Don’t let rocketing memory prices get you down, as there are still plenty of great PC upgrades to be found that won’t devastate your bank balance. Not only that, but if you’re prepared to get out your wallet this week, you’ll be able to snap up some Black Friday bargains and save even more money too.
To prove the point, we’ve rounded up loads of the best sub-£100 pieces of PC kit we could find. Some of this is just great gear we like and doesn’t cost too much anyway, but some of it is also especially bargainous right now because of Black Friday, and this is where you’ll need to be quick. Whether you’re looking for something to buy the PC tech head in your life, or you’re just looking for inspiration for your Christmas list, we’re sure there will be something for you here, from 144Hz gaming monitors to liquid cooling systems and super-fast SSDs.
AOC 24B36X gaming monitor
Its current Black Friday price of £59.45 is just astounding for the spec on offer
If you’re still viewing your games through the pixellated lens of a 1680×1050 monitor with a 60Hz refresh rate, then now is a fantastic time to upgrade and get with the times. You don’t even need to spend £75, let alone £100, to get a decent step up here, and AOC’s 24B36X is a fine example. It’s already extremely affordable at its usual price of £70-£85, but its current Black Friday price of £59.45 is just astounding for the spec on offer.
That piddling amount of money will buy you a decent 24in panel with a 1920×1080 resolution, and you’ll even get a fast 144Hz refresh rate to boot, meaning it can keep up with fast action. Meanwhile, its IPS display will give you decent viewing angles and a generally faster real-world response time than rival VA panels. You even get adaptive sync support, so it can sync up its refresh rate with your GPU’s frame rate and knock tearing on the head.
AOC Gaming 24B36X
£69.97 £59.45
“Every frame is rendered sharply and in smooth succession, so you can line up your shots accurately.” – AOC
Crucial P510 PCIe Gen 5 SSD
SSDs are widely expected to follow memory down the price path of doom in the near future, but at the moment you can still upgrade to a fast new drive for a reasonably cheap price. In fact, you can even get a super-fast PCIe Gen 5 SSD for under £100 right now, with a Crucial P510 coming in at £89.99, a good £60 cheaper than its MSRP, and a tenner cheaper than the usual Amazon price.
If your motherboard has a 4x PCIe Gen 5 M.2 slot ready and waiting, and a decent SSD heatsink, then this is now a solid upgrade for the money. If you don’t have the latter, then a heatsink version is also available for £96.99, still coming in under that £100 figure.
SSDs are widely expected to follow memory down the price path of doom
Thanks to its use of the latest PCIe interface, the P510 can hit a maximum sequential read speed of 11,000MB/s, making it over three times the speed of a PCIe Gen 3 drive, and massively quicker than a SATA drive. While this drive has dipped a little cheaper than this price over the last year, its cost is still reasonable for this level of performance and capacity. It’s also looking very likely that SSD prices are imminently going to rocket upwards, so now is the time to upgrade your SSD if you’re thinking about it.
Crucial P510
£99.99 £89.99 / $99.99 $89.99
“Choose the powerful Crucial P510 NVMe SSD for Gen5 compatibility and serious speed.” – Crucial
Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro AIO CPU cooler
If you currently have a basic heatsink and strapped to your CPU, or perhaps just an Intel or AMD stock cooler, then making the jump to liquid cooling is a really worthwhile upgrade, and it doesn’t have to be expensive either. Yes, there are pricey AIO coolers with integrated screens and big RGB light shows, but you can also buy a genuinely great liquid cooling system for a very generous price.
It can keep an Intel Core i9-13900K in check without making a horrible noise
Arctic’s latest Liquid Freezer III Pro range is a great example, currently costing £62.49 for a 240mm version that will happily cool a mid-range CPU such as an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D. If you want more cooling power, it will only cost you an extra tenner to upgrade to the 360mm version too, with another £8 even buying you the top version kitted with a load of RGB lighting.
Don’t be put off by its low price either. In our Arctic Liquid Freezer Pro review, we described it as the “new best CPU cooler in town”, noting that it could keep an Intel Core i9-13900K in check without making a horrible noise in the process. It even looks neat and tidy, thanks to its pre-installed fans and integrated cable management system, while its included Intel LGA frame will prevent your CPU from bending under pressure. Just make sure your case has the necessary clearance for the radiators before you buy it.
Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro
£62.49 / $75.99
“There’s a new best CPU cooler in town.” – Read our review.
MSI MAG A750GL modular PSU
The PSU might not be the sexist part of your PC, especially given that we usually hide these big boxes behind covers in the depths of our cases, but a high-spec modular PSU is an absolutely worthwhile upgrade. With modular cabling, you only plug in the cables you need, meaning you won’t have to cram a nest of wires into every hiding place possible.
What’s more, the latest PCIe Gen 5 PSUs also give you new features. At the top of the list is a dedicated 16-pin 12V-2×6 cable and socket for the latest Nvidia GPUs, so you don’t have an ugly adaptor trailing out of your graphics card. The MSI PSU we’re recommending here has all the above, being a modular PSU with flat black cables for easy tidying, and also having a 16-pin GPU power cable.
