expired Posted by BeigeRoad455 • May 31, 2024
May 31, 2024 8:24 PM
Item 1 of 4
Item 1 of 4
expired Posted by BeigeRoad455 • May 31, 2024
May 31, 2024 8:24 PM
Combo: Intel Core i9-12900K CPU + MSI Z790-P Pro + 32GB G.Skill Ripjaws S5 RAM
+ Free Store Pickup$400
$1,050
61% offMicro Center
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Secondary Edit: Since people keep getting confused, and the rewritten post for frontpage fails to mention this, please be aware this is not the official microcenter 12900k bundle. This bundle is created by manually mixing and matching components from the two separate 12900k and 13700k microcenter bundles. The initial link in the rewritten frontpage post will take you to the 12900k product page instead of a bundle page, this is intentional. You must manually add the 12900k, the msi motherboard, and the ram to cart individually. The discounted price will then be visible when you have all three in cart.
This bundle is especially well suited for those building a midrange computer who would benefit from a cpu with strong multithreaded performance for non-gaming productivity workloads (photo/video editing, code compiling, cpu based 3d rendering, etc.) on a budget. It's also worth noting that the 12900k supports the current version of intel quicksync with two multi-format codec engines, which means it is a far more attractive option for those whose use cases involve video encoding/transcoding. The 12900k still remains an excellent option for gaming, but it's high power consumption and lack of platform longevity make it less appealing for those who don't require strong multithreaded performance. Still, at this price for the combo, it's arguably a meaningfully better value than the $380 7700x bundle for those with mixed uses cases (aka. those who aren't building a system only for gaming, basic office productivity, and basic web-surfing). The $380 version of this 12900k bundle has a substantially inferior motherboard, so the $20 premium is definitely worthwhile in my opinion.
The i9-12900k is a 12th gen alder lake sixteen core (8 performance + 8 efficiency cores) cpu on the lga1700 platform. While technically 3 generations old, intel 13th gen intel cpus only had minor architectural improvements, primarily additional L2 cache and a slightly better memory controller. Intel 14th gen saw entirely negligible architectural improvements. In most respects the i9-12900k is a somewhat slower and less power hungry i7-13700k. The 13700k has the same core configuration, higher clocks (with boosted power usage to match), and more L2 cache for better performance, particularly in gaming. The 12900k's gaming performance on average trades blows with the 7700x (being very slightly slower overall), and while not top tier is absolutely more than sufficient for use with all but the most expensive gpus. Where the 12900k solidly beats the 7700x is cpu intensive productivity workloads. On top of many productivity applications being better optimized for intel, the 12900k has far superior multithreaded performance compared to the 7700x, which is a huge advantage in certain types of heavily multithreaded workloads. Intel quicksync, as mentioned above, also makes the 12900k the obvious choice for any type of video encoding or transcoding. The 12900k is a very power hungry cpu, and isn't very power efficient. While not as power hungry as the 13700k and up, you will need a fairly beefy cooling solution, and depending on what gpu you pair it with you may need a more powerful psu. The 12900k in this bundle does not come with a cooler. Air cooling is technically possible, but you'll want a high performance dual tower air cooler if you don't want to get a 240mm or larger aio. I personally recommend the thermalright phantom spirit 120se (ps120se) for ~$35.
Here's the puget systems content creation review for intel 13th gen (the latest review including the 12900k): https://www.pugetsystem
And here's gamers nexus analysis of intel cpus power draw and efficiency: https://gamersnexus.net/cpus/inte...onsumpti
The motherboard's specs page can be found here: https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/P...cification
And the manual can be found here: https://download.msi.co
The motherboard in this bundle is solidly midrange, and uses the current gen high-end z790 chipset. It has a 14(55A)+1+1 vrm configuration, so it can handle a 14900k, let alone the far less power hungry 12900k in this bundle. This board has: 4 ram slots (supporting ddr5 7000+ 1DPC 1R), 3x PCI-E x16 slots (1x gen5 x16 primary, 1x gen 4 x4, 1x gen3 x1), 1x PCI-E x1 slot (gen3 x1), 4x m.2 2280 slots (all gen4 x4), 6 sata ports, intel 2.5gb lan, intel wifi 6e + bt 5.3, the low end realtek alc897 audio chip, a competent assortment of usb ports, debug leds, and bios flashback. Please refer to the specs sheet and manual I linked above for more detailed specs. As you can see, while it doesn't have all the absolute top end features that would be nice to have (such as a gen5 m.2 slot, higher end audio chip, 8-layer pcb, etc.), it is solidly midrange and should be more than sufficient for basically anyone looking at a bundle in this price range.
