There are a ton of sites that sell computers, and 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. However, to save you some time and frustration, you need to be smart about where you look at any given time of the year.

If you’re looking for a new computer during the holidays or around popular sale periods such as Black Friday or back-to-school, then you are likely to find great deals directly through first party vendor websites. These include the retail storefronts of popular computer manufacturers such as HP, Dell, and Lenovo.

However, if you are looking in between sales periods, it’s generally a good idea to search through large third-party retailers such as Amazon, Adorama, Walmart, BestBuy, and Newegg. Oftentimes these websites will offer limited Deals of the Day type sales in hopes of getting rid of excess stock. On the upside, you can score still-decent PCs at a steep discount.

Generally speaking, the best deals are offered during the big sales events each year. These include Prime day, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the back-to-school period, among others. You will typically see the lowest prices of the year for computers during these events.

That being said, there are opportunities to find one-off sales on computers throughout the year from both first- and third-party vendors. These sales are much harder to predict and usually have a time limit, such as one day or one week. Realistically, the only way to find these sales is by checking vendor websites every day.

Since desktop computers don’t have the same restrictions on component size or portability as laptops, the price-to-component ratios are mercifully cheaper than they are in gaming notebooks. This means you can get more gaming bang for your buck in a desktop gaming PC.

When it comes to gaming, the two most important pieces of hardware you’ll want to focus on are the CPU and GPU. Think of the CPU as the heart of your computer, ultimately determining how your system will perform when running software. When looking at a computer’s CPU, you should pay attention to the processor core count which usually ranges from two to 16 cores. At a minimum, you will want four cores, but you might be able to get up to six or eight cores without stretching your budget too much. For high-end systems, you should be looking at between eight and 16 cores. Although even for high-level gaming, having more than eight cores won’t add much benefit.

A good GPU is essential for gaming and it is going to be the component you will want to splurge on the most. For budget gamers a card that offers affordability and ray tracing is the sweet spot. These include the Nvidia RTX 3060 or AMD RX 6600 or 6600 XT. If you want to game in 4K, it is probably best to go with Nvidia’s RTX 3080 or AMD’s RX 6800 XT.

Beyond the CPU and GPU, the other hardware components are less crucial. As for RAM, you should opt for a minimum of 8GB, but ideally 16GB is better—anything over 16GB is largely unnecessary for gaming purposes. RAM is also relatively inexpensive and easy to upgrade if you need more in the future.

For your hard drive, you will want to have at least one SSD, preferably an M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD if you can afford it. SSDs are faster than their spinning disc predecessors and will boot your games faster and provide improved load times. Storage size is more of a personal preference. You should consider the types of games you will want to play and how many you intend to download. If you plan to store a lot of games on your computer, then you will most likely want a 1TB or larger drive. Note that it’s not uncommon for modern games to have file sizes over 100GB.

A home office computer should fulfill all of the needs you have for your work. If you work with spreadsheets and multiple programs, you will want a good processor. If you are a content creator then you will need lots of RAM and a blazing fast hard drive.

You should also consider other points such as available space and portability. If you are limited on space, you might want to consider an all-in-one which combines the computer component and monitor into one compact unit. If you don’t want to be fixed to one location, then you might consider purchasing a laptop over a desktop. If so, check out our best laptop deals section.

The main benefit is the cost-to-component ratio. Due to the nature of their use, laptops have design restrictions that desktops simply don’t have. This means you can generally find better hardware in a desktop for cheaper than you can in a laptop.

Desktops also have the unique advantage of being able to pack in better cooling systems. These dissipate more heat and allow your hardware to run more effectively. Also, desktops are easier to upgrade and expand if you choose to do so. 

For a more in-depth analysis you can read our 5 reasons to buy a desktop PC instead of a laptop.