You won’t have to cram a nest of wires into every hiding place possible
Not only that, but it also has full 80 Plus Gold certification, guaranteeing 92% efficiency at 50% load from a UK mains supply, and 89% efficiency at 100% load. These are good figures, and mean your rig will draw less juice from the mains than it would with a lesser-certified PSU.
Best of all, though, you can currently get the 750W version of this PSU for just £74, reduced from £99.99 for Black Friday, which will be fine for a system with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti GPU or Radeon RX 9070 XT at stock speed. What’s more, the 850W version will only cost you £89 right now, giving you enough headroom to comfortably run a GeForce RTX 5080 in your rig.
MSI MAG A750GL
£99.99 £74 / $109.99 $87.99
“With its native 16-pin PCIe connector, this power supply can freely pipe up to 450W of power to PCIe 5.1 graphics cards.” – MSI
Razer DeathAdder gaming mouse
Yes, you did read that price correctly. You can now genuinely pick up a Razer DeathAdder for just £13.49 in Amazon’s current Black Friday offers. That will buy you the 2021 DeathAdder Essential model, which retains the acclaimed classic ergonomic shape of this Razer rodent, as well as all the core features.
You still get five programmable buttons, with Razer and a 6,400dpi optical sensor that will be plenty powerful enough for most gamers’ needs. Heck, you even still get that a glowing snake logo and scrollwheel. With an MSRP of £29.99, this is the lowest price we’ve seen for this mouse in years, and both the black and white models are at the same discount price as well.
If you don’t have much money to spend, but you need a new gaming mouse that can do the job properly, grab one now while you can.
Razer DeathAdder
£29.99 £13.49
“Its sleek and distinct body is designed for comfort, allowing you to maintain high levels of performance throughout long gaming marathons.” – Razer
Corsair K70 RGB Pro keyboard
Just squeaking into the sub-£100 category thanks to a massive 41% Black Friday discount, Corsair’s K70 is a fantastic buy at this price. This keyboard’s attractive and durable aluminium chassis sets it apart from the usual plastic units you see at this price – it really looks and feels like a premium keyboard.
Meanwhile, its genuine Cherry MX Red keyswitches give you a solid linear keystroke that’s ideal for both typing and gaming. You even get per-key RGB lighting, which can be customised via Corsair’s versatile and user-friendly iCUE software, while the PBT double-shot keycaps have clear legends that won’t rub off in the future.
We particularly like the easy-access volume roller and mute button in the top right corner
It’s really well designed from a layout perspective too. We particularly like the easy-access volume roller and mute button in the top right corner, which is much more convenient than a standard dial knob. The dedicated media keys above the numpad are also handy for skipping or pausing music while you work. If you’re looking to buy a well-built mechanical gaming keyboard, they don’t come much better than the K70 RGB Pro, particularly at this price.
Corsair K70 RGB Pro
£169.99 £99.99 / $169.99 $94.99
“The build quality is excellent as the rigidity is on-point, and there’s also no flex.” – Read our review.
be quiet! Light Wings LX fans
Replacing your case or AIO cooler fans is a cheap and straightforward upgrade that can have a significant impact on your PC in daily use. A splash of circular RGB lighting can really help liven up your PC’s interior behind a glass panel, and installing quieter fans can also stop your PC making annoying noises while you work.
You may want to replace a fan with a broken blade or knackered bearing, or you might simply want to maximise airflow in your PC, quieten it down, or add a touch of lighting. There are loads of options here, but our top recommendation in terms of value is the be quiet! Light Wings LX range. They’re not ridiculously expensive, they have bright RGB lighting, and they also run quietly.
Depending on your priorities, there are different speeds available. If quiet operation is your number one, then a be quiet! Light Wings LX PWM fan has a quiet rifle bearing, while its frosted fan blades make for a great RGB light display from the 16 integrated ARGB LEDs. If you want more airflow, there’s also a high-speed version that can spin at up to 2,100rpm, compared to 1,600rpm on the standard model, and only costs an extra quid.
be quiet! Light Wings LX
£17.90 / $22.90 $15.90
“Boasts optimized fan blades and an illuminated impeller for great performance and lighting.” – be quiet!
Noctua NA-STPG1 thermal guard
This isn’t so much an upgrade as a thing that’s very useful to own when you’re building a PC or upgrading your CPU, and we can’t recommend it enough. Basically, the many indentations on an AMD Socket AM5 CPU can make for big thermal paste traps, and cleaning out your CPU afterwards can be a right faff.
Cleaning out your CPU afterwards can be a right faff
This ingenious little sheet of plastic completely removes that problem. Slip it over your CPU before you apply your paste, and it will catch any overspill, meaning you just need to wipe the top clean. If you’re upgrading to a new AMD CPU, this is a small amount of money well spent for the sake of your patience later., plus you get some paste cleaning wipes in the box too You can also get better value if you buy it in a bundle with some Noctua paste, or in a pack of three.