The ram in this bundle is good compared to most you'll find in bundles (including the ram that used to be included in microcenter bundles). While the better cas latency (cl32 instead of the more common 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 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 xmp settings, this ram will be slightly faster and likely more stable than the ram included in previous bundles.
Overall, this bundle is a good deal for those who in the near term would benefit from strong multithreaded performance and/or intel quicksync on a budget. While having worse power efficiency and no upgrade path on the dead-end lga 1700 platform are definitely downsides compared to the $380 7700x bundle, the massively superior multithreaded/productivity performance and similar gaming performance make this bundle a no-brainer for those whose use-cases fit. It should be noted that the $500 13700k bundle has the exact same motherboard and ram, so it's basically the same core configuration and less than 10% performance uplift for an additional $100, which is obviously not worth it. As mentioned previously, I personally wouldn't recommend the $380 12900k microcenter bundle, since a mere $20 premium gets you a much better motherboard.
However, by mixing and matching components from the 12900k bundle and the $500 13700k bundle, this deal that I've posted includes the msi z790-p pro motherboard. The msi z790-p pro motherboard is even better than the asus z790-p prime motherboard that was in the short lived but extremely popular iteration of this bundle that went frontpage 2 months ago.
In conclusion, this deal is simply a superior version of the prior several frontpage 12900k bundles at the same price, hence a good deal.
That suggests between 10M and 20M SDers live within 25 miles of a Microcenter. That is 20-30% of sders living within 25 miles of a microcenter. A minority? Yes. But hardly an insignificant number
(used chatgpt and brief searching, feel free to fact check)
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Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank BeigeRoad455
Secondary Edit: Since people keep getting confused, and the rewritten post for frontpage fails to mention this, please be aware this is not the official microcenter 12900k bundle. This bundle is created by manually mixing and matching components from the two separate 12900k and 13700k microcenter bundles. The initial link in the rewritten frontpage post will take you to the 12900k product page instead of a bundle page, this is intentional. You must manually add the 12900k, the msi motherboard, and the ram to cart individually. The discounted price will then be visible when you have all three in cart.
This bundle is especially well suited for those building a midrange computer who would benefit from a cpu with strong multithreaded performance for non-gaming productivity workloads (photo/video editing, code compiling, cpu based 3d rendering, etc.) on a budget. It's also worth noting that the 12900k supports the current version of intel quicksync with two multi-format codec engines, which means it is a far more attractive option for those whose use cases involve video encoding/transcoding. The 12900k still remains an excellent option for gaming, but it's high power consumption and lack of platform longevity make it less appealing for those who don't require strong multithreaded performance. Still, at this price for the combo, it's arguably a meaningfully better value than the $380 7700x bundle for those with mixed uses cases (aka. those who aren't building a system only for gaming, basic office productivity, and basic web-surfing). The $380 version of this 12900k bundle has a substantially inferior motherboard, so the $20 premium is definitely worthwhile in my opinion.
The i9-12900k is a 12th gen alder lake sixteen core (8 performance + 8 efficiency cores) cpu on the lga1700 platform. While technically 3 generations old, intel 13th gen intel cpus only had minor architectural improvements, primarily additional L2 cache and a slightly better memory controller. Intel 14th gen saw entirely negligible architectural improvements. In most respects the i9-12900k is a somewhat slower and less power hungry i7-13700k. The 13700k has the same core configuration, higher clocks (with boosted power usage to match), and more L2 cache for better performance, particularly in gaming. The 12900k's gaming performance on average trades blows with the 7700x (being very slightly slower overall), and while not top tier is absolutely more than sufficient for use with all but the most expensive gpus. Where the 12900k solidly beats the 7700x is cpu intensive productivity workloads. On top of many productivity applications being better optimized for intel, the 12900k has far superior multithreaded performance compared to the 7700x, which is a huge advantage in certain types of heavily multithreaded workloads. Intel quicksync, as mentioned above, also makes the 12900k the obvious choice for any type of video encoding or transcoding. The 12900k is a very power hungry cpu, and isn't very power efficient. While not as power hungry as the 13700k and up, you will need a fairly beefy cooling solution, and depending on what gpu you pair it with you may need a more powerful psu. The 12900k in this bundle does not come with a cooler. Air cooling is technically possible, but you'll want a high performance dual tower air cooler if you don't want to get a 240mm or larger aio. I personally recommend the thermalright phantom spirit 120se (ps120se) for ~$35.
