I don't know how good of a value the 7700X bundle is, but my problem is I always want more cores because I am usually compiling code. I loved the 5950X, a very fast and power efficient CPU, so my likely upgrade path is probably the 7950X or TR or whatever CPU takes the "productivity" crown next. And hopefully, by the time I'm in the market again, MicroCenter will have another unreasonably good deal available.
Also, 7700x buyers can expect CPU upgrades for a generation or two on the same motherboard. Intel's 14000 series (13000 part 2) is the end of the line CPU upgrade for the 12000 buyers.
My plan is to get the 7700X bundle, which for $400 with board and 32GB DDR5 is a steal, then when AM5 is replaced get a new CPU from the final generation.
Was the 9700K -> 7700X upgrade a nice jump? I've been running MSI afterburner and keeping an eye on GPU usage and am often only using ~80% while well under my monitor's FPS limit. It doesn't show any CPU cores pegged but I assume that's my bottleneck.
I think if I buy new I’ll go ddr5, otherwise I’ll stick with whatever is around. But people in the bay are trying to pay rent with their PCs and want way too much for the age of components they have. Back on the east coast the same pcs go for 200 less at least. Makes negotiation a bit difficult.
This is normal in Australia, but that's due to the size of the country and the sparse population in some areas. Our prices are a rip-off equally everywhere: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Tax
I find it amusing that my absolute best intel desktop chip you could buy in 2019 would now be considered a low power chip with it's 95W TDP.