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Comment by jchw | Hacker News Reader

MicroCenter also has a deal on and off (mainly keeps switching motherboards) for an Intel 12900k bundle with motherboard and 32 GB of DDR5 RAM for $400. It may not be the absolute best for raw gaming, but damn, that is a pretty good deal.

I don't know how good of a value the 7700X bundle is, but my problem is I always want more cores because I am usually compiling code. I loved the 5950X, a very fast and power efficient CPU, so my likely upgrade path is probably the 7950X or TR or whatever CPU takes the "productivity" crown next. And hopefully, by the time I'm in the market again, MicroCenter will have another unreasonably good deal available.

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Personally I'd much rather use a 7700x to not have to deal with asymmetrical cores. They perform close enough otherwise, I think with the 12900k having a minor edge in some tasks, including acting as a space heater.

Also, 7700x buyers can expect CPU upgrades for a generation or two on the same motherboard. Intel's 14000 series (13000 part 2) is the end of the line CPU upgrade for the 12000 buyers.

Yeah, I learned that lesson the hard way buying a 9th gen Intel chip and having literally zero upgrade path on the same board.

My plan is to get the 7700X bundle, which for $400 with board and 32GB DDR5 is a steal, then when AM5 is replaced get a new CPU from the final generation.

Funny aside, we seem to have followed a similar upgrade path. Going back 1 further, mine was: Intel 2500k -> Intel 9700k -> AMD 7700x, with intent to get an AMD 8800X3D or something later, as it becomes available.

I have an Optiplex with an i7-2600 and 1050 Ti in the basement. We use it to Parsec games onto my wife's laptop when she (rarely) gets the itch to join in with our boys playing games.

Was the 9700K -> 7700X upgrade a nice jump? I've been running MSI afterburner and keeping an eye on GPU usage and am often only using ~80% while well under my monitor's FPS limit. It doesn't show any CPU cores pegged but I assume that's my bottleneck.

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