Black Friday 2021: the PC gaming deals you can expect in Australia

Black Friday 2021 will be on November 26, one full day ahead of last year's date. That means Cyber Monday will fall on November 29 after a retail-heavy weekend.

Last year Black Friday almost lasted from the end of the delayed Prime Day in October. It will be a similar story this year, with everyone, from Amazon to MWave keen to lock in sales early to avoid shipping problems. So expect specific Black Friday deals and offers to start earlier than ever.

• Amazon - Black Friday deals on anything and everything
• Microsoft - Laptops, peripherals and games 
• Dell - Alienware and Dell PCs, monitors and laptops
• MWave - Laptops, peripherals, monitors, hardware... the lot
• eBay - Laptops, monitors and peripherals
• Scorptec - PC specialists with a bit of everything

Obviously Black Friday graphics card deals are off the table for another year. I mean, being able to buy one for anything near RRP would be a start. But you will be able to find the latest GPU silicon in either a pre-built gaming PC or a new gaming laptop, and we fully expect there to be deals on those, especially with newer Intel Alder Lake PCs potentially making last-gen models more ready for discounts.

Along with the news there will be new Ryzen CPUs early next year, last-gen Intel and AMD processors could be cheaper too, in order to clear older stock from the inventory of retailers. With an imminent price correction on memory expected soon, we might see some other component deals, too. 

The arrival of DDR5 might also make DDR4 kits more affordable, and there seems to have been a glut of great SSDs recently too. 

Screens are another regularly discounted commodity around Black Friday, and we doubt this year will be any different. Which means both the best gaming monitors and the best TVs for gaming could get some tasty deals, too.

And there will always be gaming mice and keyboards on sale come Black Friday too.

Anything you don't need. It's distressingly easy to be duped into dropping cash on something just because there's a hefty discount attached to it… even though you have absolutely no use for it. 

If you're considering making a purchase around Black Friday, have a plan of attack. That probably sounds needlessly aggressive, but you need to know what you actually want to buy first or you'll end up with no end of crap. Cheap crap, maybe, but crap nonetheless. 

Do some research on the products you'd like to pick up in the sales (we offer detailed hardware buying guides), and maybe some alternatives in case those don't pop up, and set yourself a strict budget too. 

Products like graphics cards and processors have obvious tiers (though the different companies work damned hard to make product names as confusing as possible), and SSDs have rated speeds, but for peripherals it's tougher to tell from the specs whether they're worth the money. Checking for reviews, from such luminaries as ourselves, should guide you on your way, and checking price comparison sites like our sibling site Getprice will let you know if a deal's more than just skin deep.

If you haven't already used it up during a credit card splurge around Amazon Prime Day, then you ought to take the opportunity to sign up for a free 30-day trial of Amazon Prime. That will get you early access to the Lightning Deals, and help you grab some of Jeff's best deals of the day. It will also net you free shipping on a host of products and speedy delivery too, and at the very worst it'll be handy when it comes to bagging some last-minute Christmas gifts for that aunt you always forget about.