PC components can be expensive, which is why many people wait for different sales events to buy their favorite components at a discounted price. And if you’ve been toying with the idea of building your own PC, you may want to check out the Ryzen 9000 series bundle from Microcenter, which can help you save a lot of money on some crucial components.
While these Microcenter bundles do carry the disadvantage of being in-store pickup only, if you do happen to live remotely near a branch, it’s hard to pass up. AM5 builds offer the most future-proof path right now and a cost-effective bundle featuring one of the very latest Ryzen 9000 series CPUs is great to see.
What does the Microcenter Ryzen 9600X bundle offer?
The bundle offers a total of three items, which you can see below:
CPU: Ryzen 5 9600X
As its name suggests, the bundle offers the Ryzen 5 9600X processor, a part of the latest 9000 series lineup from AMD. This CPU is based on the new Zen 5 architecture. On top of that, it offers 6 cores, 12 threads, and a max boost clock of 5.4 GHz.
However, it will operate at such a high speed only when under load. Normally, it will run at a base speed of 3.9 GHz. The processor also has a fairly low TDP of 65W and a 32 MB L3 cache. That said, if you get an MSI motherboard, you can ramp it up to 105W without voiding the warranty. If you don’t, that’s okay, as AMD plans to bring this change with an official BIOS update. However, there have been reports that this increment does not significantly affect gaming performance.
Motherboard: ASUS Prime B650M-A
The bundle comes with the ASUS Prime B650M-A motherboard, compatible with Ryzen 9000, 8000, and 7000 series processors, which use the AM5 Socket. This motherboard can support up to four DDR5 6400 MHz RAMs and has three PCIE 4.0 x16 slots. For M.2 2280 SSDs, it offers two M.2 slots – one PCIe 4.0 and one PCIe 5.0.
For connectivity, it offers two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, four USB 2.0 Type-A ports, and two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports paired with an HDMI, VGA, and DisplayPort. There’s also a 2.5G Ethernet port for fast-speed internet plans. So, you get plenty of options to connect various peripherals.
RAM: G.Skill Flare X5 Series 16GB
The third and final item in the Microcenter Ryzen 9000 series bundle is the G.Skill Flare X5 Series 16GB DDR5 RAM. This offers a max speed of up to 6000 MHz, so you can expect solid performance in multitasking and other memory-intensive tasks.
Good value for money from Micro Center, as per usual
The overall value of all items combined is listed as $494.47. However, thanks to the offer, you can grab all three items for $349.99. This means that you’ll be saving a generous $144.98 through this bundle.
The money you save can be spent on the other parts that you’ll need to complete the PC, such as a case, CPU cooler, power supply, and GPU. To get the right components for the processor, check out our top picks for the best power supply, best CPU cooler, and best GPU for the Ryzen 5 9600X. For the case, we recommend getting one of the best airflow PC cases, as it can help keep the components cool.
