frontpage Posted by BeigeRoad455 • 3d ago
Mar 26, 2025 6:19 AM
Item 1 of 7
Item 1 of 7
frontpage Posted by BeigeRoad455 • 3d ago
Mar 26, 2025 6:19 AM
Intel Ultra 7 265K Processor + ASRock Z890 Pro-A ATX Motherboard + 3 PC Games
+ Free Shipping$413
$523
21% offNewegg
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This combo arguably matches (and in many cases beats) the current microcenter bundles, while not requiring being within driving distance of a microcenter.
The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K is a current gen 20-core (8p, 12e) 20-thread cpu on the lga 1851 platform. As an arrow lake cpu, it is not affected by any of the instability/degradation issues of the previous generations. In most respects the 265k performs fairly similarly to the previous gen i7-14700k (it's moderately faster in productivity workloads, but has slightly worse gaming performance when paired with lower speed ram), but the 265k is drastically more power efficient. In fact, the 265k is nearly on par with its amd zen5 competitors such as the 9900x in terms of efficiency. While the lack of an improvement in gaming performance is unfortunate, unless you have a gpu with at minimum rtx 5080 level performance the 265k is more than sufficient. In terms of productivity, it depends on the workload (zen5 slaughters intel in avx-512 for example), but the 265k is generally slightly ahead of the amd r9 9900x. It absolutely slaughters any single ccd amd cpu in terms of multithreaded performance. In terms of gaming the 265k is just about on par with non-x3d zen5 cpus. The 265k has an igpu for display output and supports intel quicksync (hardware accelerated video encoding/transcoding). The 265k does not come with a cpu cooler. Since gaming performance is similar, if you: live near a microcenter, know for an absolute fact you will never do anything more cpu intensive than gaming, and are fine with more limited i/o of a cheap b650 motherboard, then the $400 microcenter 9700x bundle is probably a better value.
The ASRock Z890 Pro-A is a lower-midrange full size atx z890 (high end chipset) motherboard. Arrow lake is the first generation on the lga 1851 socket, so there'll almost certainly be at least one more generation to potentially upgrade to in the future (though quite possibly just a refresh). This motherboard supports overclocking, and has a frankly overkill 16(60a)+1+1+1+1 phase vrm. Storage options and i/o are decent. The primary x16 slot is gen5, and there are four m.2 slots, one being gen5 and the others being gen4. For networking it has 2.5 Gigabit LAN.
Hardware unboxed reviewed this motherboard, and it's his top pick for a z890 motherboard on a budget (for those that don't need built in wifi): https://youtu.be/GxzMtPmjG_M?t=1
It is important to note that this motherboard does not have built in wifi. If you require wifi, decent wifi adapters cost between $10-$45 (depending on desired wifi generation).
Motherboard specs: https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z...cification
Adding the corsair 32gb (2x16) ddr5 6000 CL28 (timings 28-36-36-96) I recommend to the combo costs $92.99. Ddr5 6000 is optimal for current gen amd cpus, but it's quite slow for intel arrow lake cpus. However, ddr5 6000 CL28 uses extremely good bins of hynix memory chips, and should overclock very well if you loosen the primary timings (mainly cas latency). The binning of this memory should be meaningfully better than the ddr5 6000 cl30 you'll normally find on sale at ~$90.
This bundle comes with Star Wars Outlaws Gold Edition, Civilization VII, and Assassins Creed Shadows which are fairly nice extras imo. I've heard anecdotally claiming them can be a pain though. Terms and conditions for claiming the games:
https://softwareoffer.i
https://softwareoffer.i
The included thermal paste is a nothingburger imo, but I guess it saves you a couple bucks if you don't already have thermal paste and your cpu cooler doesn't come with any.
Compared to the $500 265k+mobo+ram microcenter bundle, the motherboard in this bundle is of a similar tier due to not having built in wifi but having a thunderbolt port (the asus mobo in the microcenter bundle only has wifi 6), but the ram is multiple tiers higher. The ram in the microcenter bundles is ddr5 6000 cl36, which use significantly inferior samsung memory chips with drastically worse latency and overclocking potential. I'd personally consider this newegg bundle to be superior to the microcenter 265k bundle.
