Technologies

Best Gaming PC Deals: See the Holiday Sales at Best Buy and Newegg

For the gamer on your holiday shopping list, here are the biggest discounts on gaming desktops right now.

If you aren’t up for the challenge of assembling the parts and then building your own gaming rig, a prebuilt system is a quicker and easier route to a new gaming PC. You can find some reasonably priced, off-the-shelf gaming desktops right now with Nvidia’s GeForce 3000-series GPUs. PCs with Nvidia’s next-gen RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 GPUs are starting to roll out, but they are prohibitively pricey. Thankfully, there’s a wide range of desktops with the previous-gen — and still highly capable — RTX 3000-series GPUs, many of which can be found at a discount. And we even found an RTX 4080-based system on sale for a reasonable sum.

PC gamers will find the lowest prices at Best Buy and Newegg right now. After taking a look at the gaming desktops on each site, here are the best deals I’ve found — from a desktop discounted to $790 with RTX 3050 graphics to fully loaded beasts with RTX 3090 and RTX 4080 GPUs.

Check back regularly; I’ll keep this list updated as I find new deals on RTX 30-series gaming desktops.

How to choose a good gaming PC deal

There are thousands of gaming PC deals to choose from, but not all of them are worth your hard-earned cash. As with any pricey purchase, it’s worth assessing your needs before diving in and spending big bucks. When it comes to gaming PC deals, that means looking at how demanding the games you plan on playing are, how your new PC will fit into your existing setup (how many displays it will be driving, for example, and at what resolution and frame rate) and of course, your budget. If you want multimonitor 4K gaming, you’re probably going to struggle with a budget of $1,000, so it’s best to be realistic with your expectations here.

Once you’ve considered those factors, it all comes down to the price-to-performance ratio on offer. The main considerations here are the processor, graphics card and RAM as these will have the most impact on your overall experience. Newer and more powerful parts are going to push the overall price up — just take a look at our list of the best graphics cards for gamers and you’ll see that these don’t come cheap — so consider machines with recent previous-gen components to save some cash.

Should I buy a prebuilt gaming PC deal or build my own?

Depending on how technically savvy you are, the proposition of building your own gaming PC will either excite you or strike fear into you. The main benefit of building a PC yourself is you get to choose every component, shop around for deals on individual parts, and ultimately get more bang for your buck. The downside is that it takes a lot of research, effort and a decent amount of technical savvy. There’s also the risk of something going wrong in the build process, which means you’ll end up damaging parts or pulling your hair out trying to figure out why things aren’t working as expected. With prebuilt gaming PC deals, you get to skip some of the more time-consuming and frustrating parts of the process, but you’ll pay for the privilege and likely spend more money overall.

Shopping for a new computer?

Use the CNET Shopping extension to compare prices of your favorite models at different retailers or add promo codes to your cart with a single click.

Technologies

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for April 20, #1766

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle for April 20, No. 1,766.

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Wordle puzzle has a couple of rare letters in it. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.

Today’s Wordle hints

Before we show you today’s Wordle answer, we’ll give you some hints. If you don’t want a spoiler, look away now.

Wordle hint No. 1: Repeats

Today’s Wordle answer has one repeated letter.

Wordle hint No. 2: Vowels

Today’s Wordle answer has two vowels, and then one of those is repeated, so you will see that one twice.

Wordle hint No. 3: First letter

Today’s Wordle answer begins with W.

Wordle hint No. 4: Last letter

Today’s Wordle answer ends with E.

Wordle hint No. 5: Meaning

Today’s Wordle answer can refer to forming fabric by interlacing long threads, perhaps on a loom.

TODAY’S WORDLE ANSWER

Today’s Wordle answer is WEAVE.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle answer, April 19, No. 1765, was STAND.

Recent Wordle answers

April 15, No. 1761: BEGUN

April 16, No. 1762: CUBIT

April 17, No. 1763: BELLE

April 18, No. 1764: TOADY

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for April 20 #778

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for April 20, No. 778.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle offers an interesting mix of words, and they all begin with the same two letters. Some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Gloriously glaring!

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Shimmery.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

TEAM, MATE, HATE, GATE, LIST, LISTEN, GLEE, LINT, CHEAT, HEAT

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

GLOW, GLEAM, GLINT, GLITTER, GLISTEN, GLIMMER

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is CATCHTHELIGHT. To find it, start with the C that’s three letters to the right on the bottom row, and wind up.

Technologies

Turn up the Volume With These EarFun Air Pro 4 Earbuds While They’re Down to Just $63

The EarFun Air Pro 4 earbuds are the perfect choice for budget-conscious shoppers who still want every audio perk available.

Right now we’ve spotted EarFun AirPro 4 earbuds for just $63, which saves you $17 with Amazon Prime. In addition to this discount, shoppers can save an extra 5 or 10% when making other eligible purchases. Though not exactly its lowest price, it’s just $10 previous short of its previous low record price and one best deals on audio gear we can expect right now.

The earbuds are frequently discounted from their $80 list price, but that $63 price is a significant discount. CNET Executive Editor David Carnoy reviewed the Earfun Air Pro 4, noting that its wireless charging, ear-detection sensors and multipoint Bluetooth pairing for using with multiple devices are all very useful perks.

Carnoy does note that voice-calling performance for these earbuds doesn’t come anywhere close to premium earbuds like Apple’s AirPods Pro, but when these earbuds cost a fraction of that, they could be a good value for someone who just wants something easy to use for listening to music and podcasts.

HEADPHONE DEALS OF THE WEEK

Sony WH-1000XM5 Wireless Noise Canceling Headphones (Black):

$248 (save $152)
Beats Studio Pro Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones (Black):

$170 (save $181)
Sony WH-1000XM6 Wireless Noise Cancelling Over-Ear Headphones:

$398 (save $62)
Bose QuietComfort Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones (Twilight Blue):

$179 (save $170)
Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless ANC Over-Ear Headphones (Black):

$200 (save $250)

Deals are selected by the CNET Group commerce team, and may be unrelated to this article.

Why this deal matters

This earbuds offer many of the same features as those found in top brands, all for a fraction of the price. Be sure to lock in this low price, as we doubt it will fall any lower anytime soon.