, fuzzy visuals.

The issue is that the rendering of pixels costs GPU performance, and you can get an idea of the extra load on your graphics card when you actually look at what a resolution actually means in terms of the number of pixels on a screen you're asking your PC to deal with every single second. At 1920 x 1080—still the most popular and easily achievable gaming resolution—you're looking at just over 2 million pixels. It's a simple matter of multiplying those width and height numbers to get your total pixel count.

A 2560 x 1440 resolution therefore means near 3.7 million pixels, which is a fair number over and above 1080p but not unreasonably so. Stepping up to 4K (or rather 3840 x 2160) and we're now talking about around 8.3 million pixels, and you can see why that now places such a burden on your GPU.

Most modern graphics cards of this, and the previous generation should be more than capable of powering a native 1080p gaming monitor without breaking a sweat, and should also be relatively capable of running a 1440p display. Throw upscaling and some judicious adjustments to your game's graphics settings, and you'll get high frame rates out of most of them, too.

But only the very best graphics cards can comfortably cope with running a game at 4K native resolutions, especially without the magic of upscaling or frame generation. 4K gaming arguably starts around the RTX 4070 Ti Super level, and often benefits from 12 GB of VRAM or more.

Don't be worried, however, if you're looking for a new monitor today, and a new graphics card down the line. If you're going to spend out on a high-end GPU of this generation, then speccing your monitor purchase to cater to that future card over your current won't necessarily deliver a terrible experience.

A 4K monitor can still look decent running at 1440p and likewise a 1440p display can run at 1080p without looking too dreadful. It will certainly see you right while for the time you're gaming out your time with an older card in preparation for a new purchase down the line.

5. Refresh rate

Don't go unnecessarily chasing refresh rates

It's easy to get caught up in the chase for ever higher numbers. It's something that marketers will always latch onto as it avoids having to explain more complex topics and features of a particular product and it's absolutely prevalent in tech.

Big number: good. Lower number: bad.

Ever higher refresh rates are such a marketing folks' dream digits, and ever since we made gaming monitors push beyond the 60 Hz refresh rate they were locked for the longest time it's been a race to ever higher figures.

The refresh rate is the number of times a screen will refresh in a second. At 60 Hz the screen is refreshing every second, and if your game's running at 60 fps then you've got a perfect match and the image will feel smooth. But higher refresh rates can be so much smoother.

I will admit I am an absolute sucker for high refresh rate screens, and will happily zoom windows around my 240 Hz Windows desktop just for the thrill of watching them smoothly float across my display. But in-game it's a whole other thing. For a locked 240 Hz gaming monitor to feel super smooth you really need to be running at 240 fps, and that is not easily achievable. And what about a 360 Hz or 480 Hz panel?

For me, so long as you're looking at a gaming monitor with a refresh rate of 144 Hz or 165 Hz then you are going to have a great gaming experience. Anything higher and you're relying on your PC and its GPU to be able to match your panel. Good luck with that.

If you were thinking about Humble Choice in this, the month of November 2024, it's a pretty darn good month to go for it. This month's Humble Choice nets you keys for Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, Persona 4 Golden, The Lamplighter's League, Cassette Beasts, The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales, KarmaZoo, Hexarchy, and Garden Life.

Now's probably the best time yet to try out Darktide, as the four pack co-op shooter has overhauled its entire weapon system with new stuff to tweak and increased player agency. Darktide was our Best Ongoing Game in 2023, after a rocky 2022 launch that nonetheless picked up an 80% review.

On entirely the opposite end of the gaming spectrum is all-time great, beloved JRPG Persona 4 Golden. It's a game that I expect to see re-released over and over for the rest of my life. "This JRPG favorite has aged like a fine malt," said writer Chris Schilling in the 87% Persona 4 Golden review. It's impossible to disagree, frankly—if you dislike the game, you probably dislike most of the genre.

Tagging in as an obscure pickup is turn-based stealthy tactics game The Lamplighter's League, which saw disappointing sales but is an enjoyable pulp-flavored romp through a mix of occult and technological worlds. We said it was one of the 8 underappreciated games of 2023 that we think deserve way more players, and that holds true a year later. If you're here for that, by the way, there's roguelike card-counting Civilization type game Hexarchy.

Those are pretty dang good, but there's more! Cassette Beasts is a pretty sick co-op remix on Pokemon with more strategy than you might expect. There's also surreal adventure game The Bookwalker—which I'll just point you at Ted Litchfield's impressions of for an idea of why it's cool.

You can find the offer over on Humblebundle.com/membership.

Black Friday is now in the rear view mirror, but with the arrival of Cyber Monday there's still time to get a cheap throne.

