Microcenter [microcenter.com] has Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, MSI Z890 MAG Tomahawk WiFi LGA 1851, Crucial Pro 32GB DDR5-6400 Kit, Computer Build Bundle on sale for $649.99. Shipping is not available for this bundle. Select free store pickup where available.
Important note: The cpu comes pre-installed on the motherboard in this bundle. The bundle page still lists a 3-yr warranty for both the cpu and motherboard, and lifetime for the ram.
Bundle contents:- Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus Arrow Lake Twenty Four-Core (8P + 16E) LGA 1851 Processor - Heatsink Not Included
- MSI Z890 MAG Tomahawk WiFi Intel LGA 1851 ATX Motherboard
- Crucial Pro 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR5-6400 PC5-51200 CL32 Dual Channel Desktop Memory Kit CP2K16G64C32U5B - Black (1.35v, Timings: 32-40-40-103)
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The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is part of intels arrow lake refresh lineup, essentially slotting in as a tuned and rebranded core ultra 9 285k at a far cheaper price. It has 24 cores (8p+16e) and 24 threads, trading blows with current mainstream flagship 9950x and 285k cpus in terms of productivity performance (with the right ram) while costing significantly less. It's also quite strong for gaming, slightly beating out amd's current zen5 non-x3d cpus. Power efficiency is also decent for a cpu of this class, and has a noticeable advantage of lower idle power draw compared to current amd cpus. The 270k+ supports intel quicksync (hardware accelerated video encoding/transcoding using the igpu), and enjoys a meaningful advantage over amd cpus in specific workloads that make use of it. The primary negative for the 270k+ is that it's on the dead end lga1851 socket; intels upcoming nova lake cpus will use the lga 1954 socket. Therefore, you'll need to replace your motherboard if you want to upgrade to a better cpu in the future. Amds am5 socket, on the other hand, is guaranteed to at minimum support next gen zen 6 cpus, and is heavily rumored to support 2-gen in the future zen7 cpus as well.
270k+ reviews:
Pugetsystems content creation: https://www.pugetsystem
Gamers nexus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWbThC2
Hardware unboxed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQmQEyp
Motherboard specs: https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/M...cification
The MSI Z890 MAG Tomahawk WiFi is a full size atx z890 (current gen high-end chipset) motherboard. It has: a frankly overkill 16(90a)+1+1+1 vrm, three pcie x16 slots (1x gen5 x16, 2x gen4 x4), four m.2 slots (1x gen5, 3x gen4), two thunderbolt 4 ports, and 5G lan, wifi 7 + bt 5.4. Overall it appears to be a solid midrange board, and should be more than sufficient for even fairly strenuous productivity workloads.
Techpowerup review: https://www.techpowerup
As noted previously, this motherboard has a dead end socket, so there almost certainly won't be any meaningful slot in cpu upgrades in the future.
The ram is the biggest disappointment in this combo, though considering the ongoing dram apocalypse (where prices have multiplied 4.5x and supply is heavily limited) that's to be expected. Ddr5 6400 cl32 is fairly decent, however as a crucial ram kit it unfortunately uses micron memory chips (most likely micron h-die if I had to guess). Compared to hynix memory, micron memory has drastically worse overclocking/tuning potential. This doesn't matter much if you would just be sticking with base xmp settings, but is fairly impactful if you are willing to manually tune your memory. That being said, hynix memory is obscenely expensive nowadays, and you'd be extremely hard pressed to find even micron memory like the one in this bundle for under $300.
Overall, if you need a new productivity machine in the short term, particularly for workloads intel still reigns supreme in (I highly recommend referencing the pugetsystems review I linked previously), this bundle offers a compelling value. If you can afford to wait 8+ months, nova lake will likely provide a substantial performance uplift, and amd might lower zen5 cpu prices in the meantime to better compete. If you don't need top tier multithreaded performance, you're likely better off getting a cheaper am5 bundle which has a meaningful upgrade path on the am5 socket.
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The new descriptor are not as good IMO..... Core 5, 7, 9.
Same but different.
EDIT: If you want a single canned review instead of taking my word for it, there's plenty out there. TPU tossed theirs up days ago, a healthy gap from the 9950X or 3D. PPP and BOT also allow Intel to tweak for benchmarks, and for Hallock, that's priority number one, and he's not been shy about it.
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