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HW Sales: 4K FreeSync Display for $290, GTX 1080, R5 1600

Posted on November 5, 2017

We haven’t done a hardware sales post in a while, primarily thanks to parabolic RAM and SSD prices, but spotted a few items for this weekend. Of those, an ASUS MG28UQ 4K display comes down to $290 after Newegg’s promo codes, and is probably the most interesting item. We may end up grabbing one of these for the office – another 4K display for GPU testing would be beneficial. Aside from that one, which is really just GN’s shopping, there’s also the AMD R5 1600 – in our Editor’s Choice CPU series – and a GTX 1080.

 

ASUS MG28UQ 4K Display ($290 after current sales, $350 normally): The ASUS MG28UQ monitor is a 4K, 28” display with FreeSync. The current “Blizzcon” promo code brings the price from Newegg’s list price of $350 to $290,  making for one of the most affordable 4K displays on the market. It doesn’t have as fancy a stand as the Acer XB280HK or other $800 monitors, but it’s also a fraction of the price. This is the one we’ll probably be buying by end of weekend for our lab. If you’re looking for 4K on the cheap, without the nicer stand and some of the finer-tuned specs, this seems to be a good entry-level option.

AMD R5 1600 CPU with Wraith Spire: Earlier this year, we gave the AMD R5 1600X CPU our Editor’s Choice award, and noted that it largely invalidated then-current Kaby Lake i5 CPUs. The R5 1600 is functionally the same CPU, with some clock configuration differences, and is presently on sale at Amazon. The R5 1600 is easy to work with for overclocking, we’d just recommend a better cooler than the Wraith.

ASUS ROG GTX 1080 Strix ($510 after MIR, includes Destiny 2): The ASUS ROG GTX 1080 Strix card is the smaller brother to the 1080 Ti Strix that we reviewed earlier this year, which we noted at the time as the best GPU cooler for peak noise-to-thermal performance. The GTX 1080 version is presently marked down to $510 after MIR (though the $530 normal price isn’t bad, if you’re going to be buying Destiny 2, anyway), and offers good out-of-the-box thermal performance.

Corsair H115i 280mm Cooler: Corsair’s H115i 280mm liquid cooler is one of the better options on our CLC thermal charts, and performs well for lower-noise targets while retaining reasonable thermals. Newegg is presently selling the H115i for $110 with free shipping, making the cooler superior to same-priced 240mm alternatives.

As an aside, we are resetting our content publication schedule tonight: We’re planning to start publishing videos earlier in the day, starting tomorrow, and so skipped today’s video.

- Steve Burke