👉Our top Black Friday 2025 PC gaming deals👈

The things we look for in a gaming chair are comfort, ergonomics, durability, value and looks. Mostly in that order. We review gaming chairs throughout the year, which informs the deals we highlight. That experience really matters with gaming chairs. There is a lot of trash out there—many super-cheap chairs to sift through at some retailers. If a deal looks too good to be true, it usually is.

Cyber Monday gaming chair deals — Quick links

• PC Gamer's favorite gaming chair: Secretlab Titan Evo for AU$799

• Amazon: Cheap deals on gaming and office chairs galore
• Secretlab: Savings on the very best thrones on the market
• MSI: Deals on MSI's gaming chairs plus much more
• Mwave: Big savings on gaming and office chairs from well-known brands
• eBay Australia: Seats galore on the online jumble sale
• Ergotune: Beloved gaming / office hybrids for cheap

Black Friday gaming chair deals

Our magic price searching bots are all over the web, tracking down the best prices all the time. That means this list will be regularly curated multiple times each day.

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Buying advice: gaming chairs

November's a difficult time for us PC gamers looking out for our next purchases. We don't want to jump the gun when there could be better deals at the end of the month when Black Friday begins, but we also don't want to risk passing up great offers. I know I'd be facing such a dilemma looking at this build if I were in the market for a new gaming PC right now.

To be clear, we did see an RTX 4070 Super PC go for $100 cheaper than this during October Prime Day. But that was such a good price and such a rarity that it genuinely did flabbergast me. It might return for that price during Black Friday, sure, but there's no way of knowing. And right now, this Yeyian Tanto build for $1,200 at Newegg is pretty damn good.

It's still in a price bracket where most gaming PCs have an RTX 4060 Ti graphics card in them—not even an RTX 4070. And even forgetting about great discounts for a moment, the RTX 4070 Super is arguably the only truly high-end current-gen graphics card that's actually affordable for more than a handful of people.

Throw that inside a fully built rig and slap a discount on that puts it not too far north of $1,000? Yeah, I don't know whether I'd wait for Black Friday.

But that isn't to say there are no downsides to the Tanto. For one, it's only got 16 GB of RAM, and it's not the fastest DDR5 memory on the market. Second, you're looking decidedly at a gaming PC here and little else, because the Core i5 13400F isn't going to get you very far in heavy productivity tasks. Though of course for everyday use it'll be great, and in fact we rate it as the best budget CPU for gaming—it's just that it is a budget chip.

For gaming, though, these sacrifices are well worth it for the discounted cost, as the GPU is what really matters. An RTX 4070 Super gaming PC for $1,200 rings nicely to my ears. There's not much more to it than that.

If this 4070 Super build doesn't hit right for you, though, be sure to check out some more of the best Black Friday gaming PC deals. We'll be keeping this page updated with some of the best gaming PC discounts in the lead-up to Black Friday and beyond.

Geekom builds some of the best mini PCs currently available, managing to pack an awful lot of hardware into some very small packages. A prime example is the tiny but mighty Geekom A7 R9, which we’re currently swooning over thanks to a very nice early Black Friday discount – one that makes it even better value for money than usual.

The Geekom A7 R9 lives up to the mini PC moniker, with a compact aluminum chassis that measures in at just 112 x 112 x 37 mm (4.4 x 4.4 x 1.5 inch), yet squeezes in a powerful AMD Ryzen R9 7940HS CPU, 32GB of DDR5 RAM and a comfy 2TB NVMe SSD with Windows 11 pre-installed. The system includes Radeon 780M graphics that can drive up to four displays at 4K resolution, or a single display at 8K. It’s also a competent casual gaming machine, and has loads of other features like Wi-Fi 6E, Gigabit Ethernet, an SD card reader and USB ports galore.

Want to know more? Check out the Geekom A7 mini PC review from our colleagues at TechRadar (spoiler: they loved it, awarding it a Highly Recommended badge), or take a deep dive into the hardware over at Anandtech.

The deal above are available until October 31, but Geekom is also getting in ahead of the Black Friday sales and has discounted a wide range of other mini PCs by up to 40%. Find out more at the official Geekom site for your region:

• Geekom US
• Geekom UK
• Geekom AU

Geekom is a PC Gamer preferred partner (What does this mean?)

During Amazon's previous Prime Day sale, PC Gamer's Jacob Fox and Kara Philips both recommended that we all snag wireless 8BitDo controllers, and they were so persuasive that I'm picking up the torch and spreading their message myself, because one of these quality gamepads is on sale again during Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days event.

"Once upon a time, I had a plentitude of Xbox controllers which I verily enjoyed, then I found 8BitDo, and I've not turned back since," Jacob wrote earlier this year. His favorite controller in the 8BitDo family, the retro 8BitDo Pro 2, is sadly not on sale this time, but the more Xbox-like 8BitDo Ultimate is $10 off on Amazon.

