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

While chip shortages have touched everything from appliances to cars, one of the technology areas facing the biggest challenge is graphics cards. The latest GPUs have been bought and resold by price gougers since the start of the pandemic, but now, after signs start to appear in 2022, we’re getting the occasional deal.

Today saw the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3070 drop to $599.99 at Amazon and Best Buy. That’s $130 off its regular price of $729.99, and the lowest price we’ve seen for this model to date. Now, that’s still a bit more expensive than the base $499.99 Nvidia RTX 3070, but it’s common for a manufacturer like Gigabyte to build Nvidia’s reference designs and enhance the specs — like this card’s Windforce three-fan cooling system , higher clock speeds, and more HDMI ports.

The 3070 series is great for 1440p gaming and supports Nvidia’s DLSS upscaling and ray tracing to improve reflections. It’s also more affordable on your wallet and power supply than the 3080 in the world. Read our review.

On the smart home front, Google’s latest Nest Mini smart speaker is down to $29.99 at a slew of retailers including Best Buy, Walmart, B&H Photo, and Adorama. Most are available in all colors, so you can match the small disc speaker to the aesthetics of your home. While Google’s most affordable 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 issue commands to other devices synced with your Google Home app, or easily answer requests for weather and news. It’s far from the best sounding speaker out there, but it’s wall mountable, which does help its sound quality. Read our review.

Google Nest Mini (2nd generation)

The Nest Mini is Google’s smallest smart speaker, and it can bring Google Assistant almost anywhere in your home. You can even mount it on the wall without additional hardware.

The Ember Mug 2 gives you another good quality of life improvement at home, keeping your coffee or tea at the optimum temperature of your choice for up to 80 minutes when it’s off the charging coaster. This may sound like an unnecessary indulgence, but if you hate not being able to enjoy your coffee until it’s cold, it might feel like a small blessing. Thankfully, the larger 14-ounce blue Ember Mug 2 is $30 off at Best Buy, dropping the price from $149.95 to $119.95.many edge The staff are coffee lovers and swear by the convenience of these Ember mugs, but it’s best to pick one up when they’re on sale from time to time.

Ember Mug 2 (14 oz, blue)

The Ember Mug 2 is a temperature-controlled smart mug that keeps beverages warm for up to 80 minutes on battery, or sits on an insert coaster all day. The included iOS and Android apps allow you to dial in a specific temperature, from 120 to 145 degrees Fahrenheit.

One of the most affordable and colorful Xbox controllers is now even more affordable. The PowerA Enhanced Wired Controller is now just $24.66 on Amazon in the color Seafoam Green-Blue. At the full price of $37.99, these controllers are already great value, and even earned our pick for the best budget option in our Xbox controller buying guide, so the discount over $13 is even sweeter.

The only major downside to this PowerA controller is that it still uses a Micro USB connection, it just feels outdated. But otherwise, this officially licensed controller is very comfortable, and even has two custom-mapped buttons on the rear as well as a rocker dial for wired headphone volume. If you don’t mind going the wired route for your Xbox console or Windows PC, this is a great value proposition.

PowerA Enhanced Wired Controller (Seafoam Green-Blue)

The PowerA Enhanced Wired Controller is a budget-friendly wired controller for Xbox and PC that connects via Micro USB and has two customizable buttons on the back. It is available in many different colors and licensed designs.

More deals on Thursdays:

• The 24-inch Apple iMac with the M1 processor and upgraded octa-core GPU is currently $1,349 ($150 off) on Amazon in orange. 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 orange computer? Read our review.
• Apple’s second-generation AirPods with wired charging case are down to $99.99 at Amazon ($30 off). Sure, they’re a bit long now, but they’re easy to sync between Apple devices, they’re affordable, and they sound great for calls and podcasts. Read our review.
• If you need a basic USB-C phone charger that’s small but still reasonably fast, the Anker 20W Nano Pro Charger is on sale for $15.29 ($2.70) when you clip the 15% off coupon on the page.
• Missing the classic real-time strategy game? Command & Conquer Remastered Get the Steam code at Amazon for just $6.99 (~$13 off).The collection includes faithful reproductions Command & Conquer: Tiberium Dawn, Command & Conquer: Red Alertand three extensions. Read reviews on our sister site Polygon.

• Drop’s MT3 /dev/tty mechanical keyboard keycaps by Matt3o are on sale at Amazon for $97.71 (about $7 off) for a 91-key no-ten-key set. The MT3 profile makes it look taller and more old-fashioned, and it’s comfortable to type on as your fingers are supported by cylindrically sculpted keys, and the off-white color scheme brings a pop of red to the enter and escape keys.