The $500 9900x+mobo+ram microcenter bundle is much closer to this newegg bundle in terms of value, the x670e motherboard is meaningfully better but once again the ram is far worse. In my mind the value proposition between these bundles is relatively similar, and it really depends on your exact use cases (though I'd generally lean towards the 9900x bundle if you live very close to a microcenter and it's in stock). However, if you'd otherwise be purchasing any of the three games included with the 265k bundle, the pendulum swings the other way.
Ultimately, this combo, particularly with the ram, is an excellent value. If you already have ddr5 ram from a previous build, you can get the combo for $413 (cheaper than the 265k paired with any full size atx z890 mobo from microcenter, even after the $70 combo discount) and continue using your old ram.
If you don't live near a microcenter, this combo meaningfully surpasses any recent deals I've seen for components in this performance tier.
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Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank BeigeRoad455
This combo arguably matches (and in many cases beats) the current microcenter bundles, while not requiring being within driving distance of a microcenter.
The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K is a current gen 20-core (8p, 12e) 20-thread cpu on the lga 1851 platform. As an arrow lake cpu, it is not affected by any of the instability/degradation issues of the previous generations. In most respects the 265k performs fairly similarly to the previous gen i7-14700k (it's moderately faster in productivity workloads, but has slightly worse gaming performance when paired with lower speed ram), but the 265k is drastically more power efficient. In fact, the 265k is nearly on par with its amd zen5 competitors such as the 9900x in terms of efficiency. While the lack of an improvement in gaming performance is unfortunate, unless you have a gpu with at minimum rtx 5080 level performance the 265k is more than sufficient. In terms of productivity, it depends on the workload (zen5 slaughters intel in avx-512 for example), but the 265k is generally slightly ahead of the amd r9 9900x. It absolutely slaughters any single ccd amd cpu in terms of multithreaded performance. In terms of gaming the 265k is just about on par with non-x3d zen5 cpus. The 265k has an igpu for display output and supports intel quicksync (hardware accelerated video encoding/transcoding). The 265k does not come with a cpu cooler. Since gaming performance is similar, if you: live near a microcenter, know for an absolute fact you will never do anything more cpu intensive than gaming, and are fine with more limited i/o of a cheap b650 motherboard, then the $400 microcenter 9700x bundle is probably a better value.
The ASRock Z890 Pro-A is a lower-midrange full size atx z890 (high end chipset) motherboard. Arrow lake is the first generation on the lga 1851 socket, so there'll almost certainly be at least one more generation to potentially upgrade to in the future (though quite possibly just a refresh). This motherboard supports overclocking, and has a frankly overkill 16(60a)+1+1+1+1 phase vrm. Storage options and i/o are decent. The primary x16 slot is gen5, and there are four m.2 slots, one being gen5 and the others being gen4. For networking it has 2.5 Gigabit LAN.
Hardware unboxed reviewed this motherboard, and it's his top pick for a z890 motherboard on a budget (for those that don't need built in wifi): https://youtu.be/GxzMtPmjG_M?t=1
It is important to note that this motherboard does not have built in wifi. If you require wifi, decent wifi adapters cost between $10-$45 (depending on desired wifi generation).
Motherboard specs: https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z...cification
Adding the corsair 32gb (2x16) ddr5 6000 CL28 (timings 28-36-36-96) I recommend to the combo costs $92.99. Ddr5 6000 is optimal for current gen amd cpus, but it's quite slow for intel arrow lake cpus. However, ddr5 6000 CL28 uses extremely good bins of hynix memory chips, and should overclock very well if you loosen the primary timings (mainly cas latency). The binning of this memory should be meaningfully better than the ddr5 6000 cl30 you'll normally find on sale at ~$90.