• We're curating the best Prime Day PC gaming deals right here.

Here's what Kara had to say about the 8BitDo Ultimate back in July: "I use the Ultimate as my go-to controller for most things. Its build is far more comfortable than the majority of other Xbox-style controllers I've used, which is important for me since after a few hours I tend to find my hands cramping with a lot of controllers. It's also got a fantastic battery life, which I've tested to be around 40 hours, and even then it only takes a couple hours to charge when flat."

Aside from the generally good build quality and battery life, one convicing reason to switch to an 8BitDo controller is their use of "Hall effect" sticks. Rather than measuring your analog stick movements with a potentiometer, which can wear out and cause the dreaded stick drift phenomenon, Hall effect sticks use a sensor that does not require physical contact, so they don't succumb to wear and tear in the same way. It's not a new technology, but it's the one we prefer for controllers.

"Hey, Rufus, show me some gaming laptop deals... no, gaming laptops."

This is my first experience using Rufus, the Amazon AI built to offer sage advice to shoppers. Mostly shoppers that have money burning a hole in their pocket but no idea what to spend it on. Since we're in the midst of the October Prime Day, aka Big Deal Days, aka Let's Turn on the Money Hose 2.0, I felt it an appropriate time to ask Rufus for a little guidance. 

After all, we're sacks of flesh and bones spending our precious time on Earth browsing Amazon, Newegg, Best Buy and other retailers to deliver up steaming hot deals on a silver platter for PC gamers. Why not offload this job to a purpose-built AI?  AI will, after all, make everything better—one way or another.

Asking Rufus for gaming PC deal recommendations

First, I asked Rufus for gaming PC deals. It spat out five, which was nice. These are:

• a Skytech Azure gaming PC with a Core i7 13700F, RTX 4060 Ti, 1 TB SSD, 16 GB DDR5 RAM and a chunky 360 mm liquid cooler | was $1,599.99, now $1,234.99 
• a iBuyPower Trace Mesh gaming PC with a Core i7 14700F, RTX 4060 Ti, 1 TB SSD, 32 GB of DDR5, and a less fancy air cooler | was $1,349.99, now $1,099.99
• a iBuyPower Slate Mesh gaming PC with a Ryzen 5 7600, RTX 4060, 500 GB SSD, 16 GB of DDR5, and a standard air cooler | was $999.99, now $799.99
• a iBuyPower Trace Mesh gaming PC with a Ryzen 5 4500, GTX 1650, 1 TB SSD, 16 GB  of RAM, and a standard air cooler | was $699.99, now $594.99
• a iBuyPower Trace 7 Mesh gaming PC with a Ryzen 7 5700, RTX 3050, a 1 TB SSD, 16 GB of RAM, and a chunky air cooler | was $799.99, now $679.99

This AI has a thing for iBuyPower, clearly. Don't worry, it gets a little more varied with other product categories—there are just a lot of iBuyPower PCs on sale right now on Amazon. Like the one we caught with our human eyeballs earlier, which I'll drop below for comparison.

The PCs picked out by Rufus don't sing to me. The best ones are just fine, and the rest are best avoided.

The two cheaper options come with last-gen graphics cards. That's a no-no. The GTX 1650 is not worth considering anymore, and, while it's not a bad card in 2024, neither is the RTX 3050. You can get current-gen for more or less the same money these days, so why settle for less?

The RTX 4060/Ti PCs are more our speed, though. They're a little on the expensive side next to some we've seen if you're talking just about getting the graphics card, but you can definitely make a case for an RTX 4060 Ti/Core i7 14700F combo for that sorta cash. Still, I'd rather an RTX 4070 Super gaming PC for $1,100.

I'll drop some of those we've spotted below, if you're interested.

Asking Rufus for gaming laptop deal recommendations

Then, I asked for advice on the best gaming laptop deals for Prime Day. It proceeded to spit out five office laptops with nary a GPU in sight, which was less than helpful.

I asked again, this time being extremely clear that I wanted to see gaming laptops.

Out pops just one: an Alienware M18 R2 with an RTX 4080, Core i9 14900HX, 32 GB DDR5 RAM, 165 Hz QHD+ screen and a 1 TB SSD. All for $2,300.

Again, it's not that it's a bad machine, but it's not a great price compared to what else is out there. I get that Rufus only has eyes for Amazon and recommending something from another retailer is somewhat unfair, but you can score a mostly comparable machine for around $1,840 over at Best Buy. The CPU and RAM aren't quite as good on that particular model, however, but there are plenty others out there.