Noctua NA-STPG1
£6.83 / $8.95
“A simple yet highly effective means to preclude thermal paste build-up in the cut-outs of AMD AM5 CPUs.” – Noctua
NZXT H6 Flow RGB case
Fishtank cases are all the rage right now, enabling you to exhibit your RGB light show, sleeved cables and fancy components from the front as well as the side. The problem is that decent aquarium chassis usually cost a fair bit, but this Black Friday deal on the gorgeous NZXT H6 Flow RGB completely solves that problem. It’s already a fantastic case at its usual price of £110, but it’s an absolute bargain for £85.
That price will buy you the black version of this case, complete with three 120mm RGB fans, enabling you to make an awesome-looking rig without spending over the odds. With PSU flipped on its side in a second chamber behind the motherboard, you can easily hide cables out the way. Meanwhile, the three front fans push loads of positive airflow over your components, and their angled mounting means you can see their RGB lighting in full.
It’s really well built as well, with hefty tempered glass and none of the sharp edges and flimsy components you often find in cheap cases. There’s room for a 360mm radiator in the roof so you can fit a powerful AIO cooler, and there’s the option to install a vertical GPU mount as well. Perhaps most importantly, this case just looks amazing, with its clever design and two glass panels giving you a full, attractive view of all your components.
NZXT H6 Flow RGB
£108.99 / £85
“Prioritising GPU cooling, the H6 Flow’s panoramic glass showcases the interior while freeing up space for improved airflow.” – NZXT
4TB Seagate Barracuda hard drive
There’s one area where SSDs still struggle to compete with good old fashioned mechanical hard drives, and that’s cost per gigabyte. Not all storage needs to be high-speed, though. You absolutely want to install Windows and all your software on an SSD so you can minimise loading times, but it’s much more cost-efficient to use a hard drive for any large-scale file storage.
If you have a massive media library, then a large hard drive is ideal
If you have a massive media library, for example, then a large hard drive is ideal. If you’re in need of a capacity upgrade, then you can currently get a great deal on a 4TB Seagate Barracuda drive. These disks are currently reduced from a usual average of £95.99 to £82.39 for Black Friday, working out at just over £20 per terabyte.
If you’re looking to upgrade your NAS, it’s also worth looking at a 4TB WD Red Plus, which currently costs £92.99 and will work quietly and reliably in your storage box.
4TB Seagate Barracuda
£95.99 £82.39 / $84.99
“Whether you’re building, upgrading, or expanding, the Barracuda is the ultimate storage solution.” – Seagate
Elgato Stream Deck Mini
You don’t need to be a streamer to find one of these little shortcut boxes handy – they can expand anyone’s PC dashboard in a small space, giving you easy access to commonly-used shortcuts that usually involve pressing several keys, for example. What’s more, with this current Black Friday discount, you can pick up an Elgato Stream Deck Mini for just £49.99, saving you a tenner.
This angled box of tricks gives you six customisable, easy-access buttons, each with an LCD to instantly show what it does, give you a real-time data monitor, perhaps displaying your CPU usage level, or even effectively working on its own, for example as a stop-start timer.
That doesn’t mean it’s limited to just six functions, though – you can set it up to easily cycle through different pages of functions at the press of a button, while its drag-and-drop software interface makes it easy to assign your shortcuts. If you’re a streamer, having all these shortcuts instantly and easily accessible at the touch of a button, so you’re not distracted on-screen, is also invaluable. Bag a bargain on one while you can.
Elgato Stream Deck Mini
£59.99 £49.99 / $57.99
“Big power, compact form factor. Six customisable LCD keys bring the iconic Stream Deck experience to tight setups and focused workflows.” – Elgato
Noctua NH-D15 CPU cooler
If you have enough clearance in your case to accommodate it, then a Noctua NH-D15 is an absolutely cracking upgrade. Showing that you don’t have to fit a liquid cooling system to get great CPU cooling, this meticulously-designed heatsink and fan contraption can handle any of the latest CPUs, and cool them quietly too.
Its two big stacks of aluminium heatsink fans are connected to a nickel-plated copper base by six heatpipes, while a pair of quiet-running Noctua NF-A15 PWM fans push airflow through them. The result is an incredibly quiet cooler with an amazing amount of cooling power at its disposal, all with top-notch build quality.
It’s a big beast, though, weighing 1.3kg, standing 168mm tall and spreading 161mm across your motherboard. As such, you’ll need to make sure there’s enough room in your case, and around your CPU socket, to accommodate it before you buy.
Noctua NH-D15
£99.95
“Noctua’s iconic NH-D15 is an elite-class dual tower cooler for the highest demands” – Noctua
So there you go, while RAM prices might be depressing right now, you can still get plenty of great goodies for your PC without spending a huge amount of cash, particularly around Black Friday. For more of the latest deals on PC tech and gaming hardware, make sure you follow the Club386 Google News feed.
