Intel i7-7700K: AMD isn’t the only one cutting CPU prices. Our primary concern at Kaby Lake’s launch was thermals, but at $290, the 7700K might be worth the risk of delidding. The i7-7700K is presently marked-down to $290, with a list price of $350, and is still a perfectly good CPU for gaming -- one of the best, in fact. Sure, the 8700K does better in non-gaming, multithreaded applications, but the 7700K remains among the best for pure gaming machines.
EVGA SuperNOVA 650: $0.10 per watt is pretty good for an 80+ Gold rated PSU. There are a couple reports of DOA units on the product page, so buyer beware--but EVGA provides a 10-year warranty that should be more than enough to account for any problems. To be fair, the unit also has 67% positive (4-5 star) and 9% neutral (3-star) reviews.
G.SKILL Ripjaws V 16GB 3200MHz ($155): This is one of the better deals on memory we’ve seen recently: a couple weeks ago, we saw Ripjaws V 2x8GB 2800MHz kits for $140 and 2x16GB kits for $300. Compared to those, this kit is priced exactly where it should be, but perhaps not for long--those other kits are back to their original prices already.
XPG SX6000 128GB M.2 ($55): We normally try not to link products from third-party vendors selling through the Newegg storefront, but ADATA is unloading these M.2 drives for only $55 with an additional $10 Newegg gift card to sweeten the deal.
AMD bundle ($507): The ASUS B350-F GAMING board included in this bundle is relatively inexpensive, and Ryzen CPUs have had some steep discounts lately, but at $507, this bundle still costs about $43 less than the sum of its parts on Newegg. An additional $20 rebate makes this a good starting point for a completely new gaming PC, especially since the 2x8GB 3000MHz TridentZ kit included in the bundle would cost about $240 on its own.
- Patrick Lathan