It feels a bit like Rufus plays roulette with the Prime Day deals on offer—lands on one and fires it out. Admittedly when it comes to 'Prime Day' gaming laptop deals, as in those for Prime users only, it was a bit limited for options to choose from. But it does make me wonder what sort of data it has access to, and whether it could be tweaked and tinkered with to be of actual use in the near future?

What Rufus did that was actually useful

It might appear as though I'm being mean to Rufus, Amazon's dear deal-sniffing bot, but I'm actually already seeing the upsides. If you're prepared to dig a little deeper into the deals it delivers, it's a starting point. More so if you're completely bewildered by tech or out of ideas for a gift for someone.

I suck at gifts. I wish I was one of those people who could naturally pick the perfect item, something thoughtful and useful, for every friend or family member. But I'm not. I like to think I do a good job but the whole process stresses me out.

So, I asked Rufus to help me find a gift for a PC gamer in my life. And you know what? It was decent help. 

First, I asked, "What's the best gift I can buy a PC gamer in the Prime Day sales?"

It responded with, "I can help you find an awesome gaming gift. Can you share a bit about their gaming preferences or favorite games? Are they into PC gaming accessories or hardware upgrades? For example, "They are really into first-person shooters and have a high-end gaming rig."

It churned out some generic gift ideas with this answer, before I could respond. These included a pink Razer Blackwidow V3 gaming keyboard, a Logitech G502 Hero mouse, and a SteelSeries Arctis 7 headset. All pretty decent picks for any PC gamer.

The person I'm buying for deserves something a little more special, however. So I elaborate:

"They're a big fan of MMO games and love World of Warcraft," I tell Rufus.

It spits out a few products for me to check out. I'll include the blurb that Rufus has noted for each one.

• Razer Naga Trinity Gaming Mouse: This mouse has 19 programmable buttons perfectly suited for MMO games like WoW, allowing easy access to abilities and macros. The interchangeable side plates provide flexibility.
• Corsair K95 RGB Platinum: This keyboard has 6 programmable macro keys and per-key RGB lighting you can customize for your WoW character and abilities. The Cherry MX Speed switches provide tactile responsiveness.
• Elgato Game Capture HD60 Pro: This device lets them easily record and stream their WoW gameplay in 1080p60 quality. The HD60 Pro captures directly to their PC without lag.

The first pick, the Razer Naga mouse, was exactly what I was thinking of when I told Rufus of my made-up PC player's preference for MMO games.

The Corsair keyboard felt like an odd pick, but when you factor in the macro keys and how it could connect to World of Warcraft, it makes a lot more sense.

The Elgato feels like the odd one out to me. It's sorta interesting for the recording gameplay angle, but it doesn't feel like it has much to do with MMO gamers specifically. So I'd probably ditch this one.

Still, two out of three ain't bad.

Except it's more like zero out of three. Sorry Rufus, but these recommendations actually kinda stink. The reason being that actually they're all old models, replaced by newer designs. The Naga Trinity has been replaced by the Pro, V2, and V2 Pro. The Corsair K95 by the K100. And the HD60 Pro by the 4K Pro.

Amazon doesn't even sell the K95 or Naga Trinity anymore. Where Rufus is pulling this data from, I have absolutely no idea.

So, no, I'm not too worried about Rufus trampling on PC Gamer's deal recommendation patch. Rufus is still in beta and it's not ready for Prime-time just yet. Maybe some day—but will Amazon's bot ever give you the whole picture, including potentially better deals at competing retailers? I think probably not. 

If you want some picks for Prime Day, anyways, you can check out our October Prime Day PC gaming deals page for plenty made by 100% real humans. 

USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 external SSDs might be pretty cheap these days, but it's hard to compete against a Gen 2x1 drive such as the T7 shield when it's selling for $237.49. Pound-for-pound—er, dollar-per-GB to dollar-per-GB—this rather handsome little drive now costs you just shy of $0.06 per GB of capacity.

For reference, that's proportionally cheaper than any portable SSD I've tested recently—and I've tested a fair few. USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 drives (the newer ones) tend to go for about $0.08 per GB on a good day.  It's also worth noting that the lower capacity versions of this (Gen 2x1) T7 Shield often go for about $0.11 per GB. So the current deal price for the 4 TB version is no joke.

• We're tracking all the October Prime Day PC gaming deals right here!

Why does the T7 Shield usually cost so much? In part, it's because it's very durable. I recently reviewed the stellar Samsung T9, and while it's incredibly high-quality and consistent, it doesn't offer the same protection from dust and water as its ostensible predecessor, the T7 Shield.

The Shield comes with an official IP65 rating, meaning it's "dust-tight" and "protected against water jets" (thanks for that, IEC). It also has the same 3-meter drop resistance as the T9. That's thanks to its lovely ridged rubber casing, which you can see in the photo below. It certainly feels as durable as it's rated to be.

