Black Friday/Cyber Monday Weekend Hardware Deals

There are many good deals on computer hardware and accessories this weekend.  I have a few linked below.

Memory:
CORSAIR Vengeance RGB 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 3000MHz C15 Desktop Memory - $124.99
https://amzn.to/2TKryL4
Its RGB and its 3000 MHz for $125.  Its an amazing deal.

Mice:
CORSAIR Dark Core SE - RGB Wireless Gaming Mouse - 16,000 DPI Optical Sensor - $59.99 usually $89.99
https://amzn.to/2zp1snY

CORSAIR Glaive - RGB Gaming Mouse with Interchangeable Grips - 16000 DPI $54 usually $69.99
https://amzn.to/2BvNMsT

CORSAIR M65 Pro RGB - FPS Gaming Mouse - 12,000 DPI Optical Sensor - $29.99 usually $59.99
https://amzn.to/2Kv8ADF

Tier 8 Post 1.0 Matchmaking Analysis

Introduction and Methods:

I noticed previously that tier 8 matchmaking was awful and I wanted to look at matchmaking in general.  I recoded data about my solo pub battles since patch 1.01 in an Excel spreadsheet.  After I started recording the game data, I learned that the community contributors that were at Tankfest were told that the system to make you more likely to be middle or top tier after being bottom tier was not implemented.

I played 1,013 solo pub battles since the release of patch 1.01 until this week.  For every battle, I recorded tank played, tank tier, battle tier, battle type(3/5/7, 5/10, or all the same tier), win/loss/draw, and other information.  Most of the battles were played during 7 to 11 PM East coast time on the US Central server.

Out of those battles, 484 of them were tier 8 tanks.  Of those tier 8 battles, 52 of tier 8 battles were pref matchmaking tier 8 tanks.

Computer Hardware Deals 7/20/2018

Graphics Cards:

MSI RX 580 8G for $229.99. Regular price $309.99
Sale Price of $259.99 - $30 rebate = $229.99
https://amzn.to/2Lde6yz

Hard Drives:

HGST Deskstar NAS 3.5" 8TB 7200 RPM Hard drive $219.99 promo code EMCPWRP26 regularly $299.99
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822146142

Computer Hardware Deals 7/8/2018

AMAZON

Graphics Cards:

XFX Radeon RX 580 8GB GTS XXX Edition 1386MHz OC+ -  Regularly $339.99 on sale for $289.99
https://amzn.to/2KQb56e
This is one of the lowest prices I've seen on an RX 580 in months!

EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 SC GAMING 6GB -  Regularly $319.99 on sale for $279.99
https://amzn.to/2u5oQV3

2400g vs i3-3240: Does the CPU matter with a lower end graphics card?

In our previous test, it was shows that the 2400G's Radeon™ Vega 11 Graphics doesn't have the same in game performance as the RX 460 2GB, which was released in August of 2016 or the GTX 750 ti 2 GB which was released in February 2014.

Other tests have shown that the 2400G's Radeon™ Vega 11 Graphics doesn't perform as well as a GT 1030 in most games.  Also, other tests have shown that the 2400G's Radeon™ Vega 11 Graphics can be outperformed in most games by an Intel G4650 and GT 1030.  However, it may be useful to have the 4 cores and 8 threads if you plan to perform a graphics card upgrade in the future to something faster than a GT 1030.