Black Friday Gaming PC deals: the best prebuilt rigs on sale today
Black Friday is no longer just a single day, but a month-long event with gaming PC deals aplenty.
You don't have to wait until November 27 to grab a great Black Friday gaming PC deal, as there are some awesome gaming system bargains already making an appearance. This year it could take on a whole different dimension anyway thanks to one major factor—stock levels. The new cutting-edge hardware from AMD and Nvidia has basically sold out everywhere, but don't assume that means there will be no deals, because there's a very good reason why all the shiny new kit has sold out. It's freaking awesome.
The Best Black Friday Gaming PC deals
So even though you can't readily get your hands on these new graphics cards and Ryzen 5000 processors, system builders can, and they are busily grabbing stock to fulfill consumer orders. And that's potentially good news, depending on what you are in the market for, because that means the last-gen gear is now ripe for cut-price deals.
We're obviously going to keep an eye out for machines rocking the very latest hardware, but there's a good chance that the big bargains to be had this Black Friday are going to be great deals on last-gen hardware. You know, gear that was considered amazing just a few short months ago.
We've split our recommendations up into two different sections: Gaming PCs and Office PCs. Because while we're always on the lookout for a good gaming machine, there are times when you just need a dumb box to do more mundane tasks.
Black Friday deals: quick links
- Amazon - Black Friday deals on anything and everything
- Walmart - Deals on Games, Movies, Budget Laptops
- B&H Photo - Monitors, Laptops, and PCs
- Best Buy - PCs, Laptops, and Accessories
- Target - Games, Accessories, and Laptops
- Staples - Gaming Chairs and assorted office goodies
- Lenovo - Discounts on Legion Laptops and PCs
- Razer - Laptops and Gaming Accessories
- Newegg - Components and Hardware
- Microsoft - PCs, Laptops, and Games
- Dell - Alienware PCs and Laptops
Black Friday Gaming PC deals
Origin PC deals | Pick up to 3 free gifts on select systems
Origin hasn't yet listed any specific system deals, but it has launched its Black Friday bundles. The bonuses take the form of either a $50 VISA card, a 500GB Seagate SSD, a Corsiar Void Pro wireless headset, a Corsair K55 and Harpoon keyboard/mouse setup, a Corsair Dark Core Pro mouse, or an Elgato Mini Dock.View Deal
Omen Obelisk PC | Intel i5 | GTX 1660 | $965 at Amazon
While not sporting the most powerful components by any means, the Omen Obelisk is a reliable workhorse of a gaming PC, and comes from the also-reliable HP stable. The GTX 1660 is a solid 1080p gaming card, and the i5 is a speedy 6-core last-gen processor. There will be better deals, but this is a solid starter rig.View Deal
CyperPowerPC Gamer Master | Ryzen 7 3700X| RTX 2060 | $999 at Walmart
Walmart focuses on the Ryzen 7 3700X in this machine, and forgets to mention the RTX 2060 powering the graphics side of things. That aside, this is a pretty sweet deal, with those two components providing some excellent raw grunt for 1080p/1440p gaming. You can even hit some ray tracing goodness as well. 16GB of RAM, a 240GB SSD and 1TB HDD round things off nicely.View Deal
Black Friday Office PC deals
HP Pavilion TP01-0145m | Ryzen 3 3200G | Radeon RTX 550| $549.99 $449.99 at Walmart
This unassuming box is a bit of an oddity for an office machine in that it pairs the Ryzen 3 3200G's integrated graphics with a Radeon RTX 550 graphics card. Beyond that you get 8GB of RAM, a 128GB boot SSD for the bundled copy of Windows 10 Home, and a 1TB HDD. A decent work system that could play the odd game at a push.View Deal
Lenovo IdeaCentre 3 | Ryzen 3 3250U | $419.99 $269.99 at Lenovo
AMD's recent successes aren't limited to gaming, as this Ryzen 3 3250U-powered office PC proves. This perfectly capable work machine is enjoying $150 off its normal price right now, and for that you get 4GB of RAM and a 1TB HDD. The 3250U is a dual-core, quad-thread CPU that tops out at 3.5GHz, and really not too shabby. You do get Windows 10 Home for your money as well.View Deal
What to look out for in a Black Friday gaming PC
There's only the slimmest of chances that we'll see machines packing the latest and greatest gear hit the bargain bins. The fact that every retailer appears to be selling every RTX 3070, RTX 3080, and RTX 3090 they get their hands on means that there's no need for them to try and entice customers with Nvidia's latest tech. The same is true for AMD's Ryzen 5000 processors, and I'm guessing it'll be a similar story with the Radeon RX 6000 graphics cards.
The shortage of new hardware has had two effects on the pre-built system market. The first is that it has never been busier, so if you do want a cutting-edge system, you're going to need to throw some money down with your system builder of choice if you want anything this side of Christmas (assuming it isn't too late already). If you desperately want an RTX 3080, this is still probably the quickest way of getting one.
The second, and the one that's potentially more interesting to anyone looking to grab a Black Friday gaming PC bargain, is that the last-gen machines just aren't as tempting as they were before this autumn's tech bonanza. At least not for the same money. All this last-gen kit doesn't just miraculously disappear though, retailers and system builders need to sell it to make some money back.
Here's the thing, there's absolutely nothing wrong with machines built around Zen 2, Intel 10th-Gen CPUs, and Nvidia RTX 2080s if the price is right. If you'd bought such a machine six months ago you'd have enjoyed some great gaming with it, and that doesn't change with the release of new hardware. Don't be put off by the fact that such machines don't use the very latest, greatest hardware basically. There are still some seriously good machines out there.
As ever when hunting for bargains, focus on what you need and don't be swayed to grab a bargain just because it's cheap.