If you have a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 port, you might prefer a drive like the T9 or Adata SD810. But if you don't, or if it's spectacular value you're after, the T7 Shield is a great shout. After all, despite there being 2,000 MB/s next-gen drives out there, the T7 Shield's 1,050 MB/s rated speed is no joke. 

You should be able to transfer moderately sized games in less than a minute. In Jorge's review of the T7 Shield, he noted that about 8 GB of data took about 6 seconds to transfer. That's plenty speedy for most use cases, don't you think?

Of course, you'll find cheaper options if you go for a 1 TB or 2 TB drive. But anyone who's a bit of a hoarder, or who wants the leeway to do some full-system backups, should benefit from a drive like this. 

After all, if you're storing so much data, you're going to want to make sure it's safe, and the T7 Shield's durability should help guarantee that. For this price, it's well worth the consideration.

👉 View the Samsung T7 Shield 4 TB - $237.49 at Amazon (save $262.50) 👈

Amazon has kicked off its fourth major sale event for 2026. Amazon Big Deal Days starts today, September 29, and runs until October 5. In other words: if you're in the market for a gaming headset, gamepad, mouse, monitor or keyboard, you'll want to pay attention.

Those categories are pretty much where Amazon's specialty lies in the PC gaming space, especially if you're after gear by brands including HyperX, Turtle Beach, Samsung, Razer, Logitech, Corsair and Asus, to name just a handful. About to click "buy" on products by any of these brands? Check out my curated list of the best deals below.

Quick links — handy shortcuts to the best PC gaming deals on the web

• Amazon: laptops, games, accessories and more
• Kogan: Peripherals, monitors and more
• MWave: One of Australia's biggest PC retailers
• Dell: expect discounts on monitors, laptops and more
• eBay: spend and save on a huge range of gaming gear
• HP: save on gaming laptops and monitors
• Lenovo: bargains on selected laptops, desktops and more
• Razer: discounts on peripherals and gaming laptops
• Samsung: gaming monitors galore
• Secretlab: price cuts on Secretlab gaming chairs

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I'm keeping track of all the deals across all categories in our live blog. Head there for now, or check out five highlights below.

Six Big Deal Days highlights

Amazon Big Deal Days FAQ

• Back to top ^

Do I sometimes look at the webpage steamdeck.com/en/oled with longing, wishing my launch Steam Deck had that better battery life, that luxurious screen, and that quieter cooling? Would it be embarrassing to admit that? Perhaps instead I should say that I've held off on splurging on a second Deck when I know my LCD model is still perfectly good, because while those OLED updates are appealing, they're not vital enough to get me to drop $550. I might be in danger if Valve was discounting the OLED the way it's currently marking down the 512GB LCD Steam Deck, though.

To celebrate Steam's birthday, Valve is currently offering 25% off the top-end 512GB LCD Steam Deck (the one with the anti-glare etched glass), dropping it from $449 to $336.75. I gotta say, that is a pretty excellent price for what was the premium version of the Deck until the OLED came along, and it's still absolutely a great handheld for playing games on.

The entry level 64GB LCD Steam Deck is only 15% off, but that still brings its price down to just a hair below $300—but that's only a better buy if you want to open it up and add your own 1TB+ SSD to it. The store page notes that this is a get 'em while they're hot situation: "The 64GB and 512GB Steam Deck LCD models are being phased out," which means once they sell through the existing stock, buh-bye.

Post-sale, that will leave only the 256GB LCD model as the last of the launch Steam Deck line. It sells for $400, a significant 150 bucks less than the cheapest OLED. Personally, I'm holding out to see what AMD and Valve have cooking up with those next-gen APUs set to launch in early 2025… 

Like just about everything you can buy, inflation has hit laptop prices hard. Finding a good deal on a gaming laptop isn't easy. But if you've got the cash to splash, you'll be rewarded with a machine that'll put many gaming desktops from just a couple of years ago to shame. Even the cheaper models will allow you to perform pretty much every conceivable task. Gaming is always a bit different though. A better GPU will get you higher frame rates and give you the grunt for more demanding modern games at higher resolutions with ray tracing effects turned on.

It's not like older generation laptops suddenly became useless overnight though. Far from it. There are great deals to be found on RTX 30 series laptops with 12th Gen processors, and of course, there are AMD options too, and they should not be overlooked.

Check back here regularly. We'll be highlighting the best deals we come across. No matter if you're after something cheap, something portable to keep you entertained on the road, an all rounder, or a true desktop replacement, We've got you covered with deals to suit all budgets.

But there are so many gaming laptops to choose from! If you need a bit of a helping hand, check out our picks for best gaming laptop. 

