Black Friday is here! We've got loads of great Black Friday PC deals, from super-powerful gaming desktops to compact office workstations and all-in-one computers.
If you want one of the best computers, there's no need to wait any longer - we've now reached the sales event proper, and the deals are in full swing. Plenty of early deals we saw in the buildup to Black Friday are still live too, so finding the right PC for you should be a cinch.
It's important to remember that there will be an awful lot of seemingly good PC discounts during Black Friday weekend, but many of these will hide sub-par or outdated components if you dig through the spec sheets. You can trust us to only recommend future-proof hardware, and trim out the rubbish deals.
We'll keep updating this page frequently to add any new discounts from all the major retailers as they show up. If you're in the mood for something a bit more portable instead, you can check out our Black Friday laptop deals.
We're sure to see a ton of great deals on PCs for every budget this Black Friday and Cyber Monday. We've also included some handy buying advice below, so you can buy a new PC with confidence this Black Friday.
Black Friday PC sales (US): quick links
- Amazon: excellent for cheap mice, keyboards, headsets, and games
- Best Buy: consistently good pre-built PCs
- Walmart: a great selection of desktop PCs from big brands
- Newegg: excellent for processors, RAM, SSDs, and other components
- Dell: really good sales for all budgets on laptops and PCs with up to $400 off
- HP: great for pre-built desktops
The best early Black Friday PC deals in the US
Black Friday PC sales (UK): quick links
- Amazon: the best place for cheap desktop PC deals
- Currys: very competitive pre-built PCs
- Box: Early Black Friday desktop deals now live
- Newegg: great prices on desktop gaming PCs
- eBuyer: another great vendor for picking up components and pre-built PCs
The best Black Friday PC deals in the UK
Should you wait for a Black Friday PC deal?
Black Friday is still a little while off, so is it really worth waiting to buy a new PC? If you need one urgently, then go for it - otherwise, we say sit and wait for more deals to roll in. Desktop PCs, especially gaming PCs, tend to be among the most heavily discounted items during the Black Friday weekend.
It's also worth considering that even if you can afford the PC you want to buy right now, waiting for the sales means you could grab a desktop PC with better specs without having to spend any more. If you want a mighty gaming PC that can run all the best PC games, set yourself a budget early and see what the most powerful model you can get is once the deals are here.
Even if you're not a gamer, there are plenty of reasons why you might want a powerful PC. If you work in a creative profession, like digital art or video editing, a better computer will make your work smoother and faster. Even tasks like financial modeling and scientific analysis programs benefit hugely from a better processor and more RAM, so if you're going to use your PC for work, make sure it's up for the job.
Black Friday PC deals: our predictions
When will the best Black Friday PC deals start in 2022?
Black Friday starts on November 25 this year, although we're very likely to see deals on great PCs start to show up before that date. Although the Friday-Monday period is generally where the biggest price discounts land, there's been a visible trend in recent years where retailers kick off their Black Friday sales early and don't necessarily reduce prices any further.
This starts at the beginning of November, but usually rises significantly around the beginning of Thanksgiving week - that means we'll see sales start to arrive from November 21, or possibly a little sooner.
There are also 'early bird' sales that kick off weeks before Black Friday, sometimes even as early as mid-October. Judging by sale prices from 2021, many of these early bird discounts will be just as good as those seen on Black Friday itself.
Where can I find the best Black Friday PC deals?
Shockingly, you can find them in this article! In the buildup to Black Friday and through til Cyber Monday and beyond, we'll gather all the best deals on PCs and add them to this page as soon as they become available, with our thoughts and links for you to easily purchase one.
Below is a brief list of the best retailers to check out; our advice is to shop around on some of these sites in advance, to get a good idea of what sort of PC you want to buy once the sales roll in.
US:
Amazon: excellent for cheap mice, keyboards, headsets, and games
Best Buy: consistently good pre-built PCs
Walmart: a great selection of desktop PCs from big brands
Newegg: excellent for processors, RAM, SSDs, and other components
Dell: really good sales for all budgets on laptops and PCs with up to $400 off
HP: great for pre-built desktops
UK:
Amazon: the best place for cheap desktop PC deals
Currys: very competitive pre-built PCs
Box: Early Black Friday desktop deals now live
Newegg: great prices on desktop gaming PCs
eBuyer: another great vendor for picking up components and pre-built PCs
How can I get the best Black Friday PC deals?
What specs should I look for when buying a PC on Black Friday?
The answer to this question is entirely dependent on what you want to use your PC for. If you're just going to be doing basic office work, like internet research, sending emails, and checking spreadsheets, you won't need anywhere near as much power.
As a general rule of thumb for any modern PC running Windows 10 or 11, we would recommend a bare minimum of 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, with an Intel Core i3 or AMD Ryzen 3 CPU. That's the absolute baseline; if you want to do anything remotely more demanding than surfing the web and running Microsoft Office, we strongly recommend more.
When it comes to gaming, you'll want a discrete GPU (also called a graphics card). This could be from Nvidia's GeForce line or AMD's Radeon series - both are good, and broadly speaking bigger numbers in the name of the GPU mean better performance. The Nvidia RTX 3050 and GTX 1660 are what we would currently consider the minimum for a good gaming experience at 1080p resolution, but more powerful GPUs will obviously net you better performance.
You're also going to want at least 8GB of RAM, ideally 16GB, for playing the latest games, as well as an Intel Core i5/AMD Ryzen 5 processor. i7/Ryzen 7 is also good, but anything more powerful than that is likely to be overkill.
The only reason you might want to splurge on a super-powered system with tonnes of RAM, a high-end graphics card, or an Intel Core i9 CPU, is if you need your PC to be able to carry out demanding, resource-intensive tasks. This could be editing 4K videos, or running 3D animation rendering software. In this situation, be sure to do your research in advance regarding what programs you'll be running, and what the recommended system requirements for those are.
In terms of how old the components are, you may want to tread carefully. We'd recommend against choosing anything more than two generations old; that means you can go back as far as 10th-generation Intel or a 5th-generation AMD CPU. Some of the deals that crop up on Black Friday might seem great, but upon closer inspection have some seriously outdated components that won't stand up in the long run.
Lastly, if you're considering something like an iMac or a Mac Mini, you'll have a much easier time. The variation of components here is far smaller than that found in Windows-powered PCs; broadly speaking, we'd recommend opting for one with Apple's excellent M1 chip, rather than the older Intel-powered models.
3 best PCs to look out for this Black Friday
The Dell XPS Tower Special Edition is the rare PC that can tick boxes for every kind of user. It's powerful enough to get some gaming on, with up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070, small enough to fit on a reasonable desk, and comes at a reasonable price to boot. This is the kind of PC that will fit into anyone's home, and hopefully we can see some Black Friday PC deals slash the price a bit.
Read the full review: Dell XPS Desktop Special Edition