This bundle comes with Star Wars Outlaws Gold Edition, Civilization VII, and Assassins Creed Shadows which are fairly nice extras imo. I've heard anecdotally claiming them can be a pain though. Terms and conditions for claiming the games:
https://softwareoffer.i
https://softwareoffer.i
The included thermal paste is a nothingburger imo, but I guess it saves you a couple bucks if you don't already have thermal paste and your cpu cooler doesn't come with any.
Compared to the $500 265k+mobo+ram microcenter bundle, the motherboard in this bundle is of a similar tier due to not having built in wifi but having a thunderbolt port (the asus mobo in the microcenter bundle only has wifi 6), but the ram is multiple tiers higher. The ram in the microcenter bundles is ddr5 6000 cl36, which use significantly inferior samsung memory chips with drastically worse latency and overclocking potential. I'd personally consider this newegg bundle to be superior to the microcenter 265k bundle.
The $500 9900x+mobo+ram microcenter bundle is much closer to this newegg bundle in terms of value, the x670e motherboard is meaningfully better but once again the ram is far worse. In my mind the value proposition between these bundles is relatively similar, and it really depends on your exact use cases (though I'd generally lean towards the 9900x bundle if you live very close to a microcenter and it's in stock). However, if you'd otherwise be purchasing any of the three games included with the 265k bundle, the pendulum swings the other way.
Ultimately, this combo, particularly with the ram, is an excellent value. If you already have ddr5 ram from a previous build, you can get the combo for $413 (cheaper than the 265k paired with any full size atx z890 mobo from microcenter, even after the $70 combo discount) and continue using your old ram.
If you don't live near a microcenter, this combo meaningfully surpasses any recent deals I've seen for components in this performance tier.
The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K is a current gen 20-core (8p, 12e) 20-thread cpu on the lga 1851 platform. As an arrow lake cpu, it is not affected by any of the instability/degradation issues of the previous generations. In most respects the 265k performs fairly similarly to the previous gen i7-14700k (it's moderately faster in productivity workloads, but has slightly worse gaming performance when paired with lower speed ram), but the 265k is drastically more power efficient. In fact, the 265k is nearly on par with its amd zen5 competitors such as the 9900x in terms of efficiency. While the lack of an improvement in gaming performance is unfortunate, unless you have a gpu with at minimum rtx 5080 level performance the 265k is more than sufficient. In terms of productivity, it depends on the workload (zen5 slaughters intel in avx-512 for example), but the 265k is generally slightly ahead of the amd r9 9900x. It absolutely slaughters any single ccd amd cpu in terms of multithreaded performance. In terms of gaming the 265k is just about on par with non-x3d zen5 cpus. The 265k has an igpu for display output and supports intel quicksync (hardware accelerated video encoding/transcoding). The 265k does not come with a cpu cooler. Since gaming performance is similar, if you: live near a microcenter, know for an absolute fact you will never do anything more cpu intensive than gaming, and are fine with more limited i/o of a cheap b650 motherboard, then the $400 microcenter 9700x bundle is probably a better value.
The ASRock Z890 Pro-A is a lower-midrange full size atx z890 (high end chipset) motherboard. Arrow lake is the first generation on the lga 1851 socket, so there'll almost certainly be at least one more generation to potentially upgrade to in the future (though quite possibly just a refresh). This motherboard supports overclocking, and has a frankly overkill 16(60a)+1+1+1+1 phase vrm. Storage options and i/o are decent. The primary x16 slot is gen5, and there are four m.2 slots, one being gen5 and the others being gen4. For networking it has 2.5 Gigabit LAN.
Hardware unboxed reviewed this motherboard, and it's his top pick for a z890 motherboard on a budget (for those that don't need built in wifi): https://youtu.be/GxzMtPmjG_M?t=1
It is important to note that this motherboard does not have built in wifi. If you require wifi, decent wifi adapters cost between $10-$45 (depending on desired wifi generation).