Under AU$1,500

AU$1,500–AU$2,500

AU$2,500-AU$3,500

AU$3,500+

Below you'll find laptop deals from across the web that our specialized deal widget has sniffed out.

With the Final Fantasy 16 system requirements revealing the game would be a whopping 170 GB and Black Myth: Wukong being a measly 130 GB, my poor SSD has been struggling under the weight of so many games this year. If you're anything like me, saving $110 on a 2 TB SSD will mean actually being able to make a decent start on your backlog—or at least telling yourself you will. 

At Newegg right now, you can get the Nextorage 2 TB NVME PCIe 4.0 SSD with a whopping 7,400 MB/s read space and 6,400 MB/s write speed, for just $140. These stats are very impressive and more than enough to take on any game you can throw at it. Nextorage makes some of the best SSDs for gaming right now so are well worth picking up on sale. 

As this model doesn't have DRAM, this is at its absolute best hosting a game library. A different choice may make for a better boot drive but its great store and read speeds make it perfect for running games. 

To put that storage size into perspective, with this in your PC, you could download Dragon's Dogma 2, Elden Ring, Helldivers 2, and Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, and still have 1.5 TB left for, say, 10,000 copies of Balatro. You never know when that could come in handy. 

Though you are unlikely to run out of storage for some time, unless you want to dedicate the rather monstrous 400 GB for Ark: Survival Evolved and its DLC, you could double that storage for just $220 by picking up the Silicon Power UD90. Its read and write speeds are a little slower but that storage value is unmistakable. At 4 GB, this works out to just five cents per gigabyte. 

If you've found yourself constantly having to delete games you want to play because that next Fortnite update just needs a little more storage (Yes, this is a self-report), it might just be time for that upgrade. 

It seems like everything these days is moving towards a subscriber model, rather than owning outright. From endless streaming subscriptions to coffee, printer ink, and perhaps even a gaming mouse, it seems like it's in a company's best interests to nickel and dime your bank account—rather than gobbling big chunks of it when you make a substantial purchase.

NZXT's Flex subscription program allows you to rent that most hallowed of objects, a decently-well-specced gaming pc, in exchange for delicious monthly instalments (via The Verge). According to NZXT's newly-announced specs, for $59 a month (plus a $50 setup and shipping fee), you can be the proud not-really owner of a Player: One Core i5 14400F equipped gaming PC with an RTX 4060 handling the graphics duties.

That equates to $708 a year (minus extra fee) for a system that should actually handle modern games pretty well, although crucial specs like the RAM size and speed, along with the SSD, are missing from the new specs sheet. 

Presumably they come included to make a functional machine, of course, but they do matter a lot when gauging the potential performance of your next PC purchase.

Things scale pretty quickly further up the spec sheet. The Player: Two model features an AMD Ryzen 5 5600X and an RTX 4070 Super. Both great mid-range components, but for $119 a month, that stacks up to $1,428 a year (again, plus fee) for the sort of system we regularly find on discount around the $1,200 mark.

Sitting at the top of the tree is the Player: Three, a system featuring an Intel Core i7 13700KF and an RTX 4070 Ti Super, again, with RAM specs and SSD specs missing. This one'll cost you $169 a month, or $2,028, and I'll be honest here, you really shouldn't be paying that much for this sort of spec in a gaming machine.

It's not that those components are bad. Far from it, as they're actually solid picks for a great gaming PC. But when we often find machines featuring the much more powerful RTX 4080 Super for less, it does strike as a bit of a bum deal.

There's an obvious counter argument here: this subscription system is for people that struggle to save the large amount of cash you'll need for a good machine, and NZXT are of course expecting to make some money out of the arrangement. Plus, NZXT only expect month-to-month payments that are free to cancel anytime, along with 24/7 customer support, free replacements should something go wrong with your machine, and guaranteed hardware upgrades every two years.

Looking at that RTX 4070 Ti Super machine above, however, that'd mean that if you hung on to the PC for two years in the hope of an upgrade, you'll have spent $4,056. And that's around $1,000 more than you'd pay for a discounted RTX 4090 rig if you paid up front. And trust me, not only is that system much, much more powerful than the Player: Three, it'll also be more than two years before it starts getting close to anything you could call "slow".

Ultimately, I'd advise against going for a rental option over saving your cash and buying something from our cheap gaming PC guide. There, you're going to find equivalent machines for less than you'd pay over a year under these plans, or more powerful machines for the same money, and you won't be draining your bank account each month. One large purchase, done and dusted.

Plus, if you pick well, you've now got a platform that should be upgradeable for some time to come, for much less money than you'd pay over the coming years on a subscription model like this.

