Amazon Prime Day normally takes place every July, but this year the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has pushed back Amazon’s big day of deals until a later date in 2020. Right now, that date looks like to be sometime in the week starting October 5th, potentially pushing it dangerously close to this year’s Black Friday deals.

Here’s everything we know so far about the official Prime Day date, how to get a good deal and what’s likely to be on sale. We also take a look back at the best deals from last year’s Amazon Prime Day to give you a better idea about the type of gaming deals you can expect to see on Prime Day 2020.

When is Prime Day?

Amazon have not announced an official Prime Day date for 2020 yet, but the earliest date it might take place is October, according to a leaked email to third-party sellers seen by CNBC.

The email tells sellers to keep the week of October 5th as a “placeholder date” for Prime Day promotions, but it goes on to say that “a definitive date will be announced as we get closer to the event.”

This announcement from Amazon still hasn’t happened yet, so it’s possible Prime Day might end up being postponed even further. At the moment, though, it’s probably safe to assume the earliest Prime Day date is going to be sometime around beginning of October.

If true, it would mean that Prime Day has been delayed by three months compared to its usual time slot, which occurs in the middle of July. This year, however, Prime Day will be happening much closer to the traditional end-of-year Black Friday sales, which take place in November around Thanksgiving. This year, Black Friday 2020 is November 27th, but the online Black Friday sales tend to begin much earlier than that, often starting several weeks before the day itself, if not at the very start of November.

Consequently, the two events may well end up bleeding into one another depending on the exact date that Prime Day takes place, which raises a whole bunch of questions. Will there be any good Prime Day deals this year? Or is it better to wait until Black Friday? Let’s try and answer those questions below.

Last year’s best Prime Day gaming deals

All manner of PC components were up for grabs during last year’s Prime Day sale, from graphics cards and gaming monitors to SSDs, gaming headsets and mice and keyboards. The quality of said deals, however, was pretty mixed. Below, you’ll find some of our highlights from last year’s Amazon Prime Day sale, as well as advice on what you should be looking out for this year.

Prime Day graphics card deals

Graphics card deals weren’t quite as forthcoming as we might have hoped during last year’s Prime Day sale, with only a handful of low-end models seeing any discounts. Indeed, many of today’s prices are actually cheaper than the deals we saw during last year’s Prime Day, so it’s hard to say whether we’ll get any truly mega discounts for Prime Day 2020. That said, I’m hopeful there will still be a couple of stand-out bargains to be had in the run-up to the next-gen Nvidia Ampere and Big Navi GPUs, and the ones to keep an eye on are Nvidia’s RTX 2060 and RTX 2070 cards, as well as AMD’s Radeon RX 5600 XT.

Want to see the cheapest prices for today’s best graphics cards now? Check out our regularly updated graphics card deals hub.

Prime Day CPU deals

There have been a lot of new CPUs released over the last year, including Intel’s 10th Gen Comet Lake chips and the XT variants of AMD’s 3rd Gen Ryzen CPUs. While we don’t expect to see many discounts on Intel’s new processors, there should be some good deals on AMD’s Ryzen chips, with the Ryzen 5 3600 and Ryzen 7 3700X being the ones to watch.

Keep up to date with all the latest processor prices with our CPU deals hub.

Prime Day SSD deals

As for SSDs, the best deals were on Crucial’s MX500 drive last year, whose 2TB version fell to £164 in the UK and $184 in the US, as well as the 1TB Samsung T5, which dropped to £118 in the UK and $150 in the US. There were also good deals to be had on the then just released WD Black SN750, too, but today’s prices are significantly lower than what they were last year. Given how many discounts there have been on WD SSDs recently, here’s hoping we’ll see a fresh batch come Prime Day 2020, especially our current top SSD pick, the WD Blue SN550.

Get all the latest SSD prices with our regularly updated SSD deals hub.

Prime Day gaming monitor deals

There were plenty of gaming monitors on sale, with the cheapest going for as little as £120 / $109. There were deals across all sorts of different monitor types, too, from G-Sync and Freesync monitors to 4K and ultrawide monitors. It’s hard to compare exact prices, as several models have gone end of life since Prime Day 2019, but I expect there to be a similar spread this year, with equally chunky discounts on offer. The one we’ll be keeping our eyes trained on is our current best gaming monitor pick, the AOC 24G2U.

For more monitor deals, be sure to check out our regularly updated gaming monitor deals round-up.

Prime Day gaming mouse deals

There were dozens of gaming mice on sale during last year’s Prime Day sale, and we saw plenty of our top gaming mice picks in there, too. Some of the mice we’re looking forward to seeing deals on this year are the Logitech G502 Hero and the Roccat Kain.

See the rest of our favourite gaming mice recommendations right here.

Prime Day gaming keyboard deals

Last year’s Prime Day gaming keyboard deals largely consisted of HyperX, Corsair and Razer models in the UK, while the US had plenty of Asus and Steelseries deals to choose from as well. Pretty much all of our past and present gaming keyboard recommendations had a deal on at some point, so you can probably expect a similar spread of deals this year as well. One we’re particularly hoping to see is a nice discount on our current favourite keyboard, the Fnatic Streak.

