Saturday, January 17, 2009

Online Deals and Sales on Computer Hardware and Accessories

I spend about half my time on the internet surfing computer hardware websites because I'm obsessive. Here are some sites you might not know about which have some pretty good deals on hardware.

General Deals Sites
Most people know about these sites, but putting them here for reference. 

Slickdealshttp://slickdeals.net/
Deal Newshttp://dealnews.com/
My personal favorite, especially for cheap laptops. They focus on technology but also have extensive home and clothing sections. If you are looking for a netbook keep an eye on this site they commonly list $50 off sales.
Fat Wallethttp://www.fatwallet.com/3days.php
Sign up with them and they will let you get cashback like Microsoft's Live Search Cashback service. I use the 3 day display the most which mostly lists coupons and sales going on, but they also have forums and a minute to minute site.
Computer accessories 
Cases, Power Supplies, Fans, Heatsinks, etc. Most of these are clearance sites for their main site, so you can look around their main sites as well.

Sidewinder Computershttp://www.sidewindercomputers.com/clearsec.html < Cooler Guyshttp://www.coolerguys.com/coolergarage.html
Xoxidehttp://www.xoxide.com/saleitems.html
Silicon Valley Compucyclehttp://www.svc.com/clearance.html

Computer Cases:
Recently found these two sites, mostly refurb deals but also some B-stock and new products also.

Coolermasterhttp://cmstore.coolermaster-usa.com/index.php
Antechttp://www.antec.com/Search.bok?category=B+Stock
(currently having a sale till the 19th: http://www.antec.com/usa/B-stock_sale.html)
Motherboards:

MotherboardProhttp://www.motherboardpro.com/
Flat rate shipping to the US, prices waver around Newegg's so always compare prices with them.
Forums
Forums can be a great place to find awesome deals. Not only are there "for sale" sections, but many also have Hot Deals sections. Some forums require a specific post count to post deals in their "for sale" sections and some even just for online deals, so I am just posting the sites you can get into easily.

[H]ard OCP Hot Dealshttp://www.hardforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=28
Anandtech Hot Dealshttp://forums.anandtech.com/categori...=40&entercat=y
SlickDeals Hot Dealshttp://forums.slickdeals.net/forumdi...hp?sduid=0&f=9

Academic Discounts
Most major retailers of computers have academic discounts and Iowa State is on most of those. The percent off varies from site to site but is most often 7%. Sometimes there will be deals that cannot be used through the academic discount sites, Dell Small Business coupons for example will not work on their academic discount site. The sites I have signed up for with Iowa State are listed below.

Dell Universityhttp://www.delluniversity.com/
Starts at 7% for all items, 12% for desktops and more for their specials.
Lenovohttp://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/c...8FBE1B7E9C1B79
5-10% for desktops and Laptops, up to 15% for computer accessories
HPhttps://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/s...egister_app.do
As far as I can tell it varies from item to item, configured a netbook and got about 6% off, but they have good specials and free shipping on most items.
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Feel free to add any sites you know of that others might not and I'll add sections and/or sites to the sections.

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