Amazon Prime Early Access begins on October 11th and lasts 48 hours until the end of October 12th. If you're an Amazon Prime member, you should see some amazing discounts on various products offered during the sale: up to 70% off of Amazon devices, and discounts on a wide range of computer products. This could be a great time to save some money on those more expensive items.
This is the second Prime Day-branded sale this year, and deals and discounts will no doubt start to pop up on in the period right before and possibly right after the two-day sale. We will be covering the best deals that we can find during Prime Early Access, and from any other retailers who offer their own mini-sales events like Newegg's "Fantastech Sale 2".
Although Prime Early Access heavily promotes Amazon's own devices like the Kindle and Echo, there are still a multitude of deals to be had on other items and it's an excellent time to perhaps pick up a new monitor, gaming laptop, or some peripherals. With the recent releases of new CPUs and GPUs, we are really hoping to see some discounts in these areas.
Amazon Prime Early Access: Quick Links
- Not a Prime Member?: Try Amazon's Free Trial of Prime Membership (opens in new tab)
- Amazon: Get ready for Amazon Prime Early Access and save up to 70% off of Amazon devices (opens in new tab)
- Newegg: Starting October 10th, Neweggs "Fantastech Sale 2" begins. (opens in new tab)
- Best Buy: Up to $200 off of Intel-powered laptops and other Top Deals (opens in new tab)
- HP: Up to 67% off in HP's "HP Days Sale" (opens in new tab)
- Dell: Save up to 49% on Dell products (opens in new tab)
- Adorama: Up to $250 to be saved on desktop computers (opens in new tab)
- Lenovo: Save up to 70% in the Lenovo "Doorbuster" sale (opens in new tab)
- Walmart: Find PC gaming deals at Walmart (opens in new tab)
When is Amazon Prime Early Access in 2022?
Amazon has confirmed that Amazon Prime Early Access 2022 will happen on October 11th and 12th.
Whether you refer to it as Prime Day 2, or Prime Early Access, it doesn't change the fact that Amazon is hosting another shopping extravaganza this year, squeezing it in just before Black Friday.
Best Early Amazon Prime Early Access Deals
SK hynix Platinum P41 1TB SSD: was $149, now $119 at Amazon (opens in new tab)
One of our favorite SSDs due to its impressive performance and quality, the Platinum P41 easily makes it onto our best SSD (opens in new tab) s list. We gave an Editors Choice award to the Platinum P41 in its review. (opens in new tab)
Featuring read/write speeds of 7,000 MB/s and 6,500 MB/s, this drive is one of the fastest M.2 SSDs on the market and perfect for a top-end gaming system.
ASRock B550 Phantom Gaming 4/ac: was $124, now $94 at Newegg (opens in new tab)
Grab yourself an AM4 socket B550 from ASRock for a great price. This ATX mobo comes with support for 5000/4000/3000-series CPUs and DDR4 RAM
Dell S2721DGF 27-inch 144 Hz Monitor: was $329, now $299 at Dell (opens in new tab)
One of our favorite monitors, the Dell S2721DGF sports a 2560 x 1440 resolution that operates at a speedy 165Hz on Display Port and 144Hz on HDMI in FreeSync or G-Sync. With a 1000:1 contrast ratio and a color profile which covers 120 percent of the sRGB gamut. this monitor produces a beautiful picture.
PNY CS900 120GB SSD: was $29, now $15 at Amazon (opens in new tab)
Ideal for a boot drive for an old laptop or PC upgrade this small 120GB 3D NAND 2.5-inch SATA III SSD is a bargain at this price. The CS900 offers speeds up to 515 MB/s read and 490 MB/s write.
MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Ventus 2X OC: was $379, now $369 at B&H (opens in new tab)
The RTX 3060 features 12GB of GDDR6 VRAM and a 256-bit memory interface, as well as dedicated Tensor cores to power its RTX ray tracing capabilities. While the Arc A770 offers some stiff competition, the RTX 3060 is still one of the best entry points for a mid-tier gaming GPU.
Gigabyte Z690 Aorus Ultra: was $369, now $199 at Amazon (opens in new tab)
The Z690 Aorus Ultra from Gigabyte is an LGA 1700 socketed motherboard that supports Intel's 12th Generation Alder Lake CPUs and comes complete with PCIe 5.0, USB 3.2, and WiFi 6. This board also uses DDR5 RAM, so you won't be able to carry over your older DDR4.
Prime Day Isn’t Just Amazon
Don't forget that it's not just Amazon!
Amazon is massive, and its sheer momentum when it comes to sales events is enough to draw other retailers to join in and try and capitalize. You'll be sure to see a host of other retailers like Newegg, Walmart, and Best Buy join in, as well as some well know manufacturers of your favorite computer products.
Newegg traditionally has a greater selection of PC components than Amazon, and with it already announcing "Fantastech Sale 2" you will stand a good chance of finding some great deals on CPUs, RAM, SSDs there.
Prime Day is for Prime Members
To take advantage of Amazon’s Early access deals specifically, you need to be a Prime member. If you're not already a member, don't forget that you can sign up for a free 30 day Prime membership trial (opens in new tab) and still take advantage of the Prime Early Access sales.
After the trial period, you will be charged $14.99 a month unless you cancel beforehand. Being a Prime member also gives you access to Prime Video and Prime Music, but the biggest advantage is free delivery on all of your purchases.
Where Should You Look for Amazon Early Access Hardware Deals
Be sure to check out Tom’s Hardware's coverage of Amazon's Early Access sale when it begins. We’ll be rounding up the top Amazon Early Access deals on our Amazon Early Access live blog, home page (opens in new tab) , and Amazon Early Access Deals hub (opens in new tab) . We will of course be including all the deals we can find from around the web and from other retailers that are participating in sales during this period.
How to Tell if a Deal Is a Deal
Not everything is as it seems, and sometimes what might look like a deal - isn't. Don't always believe what you see, and use due diligence to see if what you're looking at is actually a bargain. Luckily, when it comes to Amazon prices, there is a fantastic website called CamelCamelCamel (opens in new tab) which also offers a Chrome extension tool called the Camelizer
To find out whether you’re really looking at a deal, take a few steps:
1. Use the Camelizer plugin (opens in new tab) for Amazon deals,
This plugin will show you a complete price history for a product, based on the database at Camelcamelcamel. When you’re on the product’s Amazon page, just click the plugin button and you’ll see a chart.
2. Search PCPartPicker .
PCPartPicker is a great way of searching for a PC component that you're after and comparing its price between retailers. The site also maintains a price history of nearly every component, across half a dozen retailers, but not Amazon.
3. Check competing sites
Once you've found a deal, copy and paste the product name and do some searching on competing sites to see if any of them has an even better sale on the same product. Another great tip is to also search on Google Shopping (opens in new tab) , as sometimes this can bring up some good search results.
Be Patient
Remember, if there's an item that you've been looking for that is not appearing on sale during Amazon Early Access, don't panic or impulse buy. It's not long until the even larger sales spectacular that is Black Friday and Cyber Monday are upon us. And that sale season may offer up even better deals. So take your time, and don't feel pressured to purchase.
