January hardware bargains: AMD's HD7970, keyboards, monitors and more

hd7970 bargains

There weren't many hardware bargains to be had in the January sales as far as PC components were concerned, but in the UK at least it looks like the end of the month is a bit more promising. Shopping around over the last few days to spec up some potential PC builds, it strikes me that while the quantity of good deals around isn't huge, the quality is very promising.

Overclockers are selling Dell's lovely eIPS U2412M screen for less than £240 at the moment. That's a big 24inch panel with stand that's adjustable in all directions, and a sadly unusual but PC friendly 16:10 resolution of 1920x1200, and £70 off Dell's RRP.

Hard drive prices are finally starting to come down in the wake of the terrible floods in Thailand. Aria's got a two terabyte Samsung F4 listed for under £100, which is getting close to what they were six months ago.

I have mixed feelings about Corsair's K60, as I explain in the next issue of PCG. It's an astonishingly good keyboard with one or two silly flaws. But if you can get it for the price LambdaTek are currently charging (£75) it's about £25 less than others have listed it and suddenly a bit more tempting.

Finally, I'm struggling to recommend AMD's latest high end Radeon, the HD7970, purely because it may be awesome but no-one needs to spend £500 on a video card. The best way to get your hands on one seems to be Chillblast's Fusion Marine – a pre-overclocked games PC with a Core i5 2500K and HD7970 for under £1000 (£949 ex VAT, £1138 with). As far as I can see it's about £200 less than you could build the same system yourself.

Feel free to share any other good bargains below.