The 7 essential PC upgrades you need to make on Amazon Prime Day

Amazon is generally one of the best places to look for new PC components, which means Prime Day—the gigantic site-wide two-day sale on July 15 and 16—will likely be a great time to at least consider upgrading your rig. If you really want to make the Amazon Prime Day deals work for you, though, you need a plan. This is doubly true when you're upgrading a PC, since there are so many components in which you could potentially invest.

Don’t worry: We're here to help. We’re going to run down the best PC upgrades you can make on Prime Day, based on the likelihood that they'll be on sale and the market right now. If something is currently overpriced, or rarely sees price cuts, you know it's something to invest in on Prime Day. Also, certain items are always included in retail events, and they’re handy-to-have PC parts, so these components are in the list too.

1. Your graphics card

There's always going to be a bigger, better graphics card, so there's no reason to avoid an upgrade if your system's starting to strain under the weight of bigger, more graphics-intensive games. We're already seeing big leaps and bounds in GPU power year-to-year, and Nvidia and AMD are currently involved in a hell of a scrap, so we’re in a "go big or go home" moment right now. The best graphics cards are just getting better.

The 20-Series Nvidia cards seemed completely unattainable for all but the PC building elite when they were first announced, but I’m cautiously optimistic that an upgrade may be in many people’s future. We've already started to see a few discounts on first- and third-party Nvidia cards, so there’s hope that we may see even more on Prime Day. It's a serious investment, even with a discount, but now might be your best chance yet to grab one on the (relatively) cheap. Depending on budget, you should look to pick up one of the core 20-series cards cheap. We predict a 2080 card or two for less than $650, a 2070 for less than $450, and a 2060 for less than $330.

2. A new PC fan or three

It's summer, which means you need to work hard to keep your PC cool. Prime Day seems to be a good time to buy a fan—because of the discounts, not the heat—so it may be worth your time to poke around and see if any of our picks for the best PC fans go on sale. I've never been one to buy a flashy cooling option, but if I could get a powerful RGB fan like the Corsair LL120 RGB, it might be time to start planning my gaming PC glow up. The point is that even if you don’t have a lot of cash to spend, Prime Day is a great time to stock up on the essentials.

3. A new PC monitor

Prime Day should be a good day for the best gaming monitors, especially if you're willing to spend a little more money on the high-end panels, which always see bigger savings. Prices are going down already, so you can expect them to drop even further during the sale. I'm a big fan of my Acer Predator XB241, but there's always room to buy a bigger model or upgrade to 4K, so you may catch most people looking for discounts on the Predator XB321HK.

Of course, with an Nvidia 10-series card and G-Sync monitor, I'm already locked into that system. If you're looking at FreeSync panels, you might look at the Asus MG279Q, PC Gamer's best FreeSync monitor right now.

4. A bigger SSD

Prices on storage tends to fall at the drop of a hat, so getting more hard drive space and/or upgrading to an SSD for less is a sure thing on Prime Day. If you're looking for one of the best external hard drives, Western Digital has historically put its My Passport hard drives on sale during Prime Day, and we expect the same to happen this year. Personally, I'm a fan of Samsung's solid-state drives, so I'll be keeping an eye out for an 860 Pro or 860 Pro Evo, both of which are on our list of the best SSDs for gaming. These are almost guaranteed to be on sale during Prime Day and are wonderful additions to any PC build.

5. Some new RAM sticks

Everyone could use a little more RAM in their lives. Whether you're adding or upgrading, memory is in easy investment and the prices always tend to drop during big sales. G-Skill and Corsair are our favorite brands for high-end DDR4 RAM, which is what you'll be looking for during a sale like Prime Day. The advice is always to go bigger with RAM, especially if you’re under the standard 16GB mark. Speed does matter, but not quite as much as size, although AMD builds especially get noticeable benefits from quicker RAM speeds. All our picks in the best RAM for gaming guide will serve you well.

6. A wireless gaming mouse

2019 has significantly broadened your wireless gaming mouse options. I've personally used a couple of models that have been virtually indistinguishable from wired mice. If you're going to upgrade your mouse at this point, I'd be looking into something wireless (preferably with wireless charging, to boot). That leap isn't cheap, though, so Prime Day's a good way to minimize the cost. Luckily, Logitech is generally a big Prime Day player and its latest, the G502 Lightspeed, is most people's favorite mouse at the moment.

7. A fresh gaming headset

If you're in the market, shopping for a gaming headset on Prime Day will be like shooting fish in a barrel—they always go on sale during big events. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a good sale on something extremely high-end—Audeze’s $400 Mobius gaming headphones. We love them on PCG, but spending that much on a gaming headset is a big decision, so I’m hoping they'll be more reasonable. For the more practically minded, I'd recommend looking out for any of our picks for the best gaming headset, but especially the SteelSeries Arctis Pro and Arctis 7, which is an affordable wireless option.

What upgrades are you looking to buy on Prime Day (or whenever)? Let us know in the comments!