Gigabyte’s ray-tracing-capable RTX 3070 graphics card costs $130

While chip shortages are affecting everything from home appliances to cars, graphics cards are one technology segment that has seen the most challenges. The latest GPUs have been snapped up and resold by price-gougers since the pandemic began, but now that signs are pointing up in 2022, we’re occasionally getting a deal.

Today, the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3070 drops to $599.99 at Amazon and Best Buy. This is a $130 discount off the regular price of $729.99 and the lowest we’ve seen for this model to date. Well, that’s still a bit more expensive than the $499.99 Nvidia RTX 3070, but it’s common for manufacturers like Gigabyte to build on Nvidia’s reference design and up the specs — like this card’s Windforce triple-fan cooling system, higher ones Clock speeds and more HDMI connection.

Perfect for 1440p gaming, the 3070 range supports Nvidia’s DLSS upscaling and ray tracing for improved reflections. Compared to the world’s 3080s, it’s a bit more budget-friendly for both your wallet and PSU. Read our review.

Over on the smart home front, Google’s latest Nest Mini smart speaker is down to $29.99 at a number of retailers including Best Buy, Walmart, B&H Photo and Adorama. Most offer all colors so you can customize the tiny puck-shaped speaker to suit your home aesthetic. Although Google’s cheapest smart speaker has been around for a few years, it’s still one of the easiest ways to implement Google Assistant controls in your smart home. You can easily give commands to other devices synced with your Google Home app, or get simple responses to requests like weather and news. It’s far from the best-sounding speaker out there, but it can be mounted on a wall, which helps its sound quality a bit. Read our review.

Google Nest Mini (second generation)

The Nest Mini is Google’s smallest smart speaker and can bring Google Assistant to almost any area of ​​your home. You can even mount it on your wall without any additional hardware.

The Ember Mug 2 makes another beautiful improvement to the quality of life around the home by keeping your coffee or tea at the optimal temperature of your choice for up to 80 minutes when removed from its charging coaster. That might sound like an unnecessary indulgence, but if you hate not being able to enjoy your coffee before it’s gone cold, it can 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 edge Employees are coffee aficionados and swear by the portability of these Ember mugs, but it’s best to pick one up from time to time when they’re on sale.

Ember Mug 2 (14 oz, blue)

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

One of the cheapest and most colorful Xbox controllers just got more affordable. The PowerA Enhanced Wired Controller is now only $24.66 on Amazon in colorful Seafoam Green Blue. At their full price of $37.99, these controllers are already a great value and even earn our pick as the best budget option in our Xbox Controller Buying Guide, so saving over $13 is even sweeter .

The only major downside to this PowerA controller is that it still uses a micro-USB connection, which just feels dated. Apart from that, this officially licensed controller is comfortable and even has two customizable buttons on the back and a rocker control for wired headset volume. It’s a great value if you don’t mind going the wired route for your Xbox console or Windows PC.

PowerA Enhanced Wired Controller (seafoam green-blue)

The PowerA Enhanced Wired Controller is an affordable wired controller for Xbox and PC that connects via micro USB and features two customizable buttons on the back. It is offered in many different colors and licensed designs.

More offers for your Thriftday on Thursday:

• The 2021 24-inch Apple iMac with an M1 processor and an updated 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. Did we also mention enough that it is a orange Computer? Read our review.
• Apple’s second-generation AirPods with a wired charging case are down to $99.99 ($30 off) on Amazon. Sure, they’re a little dated now, but they sync easily across Apple devices, and they’re affordable and sound good for calls and podcasts. Read our review.
• If you need a basic USB-C phone charger that’s small but still pretty fast, the Anker 20W Nano Pro Charger is $15.29 ($2.70 off) when you use the 15 percent off coupon cut out the side.
• Do you have some nostalgia for classic real-time strategy games? Command and Conquer Remastered costs only $6.99 (about $13 off) on Amazon for a Steam code. This collection contains faithful replicas of Command and Conquer: Tiberian Dawn, Command and Conquer: Red Alertand three extensions. Read the review from our sister site Polygon.

• Drop’s MT3 /dev/tty Mechanical Keyboard Keycap Set by Matt3o is available on Amazon for $97.71 (about $7 off) in a 91-key tenkeyless set. The MT3 profile gives it a larger, vintage look that’s comfortable for typing as your fingers are surrounded by the cylindrical shaped keys and the gray and white color scheme has a pop of red for the Enter and Escape keys.