Here's the puget systems content creation review for intel 13th gen (the latest review including the 12900k): https://www.pugetsystem
And here's gamers nexus analysis of intel cpus power draw and efficiency: https://gamersnexus.net/cpus/inte...onsumpti
The motherboard's specs page can be found here: https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/P...cification
And the manual can be found here: https://download.msi.co
The motherboard in this bundle is solidly midrange, and uses the current gen high-end z790 chipset. It has a 14(55A)+1+1 vrm configuration, so it can handle a 14900k, let alone the far less power hungry 12900k in this bundle. This board has: 4 ram slots (supporting ddr5 7000+ 1DPC 1R), 3x PCI-E x16 slots (1x gen5 x16 primary, 1x gen 4 x4, 1x gen3 x1), 1x PCI-E x1 slot (gen3 x1), 4x m.2 2280 slots (all gen4 x4), 6 sata ports, intel 2.5gb lan, intel wifi 6e + bt 5.3, the low end realtek alc897 audio chip, a competent assortment of usb ports, debug leds, and bios flashback. Please refer to the specs sheet and manual I linked above for more detailed specs. As you can see, while it doesn't have all the absolute top end features that would be nice to have (such as a gen5 m.2 slot, higher end audio chip, 8-layer pcb, etc.), it is solidly midrange and should be more than sufficient for basically anyone looking at a bundle in this price range.
The ram in this bundle is good compared to most you'll find in bundles (including the ram that used to be included in microcenter bundles). While the better cas latency (cl32 instead of the more common 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 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 xmp settings, this ram will be slightly faster and likely more stable than the ram included in previous bundles.
Overall, this bundle is a good deal for those who in the near term would benefit from strong multithreaded performance and/or intel quicksync on a budget. While having worse power efficiency and no upgrade path on the dead-end lga 1700 platform are definitely downsides compared to the $380 7700x bundle, the massively superior multithreaded/productivity performance and similar gaming performance make this bundle a no-brainer for those whose use-cases fit. It should be noted that the $500 13700k bundle has the exact same motherboard and ram, so it's basically the same core configuration and less than 10% performance uplift for an additional $100, which is obviously not worth it. As mentioned previously, I personally wouldn't recommend the $380 12900k microcenter bundle, since a mere $20 premium gets you a much better motherboard.
Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank BeigeRoad455
However, by mixing and matching components from the 12900k bundle and the $500 13700k bundle, this deal that I've posted includes the msi z790-p pro motherboard. The msi z790-p pro motherboard is even better than the asus z790-p prime motherboard that was in the short lived but extremely popular iteration of this bundle that went frontpage 2 months ago.
In conclusion, this deal is simply a superior version of the prior several frontpage 12900k bundles at the same price, hence a good deal.
Thanks for the great information about the Microcenter bundles.
I was in the Dallas store today and saw the stack of MSI motherboards you're discussing....and wondered if combos could be altered since I din't personally care for the Asus motherboard included in the original combo (as you discussed).
My question....
My needs are more modest.
I was considering a 12th gen i7.....wanted onboard graphics....and maybe the non-K skew since I don't intend to overclock (it also includes the standard heatsink).
32g is great, but can go down to 16g.
I've never owned an MSI motherboard (but have several early 2000-era MSI video cards). I've preferred Gigabyte motherboards in the past...but things change. Several newsworthy issues with Asus...and Gigabyte power supplies too....so I guess none are perfect.
Your opinion / recommendation is appreciated....
Prefer full ATX, DDR5, etc
Prefer Gigabyte, but would be open minded about MSI.
And prefer around the price point of this discussion.
These combos seem the best way to gut my case and upgrade the core components.
However, by mixing and matching components from the 12900k bundle and the $500 13700k bundle, this deal that I've posted includes the msi z790-p pro motherboard. The msi z790-p pro motherboard is even better than the asus z790-p prime motherboard that was in the short lived but extremely popular iteration of this bundle that went frontpage 2 months ago.
In conclusion, this deal is simply a superior version of the prior several frontpage 12900k bundles at the same price, hence a good deal.
My board was a Gigabyte Z690 AORUS ELITE AX (DDR5). Z690 feature set is nearly identical and the aesthetics are better. I would expect the 13700k bundle to be $400 by now considering the timeframe, and the equivalent would really be the i9-13900K as really the i7-13700K is nearly the same CPU as the i9-12900k
Thanks for the great information about the Microcenter bundles.
I was in the Dallas store today and saw the stack of MSI motherboards you're discussing....and wondered if combos could be altered since I din't personally care for the Asus motherboard included in the original combo (as you discussed).
