The best places to look for good computer prices are in magazines. While there are many magazines with ads for computer equipment in them, there is one that is the biggest and the best by far. The best magazine is Computer Shopper, it contains hundreds if not thousands of ads for computers and peripherals, when you see it you'll understand why it's the best. Looking through all of those ads can be quite a chore but can be very rewarding because you will very likely find an excellent price for a computer system. You should be able to find the Computer Shopper magazine at just about any bookstore or computer store that sells magazines.
Computer shows can be an excellent place to save money on computers, peripherals and software.
They can be very hectic places though, so you should have a pretty good idea of what you want and what a good price is before you go to the show. Typically at computer shows there are many vendors that sell older models such as modems, computers, or previous versions of software. So you should know what is the latest model or software version and about an average price. You can save hundreds of dollars on software. Many software packages sold at computer shows have markings that say promotional only or academic only.