Motherboard specs: https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z...cification [asrock.com]
Adding the corsair 32gb (2x16) ddr5 6000 CL28 (timings 28-36-36-96) I recommend to the combo costs $92.99. Ddr5 6000 is optimal for current gen amd cpus, but it's quite slow for intel arrow lake cpus. However, ddr5 6000 CL28 uses extremely good bins of hynix memory chips, and should overclock very well if you loosen the primary timings (mainly cas latency). The binning of this memory should be meaningfully better than the ddr5 6000 cl30 you'll normally find on sale at ~$90.
This bundle comes with Star Wars Outlaws Gold Edition, Civilization VII, and Assassins Creed Shadows which are fairly nice extras imo. I've heard anecdotally claiming them can be a pain though.
The included thermal paste is a nothingburger imo, but I guess it saves you a couple bucks if you don't already have thermal paste and your cpu cooler doesn't come with any.
Compared to the $500 265k+mobo+ram microcenter bundle, the motherboard in this bundle is slightly worse due to not having built in wifi (though the asus mobo in the bundle only has wifi 6), but the ram is multiple tiers higher. The ram in the microcenter bundles is ddr5 6000 cl36, which use significantly inferior samsung memory chips with drastically worse latency and overclocking potential. I'd personally consider this newegg bundle to be superior to the microcenter 265k bundle.
The $500 9900x+mobo+ram microcenter bundle is much closer to this newegg bundle in terms of value, the x670e motherboard is meaningfully better but once again the ram is far worse. In my mind the value proposition between these bundles is relatively similar, and it really depends on your exact use cases (though I'd generally lean towards the 9900x bundle if you live very close to a microcenter and it's in stock). However, if you'd otherwise be purchasing any of the three games included with the 265k bundle, the pendulum swings the other way.
Ultimately, this combo, particularly with the ram, is an excellent value. If you already have ddr5 ram from a previous build, you can get the combo for $413 (cheaper than the 265k paired with any full size atx z890 mobo from microcenter, even after the $70 combo discount) and continue using your old ram.
If you don't live near a microcenter, this combo meaningfully surpasses any recent deals I've seen for components in this performance tier.
Does anyone think there's any resale value on the games? I have no use for them.
Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank MasterRigger
Depends. For me the assembly and time it takes is part of the pleasure of a self build. If you like the keep it simple route and a warranty the you just by prebuilt
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I'll probably do 48gb klevv cras 7200, but might settle for 32gb klevv bolt 6800.
Snagged a used nh-d15 for $56 on ebay, always wanted one.
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So after doing some research yes this chipset might have one more generation cpu or 1year lifecycle till 2026. Interesting. If intel can hold it together They been all over the place unlike AMD
Ditto OP
PSU question
Any reason I couldn't use my current Psu
I'm not going to use a dedicated graphics card gpu
Antec NeoECO C NeoECO 520C 520W ATX12V 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply
General
Brand Antec
Series NeoECO C
Model NEO ECO 520C
Details
Type ATX12V
Maximum Power 520 W
Fans 120 mm DBB Silence - Whisper-quiet high-quality double ball bearing fan with long lifetime
PFC Active
Main Connector 20+4Pin
+12V Rails Single
PCI-Express Connector 1 x 6-Pin, 1 x 6+2-Pin
SATA Power Connector 6
Haswell Support Yes
Modular No
Efficiency Up to 87%
Energy-Efficient 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified
Over Voltage Protection Yes
Input Voltage 100 - 240 V
Input Frequency Range 50/60 Hz
Output +3.3V@24A, +5V@24A, +12V@40A, [email protected], [email protected]
Approvals UL, cUL, FCC, TUV, CE, CB, CCC, C-Tick, BSMI, Gost-R
Connectors 1 x 24(20+4)-pin
1 x 8(4+4)-pin ATX12V/EPS12V
1 x 8(6+2)-pin PCI-E
6-pin PCI-E
6 x SATA
6 x Molex
1x Floppy
Features
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I just did this. I don't really do any productivity work but my CPU passmarks went from 36,000 to 58,000 FWIW. Gaming benchmarks just barely budged the needle a bit. If you have anything specific that's easy enough to test I'd be happy to try.