[H]OT - Microcenter AMD sale (2600x - 79.99, 3600x - 159.99, 3700x - 259.99, 3800x - 279.99, 3950x - 699.99) + $20 mobo discount!

Yeah, the 3600x is a very hot deal there! There's a bigger difference in clock speed in the 3600 to 3600x (200 mhz, or 5% performance boost) than the rather pointless 3700x to 3800x transition ( only 100 mhz, or 2% performance boost).

All these processors tend to overclock identically, telling us that this is just product segmentation.
 
Would these be good upgrade form intel 4790k?


Yes, but I'd go at least 8-core. That way you'll get over 2x bump in multicore, plus higher minimum frametimes.

4790k is 15% behind a 7700k. the i5 8400 is about equal to the 7700k in games. See here for the 3700x review:

relative-performance-games-1280-720.png

You'd get 30% faster avg, closer to 50% min performance in games today, and more over the years (as game engines get more threaded)
 
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My local store had two open box ones for like $87 each today.
But they're 80 new, how is 87 for open box a deal?

Reminds me of the good ol days where people would get cpus see how much overclock there was if not much they'd return, silicon lottery be damned
 
But they're 80 new, how is 87 for open box a deal?

Reminds me of the good ol days where people would get cpus see how much overclock there was if not much they'd return, silicon lottery be damned
The 87 was the day before the sale. Saw them for 67 open box today.
 
Yeah, the 3600x is a very hot deal there! There's a bigger difference in clock speed in the 3600 to 3600x (200 mhz, or 5% performance boost) than the rather pointless 3700x to 3800x transition ( only 100 mhz, or 2% performance boost).

All these processors tend to overclock identically, telling us that this is just product segmentation.
I wouldn't say they're identical. I'm running 4.5Ghz all core on my 3800X with 3466Mhz RAM at CL14.
 
I'd be all over this if there were a good deal on a mitx board. The two cheapest at microcenter are $119. That price is a bit difficult to swallow as I bought as a B450 ASRock mitx board for $69 with the $30 combo discount.

Do we feel this will be the regular 2600x sale price?
 
I was trying to resist but my microcenter had a 2700x open box for $111. The tech informed me that as long as the motherboard is new then a 20$ discount will apply. It also came with three games. Couldn’t resist and walked about the door with that and a Asus Tuf x570 WiFi. Total was about $270. The CPU is a side grade in most ways from my intel 8600k, but the motherboard gives me more hard drive connections and the potential for an CPU upgrade down the line.
 
On the website I saw open box 3700x for $208 and then a 3800x for $229ish. Neither lasted more than 10 minutes before they disappeared. I finally broke down and grabbed a 3800x before they sold out but the reception when I got home with it was cold and bitter. Already have a 3500x and she's savvy enough to know it's more than adequate. Not looking forward to spending the summer in the Pit of Misery so I might return it. I have 15 days to negotiate my way out of hell.
 
Well, I do not do anything that will benefit from an upgrade at this time. (1600 and 2600 at 4.0Ghz, 1700 at 3.8GHz.) I would love to have a 3900x but, I will wait. This is the first time I have had a processor for almost 3 years in a while, without upgrading it. (The R7 1700.) This 2600X price is incredible, though.
 
I went to MC Westmont to get a new NVME drive for another machine and wound up buying a 2600x and board.... just 'cuz. I couldn't pass it up. Forgive me... I'm weak.
 
Ended up not buying anything. Did mobo research on Saturday and was fairly unimpressed by what the <$200 boards offered. Missing basic stuff like debug LED and power, reset buttons - it's insane what you need to spend on the x570 boards to get diagnostics.That said, I'm a little more realistic with my expectations now. Don't know how much of an issue it is for the two Asus boards (Prime and TUF), but both will definitely have the chipset fan blocked by GPU.

The Gigabyte Aorus Elite doesn't have this issue, but it's also the most expensive at $190 (vs. $135 for the cheapest Asus, $170 for the TUF). It does have BIOS flashback (more relevant for 4000-series) and Intel LAN though.
 
Ended up not buying anything. Did mobo research on Saturday and was fairly unimpressed by what the <$200 boards offered. Missing basic stuff like debug LED and power, reset buttons - it's insane what you need to spend on the x570 boards to get diagnostics.That said, I'm a little more realistic with my expectations now. Don't know how much of an issue it is for the two Asus boards (Prime and TUF), but both will definitely have the chipset fan blocked by GPU.

