AMD Ryzen 2700X Price Cut To All-Time Low Of $280 Ahead Of Intel 9th Gen Launch
Now is a fantastic time to build a high-end AMD Ryzen system. Yes, Intel just recently launched its 9th generation Core processor family culmination in the 8-core/16-thread Core i9-9900K, and that chip is sure to be a beast. However, we spotted AMD's Ryzen 7 2700X selling for as low as $279.99, and you shave another $30 off if you bundle it with a motherboard.
The Ryzen 7 2700X is the flagship part in AMD's second generation Ryzen lineup in the mainstream desktop CPU category. It has the same number of cores and threads as the Core i9-9900K, and is clocked at 3.7GHz to 4.3GHz, with 20MB of smart prefetch cache (L2 + L3) to boot. It's a burly part for sure, and it's now priced below $300.
If you happen to live near a Micro Center, you can pick one up for $279.99, which is the lowest price around. Unfortunately that's an in-store only price—you can't have it shipped to you. There's also a limit of one per household, presumably to thwart people from buying up a store's entire inventory and then reselling the chips on eBay and Craigslist.
That's a stellar price, and if you need a motherboard to go with it, Micro Center will slash an additional $30 off. That brings the cost down to $249.99. Folks, that's Black Friday / Cyber Monday level pricing. If you don't live near a Micro Center—there are 25 stores in 16 states—you can snag a Ryzen 7 2700X from places like Amazon for $294.99.
Should you bite? That depends entirely on what you're looking for and what kind of horsepower you need. For gaming, Intel touts the Core i9-9900K as being the fastest in the world, and commissioned a set of benchmarks from Principled Technologies to back up the claim. The initial testing methodology was flawed, as the testing agency compared the scores of the Core i9-9900K against a Ryzen 7 2700X (and other CPUs) with Game Mode enabled, which actually hurts performance on non-Threadripper CPUs (in games). However, it retested the chip in Creator Mode, and while the Core i9-9900K was still faster overall, the Ryzen 7 2700X wasn't far behind.
The Core i9-9900K sells for $529.99 at places like Amazon. That's nearly double the price of a Ryzen 7 2700X at Micro Center, or more than double if you bundle it with a motherboard and cash in on the additional $30 savings.
That said, more comprehensive reviews of the Core i9-9900K will land on the web this Friday, October 19, giving you a better idea of how it compares with the Ryzen 7 2700X and other processors in a range of scenarios.