Put very simply, choosing a gaming laptop essentially comes down to two things: The graphics card it has on board, and price. The former determines its gaming performance, while the latter applies to pretty much everything in this capitalist world of ours. At AU$1,199 this Prime Day, the MSI GF63 Thin with its RTX 4060 offers both capable performance and more importantly: Value for money. A win-win!

The RTX 4060 is what I would consider the first tier of the current Nvidia graphics card lineup that can be used to play all modern games. MSI has configured it to run at a surprisingly low 45W, which costs it a chunk of performance compared to more expensive RTX 4060 competitors, so you might have to dial the settings down on particularly demanding titles. But when you add DLSS and Frame Generation to the mix, it won't fall over in punishing titles, unlike cheaper cards which can really struggle when you add things like ray tracing to the mix. At least its fans won't need to scream to keep it all cool.

Beyond the GPU, the MSI GF63 Thin has a smart choice of partnering hardware. The Intel i5 12450H is an 8-core model with four performance cores and four efficient cores. Don't be worried about this being a 12th Gen processor, its architecture is the same as that used in 13th and 14th Generation CPUs. It's more than capable of keeping the RTX 4060 humming along at its best.

Other key features include 16GB of RAM and a 512GB NVMe SSD. Would a larger SSD be nice? Sure, but you can always swap that out later if you choose. You can also upgrade the memory in the future. That's a plus over many modern laptops with soldered RAM. Remember we're talking about a gaming laptop here at under AU$1,200. That's not far above what you would consider budget territory.

The screen is a 1920 x 1080 15.6-in IPS affair with a 144Hz refresh rate. Again, it's a good match for the RTX 4060 as it will happily perform at 1080p, giving you solid frame rates with decent colour accuracy too.

It's got a decent set of connectivity options including up to four USB ports, WiFi 6 and a HDMI output for driving an external monitor. And, at 1.86KG, it's light enough to carry around all day on campus or the office should you be looking for an all-rounder.

If you're on a tight budget, this MSI GF63 Thin is a Prime Day standout. As a gaming machine its value is really good, while its relatively light weight and upgradeability give it some measure of future proofing. If you want things like an OLED screen or RTX 4070, be prepared to pay more. A lot more.

The 2024 Amazon Prime Day sales event started on July 17 and ends Wednesday, July 18 at 11:59 pm Pacific. That's Thursday at 2:59 am Eastern, and 7:59 am in the UK. (Find your time zone here.)

The end of Prime Day will mean you can no longer claim a special selection of free games—which includes Chivalry 2, one of my favorites—and will see the conclusion of any special "Prime Day" labeled deals on Amazon.

Other retailers feed off of the deal-seeking environment created by Prime Day and run their own competing sales events, and they aren't necessarily going to flip the prices back to MSRP just because Amazon's event is over. Even Amazon itself will still host plenty of discounts after Prime Day officially ends, so don't feel too much pressure to act now (❗❗) on a sale you're half-heartedly into.

• We're curating all the best Prime Day PC gaming deals right here.

At any time of year, the hard thing is finding deals that are actually deals. We use price trackers like CamelCamelCamel to make sure that "discounts" are genuinely discounts, since nothing except brand new products actually sell as MSRP. You'll also find things like big price cuts on old laptops that aren't actually worth it, because you can get newer hardware—like a more recent GPU, for example—for comparable prices.

In our main Amazon Prime Day hub, we've collected all the best deals we've found from Amazon and elsewhere. Jacob has also built a gaming PC for around $1,000 using Prime Day deals.

Here are some of this year's top deals:

As we advised last week, three games are currently available free for Amazon Prime subscribers, on top of its usual rotating freebie selection. Claim them before the Prime Day sales event ends at midnight Pacific on Wednesday night, and they're yours forever.

The games are:

• Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League
• Rise of the Tomb Raider
• Chivalry 2

If you're a Prime subscriber, you can grab the free games here. To take advantage of the offer, you have to link your Amazon and Epic Games Store accounts, and Epic's launcher is where you'll be able to access your new games. 

• We're curating all the best Prime Day PC gaming deals right here.

If you aren't already using the Epic Games Store and the thought of dealing with a new launcher puts you off, I'm sympathetic, though to complicate your decision I'll say that I think Chivalry 2 is worth the hassle of joining Tim Sweeney's metaverse crew—what I said in my 91% review still stands, and a lot has been added to the slapstick (but 100% serious) medieval warfare game since then, including support for unofficial servers and jousting.

In theory, the main attraction here is Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, but as we pointed out last week, its inclusion feels more like a last ditch effort to get some buzz going for the $70 superhero game, which launched earlier this year but has been overshadowed by games like Helldivers 2.

The free Prime games will be available until the clock strikes midnight tonight on the US west coast, when Prime Day officially ends.

