HURRY - Micro Center - 12700K + ASUS TUF Z690 Combo - $350

Burticus said:
MC on a Saturday.... have fun dude. That place gets PACKED. When I go I try to do it on a weekday.
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Going straight to the internet order line helps a ton. That's the only way I get out of there fast enough. 😁
 
Burticus said:
MC on a Saturday.... have fun dude. That place gets PACKED. When I go I try to do it on a weekday.
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The internet pick-up line was way longer than expected this time. The deals must be bringing in every tech enthusiat for miles.
 
Holy hell, what on earth is going this evening at MC?
Went to pickup a few USB flash drives, and the place was packed!
 
I can safely say the Marietta location has been selling these bundles like hotcakes, even amidst frequent restocks. Certainly got me to go in on an impulse buy about a week ago - reserved it online while at work, predictably sold out by the time my shift ended, drove over and saw several other reservations for the exact same bundle besides mine.

Coming from a 7700K 4.9 GHz that was a freebie and a stopgap upgrade from a 4770K 4.5 GHz build, the 12700K absolutely curbstomps both, even on stock clocks, and this is with the exact same RAM and custom liquid cooling that I've been running on the 7700K (4770K too for the cooling). The gap only widens a bit further once I've pushed it to 5.1 GHz all-P, 4.0 GHz all-E, and gave the System Agent a little more voltage (1.1V) to run DDR4-3600 at Gear 1 (1:1) ratio. (Stability verified via Cinebench R23 30-minute stress tests; I've found it to be a good litmus test that isn't as exceedingly hot or time-consuming as the usual 24 hours of Prime95.)

I've never seen over 60 FPS average in Yet Another ArmA Benchmark before, and yet this system pulls it off - 71 FPS on standard settings, even - all on the same GTX 980 I've been using since late 2015. Yeah, been due for a GPU upgrade for years now, but at least now the rest of my system won't be holding an RTX 3090 or even a 4090 back.

I still have more testing to do - DCS, RPCS3, anything else notoriously CPU-limited - but beyond that, I can already feel the difference just using Windows. Everything feels remarkably responsive, and it honestly feels like more of a jump than going from the Q6600 to the 4770K, let alone the much smaller jump from 4770K to 7700K. 4C/4T, 4C/8T, more 4C/8T, now a whopping 12C/20T - I suppose it's to be expected.

My only complaint, mild as it is, is that the 12700Ks that Micro Center's been restocking are naturally all the AVX-512-fused-off ones, so I can't reap the benefits of that for emulation. Wouldn't mind trading for an older 12700K that can still have it enabled, but it's probably not worth the hassle at this point.

TL;DR: if you're still on some permutation of Eternal Skylake (6th to 11th gen), buy this $350 bundle while you still can, there is no bigger bang for the buck, especially since the bundle mobo lets you carry forward your DDR4. If you're on something even older, now's a good time to buy DDR4 anyway before prices increase with the industry transition to DDR5.

Yes, Raptor Lake and Zen 4 are faster, but you'll be paying twice as much, if not more, for nowhere near twice the performance.
 
CrimsonKnight13 said:
The internet pick-up line was way longer than expected this time. The deals must be bringing in every tech enthusiat for miles.
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As great at these internet pick up lines are, seems the whole point of having these bundles "sold for loss" is to get people into the store to shop, but if there's a quick (or not) line to get into as soon as you get to the store kind of defeats the purpose.
 
sfsuphysics said:
As great at these internet pick up lines are, seems the whole point of having these bundles "sold for loss" is to get people into the store to shop, but if there's a quick (or not) line to get into as soon as you get to the store kind of defeats the purpose.
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True, but when it comes down to reserving a hot item, that's the best way forward. DFW traffic is a bear, so I may not always be on time to get what I want through conventional shopping.
 
AND they hold your reservation for a couple of days too. Pretty convenient. Also I’m usually wandering around the store at least to window shop before going to the pickup counter. More than once that has lead to some bonus shopping..
 
CrimsonKnight13 said:
True, but when it comes down to reserving a hot item, that's the best way forward. DFW traffic is a bear, so I may not always be on time to get what I want through conventional shopping.
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Oh yeah don't get me wrong, from a consumer stand point I totally get it and who knows from the business side maybe doing that is better than having a bunch of people camping out outside or rushing to a store getting pissed they don't have any.
 
I got this for $349. I just checked Microcenter website and now it looks like this combo is $323?

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Yeah, can confirm the price is officially even lower... about a week after my own combo passed the return period. Who knows if they'll still allow price protection...

It seems to be an additional discount across the board, so the 12600K/Z690-P Prime bundle is $252 while the 12900K/Z690-Plus WiFi D4 bundle is $439.

Makes you wonder if the extra four E-cores on the 12900K would be anywhere near worth the hassle of trying to exchange and upgrade when that wasn't a promo earlier, but knowing me, the real upgrade is getting a 12700K or 12900K that doesn't have AVX-512 fused off, which requires disabling the E-cores anyway.
 
Dang, even better! Had I waited, I probably would have jumped on that 12600K deal instead for about $100 less. This is even a tempting combo to upgrade my Plex server. Hmmm....
 
Bought this combo to upgrade my X99 5820K only noticeable difference is that the min frame rate is higher. Less CPU overhead too. Nice MB too. AVX not disabled on mine according to CPUID.
 
Burticus said:
MC on a Saturday.... have fun dude. That place gets PACKED. When I go I try to do it on a weekday.
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I went to pickup my order Saturday, 12/10/22 at the Madison Heights store. The place seemed busy but only two people were ahead of me in the Internet Order line.

I also used the $25 coupon for new customers despite being a previous customer. Just used my wife's phone number and had her forward the text to me.

My total was $297.98 before tax. Killer deal!
 
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