I'm heading to Micro Center in about 30 minutes and can not make up my mind. I'm selling my family room PC's 2500k with motherboard and 8GB DDR3 (should fetch $100+), and want to upgrade it as cheaply as possible. My local MC has the R5 1600's brand new for $99. However, they also have one 1700X Open Box for $119. I will be reusing my Corsair H50, so the cooler doesn't matter. If the 1700X was brand new for that price, no-brainer. They also have a $90 Gigabyte GA-AB350 motherboard, open box, for $45 without the I/O shield. I'll be using the $5 off coupon as well, so total would be: 1600 new with MB: $140 1700X open box with MB: $160 I will be doing mainly web browsing, very light amount of h.264 encoding, and light gaming with a 1060 3GB. I will definitely be overclocking. I usually will find out where the max overclock is on a chip, and drop it back 100-200 mhz for long-term use and less heat. Thanks!
Both CPUs top out around 3.9, so it is a wash for overclocking. The 1700x seems to be overkill for your usage goals, but for $20 extra I would pick it up as it will probably have better longevity and resell value down the road.
I went to online order pickup and a manager greeted me there. I gave him my name, and he went back and got the 1700X and motherboard for me. The motherboard was in a plain white box with a bunch of yellow clearance stickers on it. Inside was only the motherboard. I was a little hesitant to purchase it, seeing how it wasn't in its normal box and without any accessories, and he could tell. He then asks me, "How about I give you the motherboard for a penny?" I got a shocked look on my face, and was like, uuuuhhhhhh....yeah, I'll take it! I had a $5 off coupon in my hand that he saw, and I felt bad even using it, but he didn't mind at all. So, total for an open box 1700X and Gigabyte B350 board: $114.97! I got it home, threw it into a spare case and hooked up a new Wraith Stealth cooler to see if it worked. It booted right up, and I've been stress testing it for the last few hours without a hiccup. I can't believe the deal I got, but I'm going to chalk it up to karma. I really do a lot of good for people, because that's just my nature. It feels good to get a little bit of love back, once in a while. {}
Great deal. You were lucky with the MB. I had bad luck with MC open box MB. The ones I checked out had damaged pins and no accessories. One had loose MB standoffs inside the antistatic bag. Glad I looked over them before buying. Thermal grease all in the socket too.
That's awesome, congrats on the find! I was going to recommend the 1700x as well. More and more applications are using more than 4 cores these days.