The end of Prime Day doesn't really mean the end of Prime Day deals, though, especially with so many other retailers joining in. Our Prime Day PC gaming deals hub contains all the best deals we've found, and we're keeping it updated as discounts come and go.

It's Memorial Day deals time, folks, and I can't think of a better upgrade for your PC than a new monitor. Unlike CPUs and GPUs, monitors don't tend to date overnight when a new model with twice the performance appears.

What's more, while the price of so many PC components has been going up of late, screens have been getting cheaper. Don't believe me? Today you can get a big-brand 34-inch ultrawide 1440p panel using IPS technology and offering 144Hz for under $250. Or you can go 16:9, 1440p, and 170Hz for well under $200.

A little higher up the scale, high refresh 4K gaming is attainable for just over $400. There are even deals on some OLED monitors, with Samsung having already slashed $500 off its 49-inch G9 uber-wide monster. OK, it's still $1,100 and OLED monitors remain pricey as a rule. But even they are coming down.

Anyway, let's kick off with what I think is the best overall bang for your buck right now, a 34-inch ultrawide panel. It's my favourite form factor both for work and play. I love the added immersion of the 21:9 aspect ratio for gaming, it really sucks you in.

The 3,440 by 1,440 pixel res, meanwhile, makes for decent image detail while not hammering your GPU nearly as badly a 4K panel. It adds up to around five million pixels versus over eight million for 4K. Fewer pixels to pumps means higher frame rates.

The 34-inch ultrawide form factor is fab for daily duties, too. It's perfect for running two or even three app windows side-by-side. Personally, I always feel just a little constrained by comparison when using a 'conventional' 16:9 widescreen display.

Ultrawide: Gigabyte M34WQ

Anyway, if that's my favourite form factor, how much does it cost? The cheapest option with an IPS panel and at least 144Hz refresh is the Acer Gaming XV340CK from Newegg for just $249.99. It's an awful lot of monitor for the money.

My only reservation is that it's limited to 250 nits. If you can stretch a little further, I'd recommend the Gigabyte M34WQ above. It's quite a bit more at $359.99, again from Newegg, but it ups the ante to 400 nits and adds HDR400 certification into the mix along with reasonable 91% coverage of DCi-P3. So, there are few if any compromises. If there is a catch, it's that it's not curved, which I prefer on this type of display.

1080p: ASRock Phantom Gaming 27

Right down at the entry level, if you're looking for high-refresh IPS gaming on the cheap, you could do a lot worse than the ASRock Phantom Gaming 27-inch model. 

OK, it's only 1080p rather than 1440p. But it's good for 165Hz and it's only $119.99 from Newegg. If you're on a tight budget you can't argue with that kind of value for IPS high-refresh gaming, right?

1440p: Acer Nitro XV320QU

Well, except to say that 1440p ought to be a minimum requirement, in which case the fun starts from as little as $189.99 for a Gigabyte 27-inch panel, the 170Hz GS27QC. I mean, a 170Hz 1440p gaming panel for well under $200?

That uses VA technology which isn't the best for response, so I'd recommend adding $30 for the IPS-equipped Acer Nitro XV320QU, on sale for $219.99 at Newegg. The catch with the Acer is that it's 32 inches, not 27. That's nice for scale, less so for pixel density.

It really depends on your gaming-to-work ratio and how much slightly rough looking fonts bother you. 1440p is arguably still pretty decent in terms of image detail for gaming. But you will notice the fatter pixel pitch on the desktop. Some you win…

4K: MSI G321CU

In the 4K space, Dave's muse the Dough Spectrum Glossy looks pretty sweet at just $499, currently. That's a pretty amazing deal considering the Dough was once a $1,100 panel.

However, I think 4K works best at 32 inches, so I'd be aiming for the MSI G321CU. Priced rather precisely at $415.68 and running at 144Hz, it's an awful lot of monitor for the money. 

It's VA, not IPS, so not the best choice for, say, online shooters. But then no 4K 144Hz panel is optimal for that. I'm more willing to compromise on VA versus IPS for this type of display where speed isn't the very top priority.

OLED: Samsung Odyssey G9 G93SC OLED

Finally, we have OLED monitors. If you find one, they always sell out very quickly when a new batch arrives, the 4K 240Hz MSI MAG 321UPX is a relative steal at $899. The Alienware 34 AW3423DWF is nice at $799, too.

However, both feel so very pricey next to LCD monitors in the same form factor. So, I'd actually go for the Samsung Odyssey G9 G93SC OLED. It's a 49-inch uber-wide monster but not all that much expensive at $1,099.

It's not perfect, the pixel density is the same as a 27-inch 1440p panel where I'd prefer something that at least matches 4K 32-inch. But the scale is very impressive, the Samsung QD-OLED panel is fabulous, and you certainly feel like you're getting a lot of screen for your money.