See the rest of our top gaming keyboard picks right here.

Prime Day gaming headset deals

Those after a gaming headset had plenty of good deals to choose from, too, with Corsair’s excellent HS70 Wireless down to £70 in the UK and $60 in the US, while Corsair’s Void Pro RGB could be had for as little as £57 / $50. Razer’s Kraken Tournament Edition headset also fell to £64 / $62, and the wireless Steelseries Arctis 7 dropped to a new low of £93 / $100, too. We’re particularly hoping to see a repeat of the Arctis 7 deal (or better), as well as some good discounts on our current favourite budget headset, the Logitech G432.

For more gaming headset recommendations, have a look at our favourite gaming headsets to see what else we rate.

Prime Day RAM deals

If you’re looking to upgrade your PC with some newer, faster RAM, then there are plenty of great sets to choose from these days. There have been some great deals on Corsair’s Vengeance LPX RAM recently, and we’re hoping these price drops will continue through to Prime Day 2020.

Prime Day motherboard deals

If you’re building a new PC right now, then picking the right motherboard is key. If you’re going down the AMD route, then you should look for motherboard deals with a B550 or X570 chipset, as this will ensure future compatibility with AMD’s next-gen processors down the line. If you’re going with one of Intel’s new 10th Gen CPUs, you’ll need a Z490 motherboard, but if you fancy picking up one of their older 9th Gen CPUs on the cheap, then you should opt for a B360 or Z390 instead, as these aren’t compatible with the Z490 boards.

How to get a good Prime Day deal

Sign-up to Amazon Prime

Historically, Prime Day deals are only available to Amazon Prime members, so you’ll need to sign-up beforehand if you want to see what’s available. You can sign-up at Amazon UK and Amazon US to start a free 30-day trial – just remember to cancel your subscription before the end of it so you won’t be charged.

However, it’s likely that other retailers will also be getting in on the deals action around the same time so they don’t lose out, so it’s worth keeping an eye on other big PC retailers such as Currys PC World, Overclockers UK, Scan UK, Argos, John Lewis, Newegg, Best Buy and more to see if they end up doing similar Prime Day-style deals.

Follow our detailed deals coverage for all the best discounts

I’ll be keeping track of all the best Prime Day deals on the day itself, regardless of whether they’re on Amazon or other retailers, so be sure to check the RPS homepage and our dedicated deals page for all the latest info on the big day.

The types of deals vary year by year, but when it comes to PC hardware, there are three big areas that tend to have a lot of great deals going on: SSDs, gaming monitors and PC peripherals such as gaming mice, gaming keyboards and gaming headsets. It’s likely that there will be some CPU deals and graphics card deals available, but these tend to be much rarer and often don’t have as many deals taking place as other types of components.

Install a price-tracker

The best way to see if you’re getting a good Amazon Prime Day deal is to install a price tracker extension in your web browser such as CamelCamelCamel or Keepa for Chrome. I use both when I’m writing about deals for RPS, and they’re extremely useful to see how prices for individual products have changed over time. The former hasn’t been tracking as many products since the start of the pandemic, so you may wish to stick with Keepa (which is also available for other web browsers) instead to get the best information.

Create a wishlist of what you want beforehand

There are hundreds and thousands of deals taking place on Prime Day, which can sometimes make it hard to find the really good ones. If there’s something specific you’ve been eyeing up, then why not make a wishlist to help you get straight to the deals in question? That way, you’ll be able to see quickly at a glance if what you want is on sale and go straight to the product page to get it before it’s gone.

Prime Day vs Black Friday: which is better?

In the past, Amazon Prime Day deals have often been pretty competitive compared to Amazon’s Black Friday prices, offering good discounts for those looking to upgrade their PCs in the middle of the year. However, with both events now taking place much closer together, it’s hard to say whether one sale will be better than the other right now. Prices will likely be fairly similar given their close proximity this year, although it’s possible Amazon may well hold back the very best deals until Black Friday.

That said, in recent years, there have been plenty of market research reports showing that Black Friday prices often aren’t as nearly as good as they said they are. For example, Which? in the UK tracked the prices of 83 products that were on sale during Black Friday 2018 across the course of a year, covering how much they cost in the six months leading up to that Black Friday, as well as the six months afterwards. In their study, they found that 95% of the deals they investigated were available for the same price or lower in the six months following Black Friday, and that 61% of the items had been the same price or less in the six months beforehand, too.

As a result, there’s a good chance that Prime Day deal prices will be the same as those we see over Black Friday, but it really depends on what kind of products are on sale. For instance, Amazon may decide to have some products on sale during Prime Day, while others are reserved for Black Friday to help switch things up a bit. Either way, I’ll be keeping a watchful eye over both events, so make sure you stay up to date by keeping those eyes peeled to the RPS home page.

To stay on top of the latest Prime Day deals, be sure to keep your eyes glued to the RPS homepage, our dedicated Amazon Prime Day deals hub and our games and hardware deals page, where I’ll be rounding up all the best discounts throughout the big day.