The Gigabyte Aorus Elite doesn't have this issue, but it's also the most expensive at $190 (vs. $135 for the cheapest Asus, $170 for the TUF). It does have BIOS flashback (more relevant for 4000-series) and Intel LAN though.

people need to get over the whole fan thing, just set it to silent in bios and ignore that it exists. you'll never reach the 68C threshold needed to get the fan to turn on in silent mode even under full pcie 4.0 load.
 
people need to get over the whole fan thing, just set it to silent in bios and ignore that it exists. you'll never reach the 68C threshold needed to get the fan to turn on in silent mode even under full pcie 4.0 load.
I didn't know there was control over the chipset fan. That is definitely good to know!
 
The fan on my MSI creation board only even comes on at boot and then turns off. I have yet to see it spin once since I built this rig 3 months ago. I think the fan was a more in case than actually needed.
 
I didn't know there was control over the chipset fan. That is definitely good to know!

yeah initial bios didn't have the option but was added to the 1.0.0.3 bios for all the manufactures.

The fan on my MSI creation board only even comes on at boot and then turns off. I have yet to see it spin once since I built this rig 3 months ago. I think the fan was a more in case than actually needed.

pretty much.. GNSteve was the only one from my knowledge that actually got confirmation from board manufacture sources that the fan was an added requirement from AMD for the rare chance that the chipset had a runaway overtemp because the chipset has no temp protections or any way to down clock or shut the system down it's self due to high temps. this is also why even at idle it still pulls 7w since there's no idle P-states for the chipset and tops out at about 9-10w(per Der8auer's testing).
 
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And designed the x570 chipset in-house, hopefully the next versions doesn’t have these minor issues. It would nice to get the power consumption down closer to Intel. I have no regrets on my Asus Tuf x570 WiFi. Pretty board. I didn’t realize how much I would appreciate RGB for the first time. I do miss a power button or reset button on the motherboard but I only used it a few times on my previous motherboard.
 
On the website I saw open box 3700x for $208 and then a 3800x for $229ish. Neither lasted more than 10 minutes before they disappeared. I finally broke down and grabbed a 3800x before they sold out but the reception when I got home with it was cold and bitter. Already have a 3500x and she's savvy enough to know it's more than adequate. Not looking forward to spending the summer in the Pit of Misery so I might return it. I have 15 days to negotiate my way out of hell.

Keep the CPU.

Return the wife.

:cool:
 
Not looking forward to spending the summer in the Pit of Misery so I might return it. I have 15 days to negotiate my way out of hell.

If it would help you get out of the dog house I'd be willing to buy the 3800x. The Madison Heights MC store is a 12 hour round trip for me.
 
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Keep the CPU.

Return the wife.

:cool:
but I want to keep both!

If it would help you get out of the dog house I'd be willing to buy the 3800x. The Madison Heights MC store is a ten hour round trip for me.

She's mostly mad cause she thinks I forgot about Valentines Day, but I did not and I have a plan. If things go well by this evening I will have totally redeemed myself!


It looks like today the prices for some of those CPU's went back up. 3700x is still discounted tho. Feb 15th is the last day to get coupon code for the AMD game bonus, and that code must be redeemed by March 14. A heads up if you're on the fence and want the freebie games.

**edit - I was mistaken about the 3700x, price went back up like the others
 
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So this deal is basically over, oh well. I just couldn't get the time to dedicate a day to make the trip, I'm so not [H]. Perhaps on a good day in the spring(for Northern Michigan that is May) when all this damn snow and ice vanishes a sale will coincide with my days off. :wacky:
 
Well I finally got around to assembling the parts I got from Mc. Upon unboxing the $208 open box 3700x, I was greeted with a dozen or so bent pins, some of which looked very difficult to bend back. I was pretty bummed about it and went back to Mc to fight over it, but no fighting was necessary, I told them what happened and they gave me a brand new one sealed in the box. Didn't even need to pull my credit card out for refund/buy, they did an even exchange. Pretty good service.
 