My question....
My needs are more modest.
I was considering a 12th gen i7.....wanted onboard graphics....and maybe the non-K skew since I don't intend to overclock (it also includes the standard heatsink).
32g is great, but can go down to 16g.
I've never owned an MSI motherboard (but have several early 2000-era MSI video cards). I've preferred Gigabyte motherboards in the past...but things change. Several newsworthy issues with Asus...and Gigabyte power supplies too....so I guess none are perfect.
Your opinion / recommendation is appreciated....
Prefer full ATX, DDR5, etc
Prefer Gigabyte, but would be open minded about MSI.
And prefer around the price point of this discussion.
These combos seem the best way to gut my case and upgrade the core components.
The 7700x actually has slightly better singlethreaded/gaming performance than the 12900k, and is substantially more power efficient. It has a built in rdna2 igpu (though no intel quicksync (obviously), the 12900k is much better for hardware accelerated video encoding/transcoding). Most importantly, the am5 platform will support at absolute minimum one, and almost certainly two future cpu generations in the same socket. That means if you get the 7700x bundle you're practically guaranteed to be able to slot in a two generations newer zen6 cpu years down the line without needing to replace your motherboard or ram.
The motherboard in the 7700x bundle is the Gigabyte B650 Gaming X AX v2, which is competent overall (plus it's a gigabyte board, which you said you preferred). That being said, it's slightly lower tier overall, and i/o, particularly storage, is somewhat more limited compared to the board in this 12900k bundle. On the plus side, it has a pcie gen5 m.2 slot, which will be much more useful in the (relatively) short term compared to the gen5 x16 slot in the lga 1700 msi board. The specs page can be found here: https://www.gigabyte.co
The ram is essentially equivalent between the two bundles (32gb (2x16) ddr5 6000 cl32 using hynix memory chips), just being either expo or xmp depending on the platform.
Once again, this is all under the premise that you wouldn't benefit from the massively superior multithreaded performance of the 12900k. If you're willing to wait, the 7700x bundle has dropped as low as $350 in the past (with a different, slightly worse motherboard), and with zen5 releasing at some point later this year, you'll probably be able to find better deals in the future if you're willing to wait.
My board was a Gigabyte Z690 AORUS ELITE AX (DDR5). Z690 feature set is nearly identical and the aesthetics are better. I would expect the 13700k bundle to be $400 by now considering the timeframe, and the equivalent would really be the i9-13900K as really the i7-13700K is nearly the same CPU as the i9-12900k
You are correct that the z790 chipset is a rather minor upgrade over the z690 chipset. In fact, the z690 boards microcenter included with their earlier 12900k bundles (like the one you got), were actually better than the z790 boards they switched to including. Unfortunately, for the past 8 months or so (excluding a couple of outliers that lasted a short time) only the worse z790 boards (primarily the asus z790-v prime non-ax version, which to put in perspective comes with gb lan and wifi 5) have been available for the 12900k bundle. To get a decent board you had to purchase the more expensive 13700k (or the not currently available 13900k) bundle.
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You are correct that the z790 chipset is a rather minor upgrade over the z690 chipset. In fact, the z690 boards microcenter included with their earlier 12900k bundles (like the one you got), were actually better than the z790 boards they switched to including. Unfortunately, for the past 8 months or so (excluding a couple of outliers that lasted a short time) only the worse z790 boards (primarily the asus z790-v prime non-ax version, which to put in perspective comes with gb lan and wifi 5) have been available for the 12900k bundle. To get a decent board you had to purchase the more expensive 13700k (or the not currently available 13900k) bundle.
The Gigabyte board is the rev 1.4 which comes with upgraded DDR5 signal layout found in the Z790 versions which is supposed to OC well. No problem with the XMP 6000mhz kit included and do not really plan to upgrade though. Power looks pretty good on this board and I thought I would want the thunderbolt expansion card (40gbps) but have not seen the need. As mentioned the bonus of the aesthetics, namely the integrated IO shield and thermal guards, are good too.
Overkill desktop use for me now, but preferred this over the equivalent cost AMD builds as I like to retire my office PC components to my server when I upgrade.
For reference, I have a Lian Li Galahad. My productivity overclock, on Cinebench, will go over 280 Watts and sit at 100c.
Meanwhile, a 7800x3d smokes the 12900k in gaming, and does well enough in productivity for a paltry 65-70 watts at full tilt.
