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Black Friday desktop computer deals: What to expect and early sales

From gaming PCs to mainstream all-in-ones, Black Friday 2024 is already showing great deals for PC bargain hunters.
Sam Singleton
By Sam Singleton
Assistant Editor, PCWorld Nov 21, 2024 2:25 pm PST
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It might be early, but Black Friday desktop PC deals have begun. Some retailers have already launched early deals on everything from home office computers to gaming PCs to all-in-ones.

What’s more, many retailers are offering price protection so you can make your purchase now and rest assured you’ll end up with the best price.

We’re already seeing great discounts on gaming PCs and all-in-ones from Best Buy, Dell, HP, Newegg, and more. We’ll continue to track down and highlight the best PC computer deals leading up to and during Black Friday 2024, so check back later if you don’t spot one you like yet.

Best early Black Friday gaming desktop PC deals

The Skytech Chronos that’s $150 off on Amazon is a solid early Black Friday deal for a budget gaming PC. With a Core i5-12400F CPU and RTX 4060 GPU, you’ll get excellent frame rates while gaming at 1080p with the latest AAA games.

But then there’s also Dell, who kicked off Black Friday with a pair of excellent deals on its Alienware Aurora R16 gaming desktop models. The first is a strong mid-range build for $600 off and the second is a higher-end build that’s $1,000 off. Both deals offer very affordable prices for their respective specs, but if I had the cash, the tricked-out build with a Core i9-14900KF CPU and RTX 4090 GPU would be hard to pass up.

Best early Black Friday mainstream desktop PC deals

Lenovo is offering the IdeaCentre Mini for $140 off on its website during its early Black Friday sale. This mini PC, with an impressively small footprint and great productivity features, is a must-have if desktop space is in short supply and you don’t want to sacrifice performance.

Mac fans need not miss out either, as there’s a rare deal on the M2 Mac Mini for $100 off on Amazon. The M2 is still a solid CPU, and considering that the M4 Mac Mini was just announced, it’s the perfect time to buy the older version at a discount. You’re still getting a capable mini desktop, but without the exorbitant price of a new-gen Apple product.

Best early Black Friday all-in-one computer deals

  • Dell Inspiron 24 AiO, Ryzen 5 7530U/16GB RAM/1TB SSD/24-inch 1080p touch display, now $799.99 (20% off on Dell)
  • HP Envy AiO 34, Core i7-12700/RTX 3050/16GB RAM/1TB SSD/34-inch 5K display, now $1,679.99 (21% off on HP)
  • Asus Zen AiO 24, Ryzen 7 5825U/16GB RAM/512GB SSD/24-inch 1080p touch display, now $783.00 (32% off on Amazon)
  • Apple iMac M3 2023, M3/8GB RAM/512GB SSD/24-inch 5K Retina display, now $1,399.00 (18% off on Amazon)

I really like the Dell Inspiron 24 AiO deal for $200 off on Dell’s website. It might not look like the most mind-blowing AiO, but don’t let that fool you. Good performance features and a handy touch display make this a standout all-in-one Black Friday sale.

Alternatively, the big beautiful HP Envy AiO 34 is on sale for $470 off on HP’s website. This top of the line all-in-one is not only loaded with strong performance features, but the 34-inch 5K ultrawide display is drop-dead gorgeous. Plus, HP even throws in an RTX 3050 discrete graphics card just in case you want to do some gaming on the side as well.

FAQ

1.

When is Black Friday?

Black Friday 2024 falls on Friday, Nov 29. However, many retailers have already started to offer great discounts on desktop computers. Keep your eyes tuned to PCWorld for the best desktop PC deal alerts. We’ll be covering discounts now through November and on to Cyber Monday, Dec 2.

2.

What should I look for in a Black Friday computer deal?

When looking to get a new computer, make sure to get at least an Intel Core i5 or AMD Ryzen 5. Either will provide plenty of processing power for everyday computing tasks.

If you don’t intend to do any PC gaming, then feel free to save some money with integrated graphics. But if you are looking to get your game on, we recommend a minimum of an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 or AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT, as these are the least expensive discrete graphics cards that can handle ray tracing well. If you want the latest and greatest, opt for one of Nvidia’s newer GPUs (RTX 4060, 4070, 4080, or 4090). These are more expensive, but they give you top-of-the-line performance, especially the RTX 4080 and 4090 cards.

As for RAM, shoot for a minimum of 16GB for gaming and ideally 32GB for content creation (e.g., video editing and rendering tasks). But for general-purpose web browsing and office tasks, 8GB of RAM should suffice.

Storage size depends on your personal needs, but it’s generally good to opt for an SSD over a standard HDD as they’re much faster and don’t significantly affect the price of a desktop PC. A good starting place for most desktop PCs is 512GB of SSD storage, but if you have large files to store (such as videos or games), then you should go for at least 1TB of capacity.

Additionally, if you intend to go for an all-in-one with an integrated display, look for a screen with a minimum resolution of 1080p.

3.

What are good websites to find Black Friday computer deals?

There are tons of sites that sell computers on Black Friday, but scouring through all of them would take you a lot of time. That’s why we do it for you here and highlight the best deals we find. Even so, you need to be smart about where you look at any given time of the year.

During holiday shopping times like Black Friday, your best bet is to check first-party vendor websites. These include the retail storefronts of popular computer manufacturers such as HP, Dell, and Lenovo.

However, if you can’t find anything you like there, then you can expand your search to reputable third-party retailers such as Amazon, Adorama, Walmart, Best Buy, and Newegg. Oftentimes these websites offer limited “Deal of the Day” or “Flash Deal” type sales in hopes of getting rid of excess stock. On the upside, you can score still-decent PCs at a steep discount if you time it right.

Black Friday: The best PC deals around

Check out our roundups for the best PC-related deals in a wide variety of categories!

, Assistant Editor, PCWorld

Sam Singleton is PCWorld's VPN beat reporter and jack of all trades. When he's not on the hunt for the best computer deals he's covering VPNs, productivity software, laptops, and a wide gamut of consumer-grade hardware and software.

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