Buying these two components separately works out cheaper than this bundle

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At PC Guides we spend a lot of time looking for the best deals for our readers. Sometimes the deals aren’t that big a saving or are on tech that sometimes isn’t particularly exciting. But sometimes we see deals that don’t make any sense. Like this AMD Ryzen 5 4500 CPU and ASUS Prime B450M-A II bundle deal. They’re two solid components that are great if you’re looking for a budget PC build. But this bundle deal comes in as more expensive than if you bought them separately! Check out the deal and our breakdown below. And remember to check out our best Amazon Spring Sale CPU deals article if you want to find a good price for your CPU.

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Micro Center AMD Ryzen 5 4500 and B450M-A motherboard deal

6-Core, 12-Thread Unlocked Desktop Processor Bundle with ASUS Prime B450M-A II AMD AM4 (Ryzen 5000, 3rd/2nd/1st Gen Ryzen Micro ATX Motherboard

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Deal @ Amazon

Reasons to Buy

Ryzen 5 4500 has excellent multitasking capability with 6 cores providing 12 threads.
Can be overclocked to produce 4.1 GHz clock speed to handle intensive processing tasks.
Power efficient CPU with 65 TDP.
B450-A II motherboard provides solid performance at a affordable price point.
Supports overclocking CPU and RAM.

Reasons to Avoid

Older generation CPU might cause bottlenecking on newer games if GPU too fast.
No integrated graphics, requiring a GPU to function.
Motherboard’s compatibility with Zen 3 or older allows for limited upgrading.
Smaller form-factor limits expansion slots.

Currently, this AMD Ryzen 5 4500 CPU bundle is going for $179.09, a discount of 10% that saves you $21.00. But if you buy the Ryzen 5 4500 and ASUS Prime B450M-A II separately you can actually purchase them for less, read on to see our price comparison. But first, let’s take a closer look at the specs to see if it has the right performance for you.

Specs and performance of the Ryzen 5 4500 and B450M-A motherboard

Specifications	Details
CPU Cores/Threads	6 cores / 12 threads
CPU Max Boost	4.1 GHz
CPU Total Cache	12 MB
PCIe	3.0
Memory Type	DDR4

Specs for Ryzen 5 4500 CPU

Specifications	Details
Socket Type	AM4 (Compatible with Ryzen 3rd, 2nd, 1st gen CPUs)
Maximum Memory Supported	128GB
Channel Supported	Dual Channel
Ports	2 x PCIe (1 x8, 1 x16) 6 x SATA ( Total 6 ) 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (up to 10Gbps) port(s)(2 x Type-A) 4 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 port(s)(4 x Type-A)
M.2 slots	1 x M.2 Socket 3

Specs for ASUS Prime B450M-A II motherboard

How we rate the performance of this AMD Ryzen 5 4500 CPU bundle

This CPU and motherboard work well together if you’re looking for good budget performance for a gaming PC or building a mini PC thanks to the small form factor of the motherboard. The 4.1 GHz boost clock isn’t the highest but will still have good results when coupled with a suitable budget GPU for fast frame rates in 1080p without bottlenecking. The motherboard’s heatsinks and the low TDP of the CPU also mean that the CPU can run efficiently at high capacity without having to worry about throttling.

The drawbacks of these two components are their age, no PCIe 4.0 support and the limited number of PCIe slots will limit how much storage you can apply as well as upgrading to more up-to-date components. The B450-M’s AM4 socket also limits upgradeability as the latest Zen 4 CPUs are not compatible with the motherboard. All in all, though they’re both good components for budget builds if you’re not looking for top performance and get a good price.

Why is this bundle deal not a good price?

When we write deals for PC Guide we compare prices using Camelcamelcamel.com to see the price history of the product so you know you’re getting a deal. Here’s a graph showing this bundle deal’s price since September last year.

Price history graph for a micro center amd ryzen 5 3600 cpu bundle with asus prime b450m-a ii motherboard, showing fluctuations between approximately $150 and $200 over a span of several months. — Source: Camecamelcamel.com

As you can see the last time Camelcamelcamel scanned this product it was selling for $189.99, while you can pick it up right now for $179.99 a better price, we took a look at the individual listings of the product to see how it stacked up.

Price history chart for the Asus Prime B450M-A II AMD Ryzen AM4 CPU motherboard bundle, showing fluctuations with the highest peak at $118.95 and the current deal price at $79.

As you can see from the price graphs of the two component’s individual Amazon listings you start to see how inexplicable this deal is. The Ryzen 5 4500 is currently on sale for $78.42, very near its lowest-ever price of $75.85, and it has been at this price since January! The same is true for B450-M motherboard which is currently going for $71.99. Added together they come to a total of $147.84, $32.15 cheaper than the bundle deal that’s meant to save you money!

And this isn’t recent, apart from briefly in October 2023 when an inexplicable spike in the price of the 4500 CPU did render this an okay deal, it has never been less expensive than if you bought them separately. It goes to show why it’s always important to shop around when buying computer parts as what appears to be a good saving on the surface actually turns out to hurt your wallet! If you would like to see some deals that we think are worth your time, why not check out these CPU bundles below?