This bundle is especially well suited for those building a midrange computer who would benefit from a cpu with strong multithreaded performance for non-gaming productivity workloads (photo/video editing, code compiling, cpu based 3d rendering, etc.) on a budget. It's also worth noting that the 12900k supports the current version of intel quicksync with two multi-format codec engines, which means it is a far more attractive option for those whose use cases involve video encoding/transcoding. The 12900k still remains an excellent option for gaming, but it's high power consumption and lack of platform longevity make it less appealing for those who don't require strong multithreaded performance. Still, at this price for the combo, it's arguably a meaningfully better value than the $380 7700x bundle for those with mixed uses cases (aka. those who aren't building a system only for gaming, basic office productivity, and basic web-surfing). The $380 version of this 12900k bundle has a substantially inferior motherboard, so the $20 premium is definitely worthwhile in my opinion.
The i9-12900k is a 12th gen alder lake sixteen core (8 performance + 8 efficiency cores) cpu on the lga1700 platform. While technically 3 generations old, intel 13th gen intel cpus only had minor architectural improvements, primarily additional L2 cache and a slightly better memory controller. Intel 14th gen saw entirely negligible architectural improvements. In most respects the i9-12900k is a somewhat slower and less power hungry i7-13700k. The 13700k has the same core configuration, higher clocks (with boosted power usage to match), and more L2 cache for better performance, particularly in gaming. The 12900k's gaming performance on average trades blows with the 7700x (being very slightly slower overall), and while not top tier is absolutely more than sufficient for use with all but the most expensive gpus. Where the 12900k solidly beats the 7700x is cpu intensive productivity workloads. On top of many productivity applications being better optimized for intel, the 12900k has far superior multithreaded performance compared to the 7700x, which is a huge advantage in certain types of heavily multithreaded workloads. Intel quicksync, as mentioned above, also makes the 12900k the obvious choice for any type of video encoding or transcoding. The 12900k is a very power hungry cpu, and isn't very power efficient. While not as power hungry as the 13700k and up, you will need a fairly beefy cooling solution, and depending on what gpu you pair it with you may need a more powerful psu. The 12900k in this bundle does not come with a cooler. Air cooling is technically possible, but you'll want a high performance dual tower air cooler if you don't want to get a 240mm or larger aio. I personally recommend the thermalright phantom spirit 120se (ps120se) for ~$35.
Here's the puget systems content creation review for intel 13th gen (the latest review including the 12900k): https://www.pugetsystem
And here's gamers nexus analysis of intel cpus power draw and efficiency: https://gamersnexus.net/cpus/inte...onsumpti
The motherboard's specs page can be found here: https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/P...cification
And the manual can be found here: https://download.msi.co
The motherboard in this bundle is solidly midrange, and uses the current gen high-end z790 chipset. It has a 14(55A)+1+1 vrm configuration, so it can handle a 14900k, let alone the far less power hungry 12900k in this bundle. This board has: 4 ram slots (supporting ddr5 7000+ 1DPC 1R), 3x PCI-E x16 slots (1x gen5 x16 primary, 1x gen 4 x4, 1x gen3 x1), 1x PCI-E x1 slot (gen3 x1), 4x m.2 2280 slots (all gen4 x4), 6 sata ports, intel 2.5gb lan, intel wifi 6e + bt 5.3, the low end realtek alc897 audio chip, a competent assortment of usb ports, debug leds, and bios flashback. Please refer to the specs sheet and manual I linked above for more detailed specs. As you can see, while it doesn't have all the absolute top end features that would be nice to have (such as a gen5 m.2 slot, higher end audio chip, 8-layer pcb, etc.), it is solidly midrange and should be more than sufficient for basically anyone looking at a bundle in this price range.
The ram in this bundle is good compared to most you'll find in bundles (including the ram that used to be included in microcenter bundles). While the better cas latency (cl32 instead of the more common 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 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 xmp settings, this ram will be slightly faster and likely more stable than the ram included in previous bundles.
Overall, this bundle is a good deal for those who in the near term would benefit from strong multithreaded performance and/or intel quicksync on a budget. While having worse power efficiency and no upgrade path on the dead-end lga 1700 platform are definitely downsides compared to the $380 7700x bundle, the massively superior multithreaded/productivity performance and similar gaming performance make this bundle a no-brainer for those whose use-cases fit. It should be noted that the $500 13700k bundle has the exact same motherboard and ram, so it's basically the same core configuration and less than 10% performance uplift for an additional $100, which is obviously not worth it. As mentioned previously, I personally wouldn't recommend the $380 12900k microcenter bundle, since a mere $20 premium gets you a much better motherboard.
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