Gigabyte’s ray tracing-ready RTX 3070 graphics card is $130 off - The Verge

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Only the best deals on Verge-approved gadgets get the Verge Deals stamp of approval, so if you're looking for a deal on your next gadget or gift from major retailers like Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, Target, and more, this is the place to be.

While the chip shortage has touched everything from appliances to cars, one segment of tech that’s seen the most challenges is graphics cards. The latest GPUs have been getting bought up and resold by price gougers since the beginning of the pandemic, but now, after signs began looking up in 2022, we’re getting the occasional deal.

Today sees the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3070 drop to $599.99 at Amazon and Best Buy. This is a $130 discount off its regular price of $729.99 and is the lowest we’ve seen thus far for this model. Now, that is still a little pricier than the base $499.99 Nvidia RTX 3070, but it’s common for manufacturers like Gigabyte to build off Nvidia’s reference design and enhance the specs — like this card’s Windforce triple-fan cooling system, higher clock speed, and extra HDMI port.

The 3070 line is perfect for 1440p gaming, and supports Nvidia’s DLSS upscaling and ray tracing for improved reflections. It’s also a bit more budget-friendly on both your wallet and your power supply, when compared to the 3080s of the world. Read our review.

Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3070 Gaming OC 8G (rev2.0) GPU 

• 18% off

Gigabyte’s RTX 3070 is a PCI-Express 4.0 video card sporting 8GB of graphics memory, DLSS, and ray tracing capabilities. This beefy GPU has two HDMI ports, two DisplayPorts, and even a touch of RGB lighting with an illuminated Gigabyte logo.

Over on the smart home front, Google’s latest Nest Mini smart speaker is down to $29.99 at a bunch of retailers, including Best Buy, Walmart, B&H Photo, and Adorama. Most have all colors on offer, so you can match the tiny puck-shaped speaker to your home aesthetic. While Google’s most affordable smart speaker has been around now for a few years, it’s still one of the easiest ways to implement Google Assistant controls into your smart home. You can easily give commands to other devices synced up with your Google Home app, or get some easy answers to requests like the weather and news. It’s far from the best sounding speaker, but it’s mountable to a wall and that does help its sound quality a bit. Read our review.

Google Nest Mini (second-gen)

• 39% off

The Nest Mini is Google’s smallest smart speaker, and it can bring Google Assistant to almost any area of your home. You can even mount it to your wall with no additional hardware.

The Ember Mug 2 makes for another nice quality of life improvement around the home, keeping your coffee or tea at the optimal temperature of your choosing for up to 80 minutes when it’s off its charging coaster. This may sound like an unnecessary indulgence, but if you hate not getting to enjoy your coffee before it’s gone cold, it may feel like a small blessing. Thankfully, the larger 14-ounce Ember Mug 2 in blue is $30 off at Best Buy, dropping its price from $149.95 to $119.95. Many Verge staffers are coffee fiends and swear by the handiness of these Ember mugs, but it’s best to pick one up when they go on sale from time to time.

Ember Mug 2 (14 ounces, blue)

• 21% off

The Ember Mug 2 is a temperature-controlled smart mug that keeps beverages hot for up to 80 minutes while on battery or all day when sitting on its plug-in coaster. The accompanying iOS and Android apps allow you to dial in a specific temperature, from 120 to 145 degrees Fahrenheit.

• $120 at Best Buy

One of the most affordable and most colorful Xbox controllers is now even more affordable. The PowerA Enhanced Wired Controller is now just $24.66 at Amazon in the colorful seafoam green-blue. These controllers are already a great value at their full price of $37.99, even earning our pick as the best budget option in our Xbox controller buying guide, so knocking more than $13 off is even sweeter.

The only major drawback of this PowerA controller is that it still uses a Micro USB connection, which just feels outdated. But aside from that, this officially-licensed controller is comfy and even has two custom-mappable buttons on the rear as well as a rocker dial for wired headset volume. It’s a great value proposition if you don’t mind going the wired route for your Xbox console or Windows PC.

PowerA Enhanced Wired Controller (seafoam green-blue)

• 36% off

The PowerA Enhanced Wired Controller is a budget-minded wired controller for Xbox and PC that connects via Micro USB and features two customizable buttons on its rear. It’s offered in many different colors and licensed designs.

• $25 at Amazon

More deals for your Thursday Thriftday:

• The 24-inch Apple iMac of 2021 with an M1 processor and an upgraded eight-core GPU is currently $1,349 ($150 off) in orange on Amazon. That makes this configuration just $50 more than the base model, with the same 256GB of storage and 8GB of RAM. Also, have we mentioned enough that it’s an orange computer? Read our review.
• Apple’s second-gen AirPods with a wired charging case are down to $99.99 ($30 off) at Amazon. Sure, they’re a bit long in the tooth now, but they easily sync across Apple devices and they’re affordable as well as sounding fine for calls and podcasts. Read our review.
• If you need a basic USB-C phone charger that’s small but still fairly fast, the Anker 20W Nano Pro charger is $15.29 ($2.70 off) when you clip the on-page 15 percent off coupon.
• Got some nostalgia for classic real-time strategy games? Command and Conquer Remastered is just $6.99 (about $13 off) at Amazon for a Steam code. This collection includes faithful recreations of Command and Conquer: Tiberian Dawn, Command and Conquer: Red Alert, and three expansions. Read the review from our sister-site Polygon.
• Drop’s MT3 /dev/tty mechanical keyboard keycap set by Matt3o is on sale for $97.71 (about $7 off) at Amazon in a tenkeyless 91-key set. The MT3 profile gives it a taller, old-fashion look that’s pleasant for typing, since your fingers are cupped by the cylindrically-sculpted keys, and the gray-and-white color scheme has a pop of red for the enter and escape keys.