Well I finally got around to assembling the parts I got from Mc. Upon unboxing the $208 open box 3700x, I was greeted with a dozen or so bent pins, some of which looked very difficult to bend back. I was pretty bummed about it and went back to Mc to fight over it, but no fighting was necessary, I told them what happened and they gave me a brand new one sealed in the box. Didn't even need to pull my credit card out for refund/buy, they did an even exchange. Pretty good service.

That is some good customer service. Any time I buy an open-box item from MC, I make sure to open it up at the register (before I leave) to confirm that what I purchased is what is actually in the box. The tellers have never given me any grief about it, and it gives me more piece of mind.
 
Good customer service to be certain, but damn don't they even inspect things before putting them back? I'm reminded of the good old days of Fry's where you'd be smart to avoid boxes with the dreaded "returned" sticker on it like the plague, even if there was a decent discount on it, because if you've ever returned anything you know the "techs" knowledge base when making sure everything is there is quite low. Plus that 45+ minute drive (one way) was not something you wanted to repeat because the motherboard had bent pins or something.
 
Good customer service to be certain, but damn don't they even inspect things before putting them back? I'm reminded of the good old days of Fry's where you'd be smart to avoid boxes with the dreaded "returned" sticker on it like the plague, even if there was a decent discount on it, because if you've ever returned anything you know the "techs" knowledge base when making sure everything is there is quite low. Plus that 45+ minute drive (one way) was not something you wanted to repeat because the motherboard had bent pins or something.
the drive back was a pain in the ass. But yeah, they inspect some things but apparently not all. I also bought an open box/return gskill 750w power supply, and I could see on the sticker the return reason was no power, and the sticker over that said tested good. PSU works great. But maybe they just glanced at the pins and assumed they were fine. I know they are supposed to check them. Anyway, the 3700x I ended up with runs cinebench r20 @ 4.3GHz @ 1.30v, so seems like a decent chip if it holds stable on some stress tests.
 
Dude Microcenter was so awesome in NJ, I was in the store as they were closing, but they didn't rush me out. They also honored a $10 off coupon that expired yesterday and the manager did an over ride on the register to process it. So the drone was $6. Awesome staff.
 

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Dude Microcenter was so awesome in NJ, I was in the store as they were closing, but they didn't rush me out. They also honored a $10 off coupon that expired yesterday and the manager did an over ride on the register to process it. So the drone was $6. Awesome staff.
Where are you getting coupons?
 
I reserved my order online, printed it out. I slacked off for 4 days cause the drive was 50 miles round trip. I didn't even know there was a barcode for a $10 off coupon. And they still honored it after it expired.
 
Ended up not buying anything. Did mobo research on Saturday and was fairly unimpressed by what the <$200 boards offered. Missing basic stuff like debug LED and power, reset buttons - it's insane what you need to spend on the x570 boards to get diagnostics.That said, I'm a little more realistic with my expectations now. Don't know how much of an issue it is for the two Asus boards (Prime and TUF), but both will definitely have the chipset fan blocked by GPU.

Yeah the boards are kind of awful. Check for mITX AM4 boards that have an internal USB-C connector; there is 1 and it's over $400 whereas you can get a Z390 board that has one for $160...
 
Ended up not buying anything. Did mobo research on Saturday and was fairly unimpressed by what the <$200 boards offered. Missing basic stuff like debug LED and power, reset buttons - it's insane what you need to spend on the x570 boards to get diagnostics.That said, I'm a little more realistic with my expectations now. Don't know how much of an issue it is for the two Asus boards (Prime and TUF), but both will definitely have the chipset fan blocked by GPU.

The Gigabyte Aorus Elite doesn't have this issue, but it's also the most expensive at $190 (vs. $135 for the cheapest Asus, $170 for the TUF). It does have BIOS flashback (more relevant for 4000-series) and Intel LAN though.

Not really sure why you expected so much for so little. Also, unless you need PCIe or plan on using it in the near future, an X470 and B460 mITX board would work fine. As for Bankie who commented that it does not have an internal usb c header, I got to be honest, all the X370 boards I owned or own had them and I do not recall using them even once. Getting the X570 is not needed but hey, not my money that would be spent and therefore, its all cool.
 
Dude Microcenter was so awesome in NJ, I was in the store as they were closing, but they didn't rush me out. They also honored a $10 off coupon that expired yesterday and the manager did an over ride on the register to process it. So the drone was $6. Awesome staff.

Thats the one Ive gone to but its 50 miles from me :(
 
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