AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D + Gigabyte B650 X AX Mobo + G.Skill 32GB DDR5-6000 Expired

Huh, it looks like the staff decided to replace my frontpage post of this bundle at $500 rather than edit the deal to indicate the price dropped to $450. The $50 savings on microcenter amd bundles is from 2/12-2/14. For those who already bought this bundle, microcenter offers price protection, you can find information on their price protection policy here: https://community.microcenter.com...protection
I guess I'll copy over my comment in that thread to this one, since people seemed to find it helpful.

At $450 this is the best deal so far for a 7800x3d bundle. Compared to previous iterations this bundle also has the better gigabyte motherboard (which supports a gen5 ssd), and a better ram kit using superior hynix memory chips. This bundle is best suited for those building an upper-midrange gaming computer which will not be used for tasks more cpu demanding than gaming. Those who don't require absolute top tier gaming performance would be best served finding a deal with a cheaper processor, namely the $350 7700x microcenter bundle. Those who require a cpu with strong multithreaded performance for non-gaming productivity workloads (photo/video editing, code compiling, cpu based 3d rendering, etc.) would be best served by purchasing a dual chiplet amd cpu (ryzen 7900 or up) or an intel cpu (which have significantly higher multithreaded performance towards the lower end of their product stack compared to single chiplet amd cpus) according to their needs. Those whose use cases involve video encoding/transcoding would be best served purchasing an intel cpu with an integrated gpu to make use of intel quicksync.

The 7800x3d is the best gaming cpu currently available, it's on average slightly faster than the 14900k in gaming while using on average 130w less power (total system usage) while gaming. The 7800x3d is an 8 core zen4 cpu on the current gen am5 platform, and will be sufficient for high end gaming for the next several years at least. It is not well suited as a productivity cpu, it's essentially a slower clocked and more efficient 7700x when used in most non-gaming tasks. The 7800x3d is an extremely power efficient cpu, and uses very little power (relative to other current gen cpus) even under full load. Under an all core blender workload, the 14900k uses a whopping 200w more power than the 7800x3d performing the same workload (obviously the 14900k is far faster in said workload, but the point stands). An air cooler is more than sufficient for the 7800x3d, the best value option is the thermalright phantom spirit (ps120se) which sells on amazon for ~$35. Alternatively, if you plan to upgrade to a higher power and/or dual chiplet cpu in the future, the thermalright frost spirit 140 v3 which sells for ~$40 on amazon might be a better option. The 7800x3d goes on sale as low as $340 from online retailers and as low as $300 from microcenter.
Hardware unboxed comparing the 7800x3d to the 14900k in gaming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KZQVfO-1Vg
Gamers nexus review of the 7800x3d including productivity benchmarks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B31PwSpClk8
Techspot review for 14th gen intel cpus, all the charts include the 7800x3d for comparison: https://www.techspot.com/review/2...-gen-cpus/

The motherboard in this bundle is a lower midrange (leaning more towards midrange) full size atx b650 chipset am5 motherboard. This board has: the low (but not lowest) end b650 chipset, a 8+2+2 60A vrm, three pcie x16 slots (1x gen4 x16 primary slot, 2x gen3 x1), three m.2 slots (1x gen5 x4, 2x gen 4 x4), 4 sata ports, Realtek® 2.5GbE LAN, wifi 6e + bluetooth 5.2 or 5.3 (depending on board revision either Realtek® Wi-Fi 6E RTL8852CE or AMD Wi-Fi 6E RZ616 (MT7922A22M)), a competent assortment of usb including usb-c 3.2 gen2, and bios flashback. While it has many of the compromises you'd expect from cheaper boards (6 layer pcb, cheap realtek audio chip, no pcie gen 5 x16 slot, only 3 m.2 slots and 4 sata ports, somewhat limited io, etc), it's overall rather competent and should be more than sufficient for the vast majority of users. The lack of a pcie gen 5 x16 slot will be meaningless (excluding a few very niche applications) for a few years at least. While not necessarily a great board for extreme overclocking, it's likely overkill for a pure gaming rig. One of the primary advantages of building a computer on the am5 platform is that it will have a meaningful upgrade path. At the absolute minimum, next gen amd zen5 cpus will be on the am5 platform (and very likely zen6 as well), which means you'll be able to slot in a one or two generation newer cpu without needing to replace your motherboard. This is obviously a major cost savings.
Here's the motherboard's official specs page: https://www.gigabyte.com/us/Mothe...v-1x/sp#sp
And here's the manual: https://download.gigabyte.com/Fil...1102_e.pdf

The ram in this bundle is a marked improvement over the ram included in previous bundles. While the better cas latency (cl32 instead of cl36) shouldn't cause a major difference in performance under standard use, this ram kit uses hynix memory chips instead of samsung memory chips. Hynix memory chips are superior in just about every way, and all high end ddr5 kits (6000 cl32 and better) exclusively use hynix chips. The am5 platform has had compatibility issues with samsung based memory in the past, while those issues have been mostly fixed in bios updates hynix memory has been significantly more stable on am5 since day one. The primary advantage of hynix memory kits is that they have far superior overclocking potential. If you're willing to manually overclock/tune your memory you can achieve an absolutely massive increase in performance compared to a similarly tuned samsung memory kit. Even if you don't intend to overclock or tune your ram beyond stock expo settings, this ram will be slightly faster and likely more stable than the ram included in previous bundles.

Overall, if you're looking to build a computer primarily for gaming in the near future, and desire absolute top tier gaming performance, this bundle is a fantastic deal.

agreed. this mobo would only last you 8-12 years. i make sure anything i buy can atleast be passed down to my grandkids, i dont have any kids yet.

All stores are like that. If it's a different product why would they give you the difference??? You trying to get that man fired or something?