Intel Core Ultra 7 265K + ASRock Z890 Pro-A Mobo + Three Games: $412.98; With 32GB DDR5 6000 CL28 Ram $505.97

[balloonshark]

The following is a copy/paste from slickdeals.

"Newegg has the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K - Core Ultra 7 (Series 2) Arrow Lake 20-Core (8P+12E), LGA 1851, 125W Desktop Processor - BX80768265K + ASRock Z890 Pro-A LGA 1851 Intel Z890 SATA 6Gb/s ATX Motherboard combo on sale for $412.98. Shipping is free.

The motherboard comes with Star Wars Outlaws Gold Edition as a free gift item from the "Intel® Motherboard Bundle" (link for reference: https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16800985139 ).
The cpu comes with Civilization VII and Assassins Creed Shadows as free gift items from the "Intel Builders Bundle Gift" (link for reference: https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16800985137 ). The cpu also comes with CORSAIR TM30 Performance Thermal Paste, CT-9010001-WW as a free gift item (link for reference: https://www.newegg.com/corsair-ct-9010001-ww/p/N82E16835181166)

Additional combo savings are available when purchasing Corsair ram together with this bundle. I'd personally recommend the CORSAIR Vengeance 32GB (2 x 16GB) 288-Pin PC RAM DDR5 6000 (PC5 48000) CL28 Desktop memory Model CMK32GX5M2B6000Z28: https://www.newegg.com/corsair-32gb-ddr5-6000/p/N82E16820982208
When paired with this ram the combo total is $505.97.
Note this is not the only ram that has a combo discount, just the one I think is the best option.

Deal instructions:
Add the cpu, motherboard, and (optional) ram to cart individually. The cpu and motherboard must be added individually for combo savings to apply to ram. All items must be "sold and shipped by newegg" in order to apply combo savings.
Newegg listings:

Cpu: https://www.newegg.com/intel-core-ultra-7-265k-arrow-lake-lga-1851-processor/p/N82E16819118506
Motherboard: https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813162179
Ram (optional, my personal recommendation): https://www.newegg.com/corsair-32gb-ddr5-6000/p/N82E16820982208

The motherboard will come with the free gift item "Intel® Motherboard Bundle", and the cpu will come with the free gift items "CORSAIR TM30 Performance Thermal Paste, CT-9010001-WW." and "Intel Builders Bundle Gift - Civilization VII & Assassins Creed Shadows". The motherboard will be $189.99-$60 (combo up savings) and the cpu will be $332.99-$50 (combo up savings) for a grand total of $522.98-$110=$412.98. Shipping is free.
If you choose to add the ram, the $15 promo code SDEQ25346 and $22 combo up savings will automatically be applied in cart ($129.99-$15-$22=$92.99). The grand total including the ram should be $652.97-$15-$132=$505.97. Shipping is free.

Alternate instructions:
IF YOU WANT TO COMBO WITH RAM USE THE PRIOR METHOD
Go to the combo page: https://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails?ItemList=Combo.4763413
Click add to cart, the motherboard should be listed as an "additional item" under the cpu along with the three free gift items: "CORSAIR TM30 Performance Thermal Paste, CT-9010001-WW.", "Intel Builders Bundle Gift - Civilization VII & Assassins Creed Shadows", and "Intel® Motherboard Bundle". The total will be $412.98. Shipping is free."

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=1941
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/Z890 Pro-A/index.asp#Specification

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:

Intel | Software Advantage Program

softwareoffer.intel.com

Intel | Software Advantage Program

softwareoffer.intel.com

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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[igor_kavinski]

You have seriously outdone yourself, Balloonshark.

That is the craziest bundle I've seen in ages!

The 265K is arguably the most balanced Arrow Lake. The mobo is not that bad either and someone on Overclock.net got pretty good RAM latency on this mobo.

Someone should pull the trigger and let everyone know how hard it is to claim the free games.

@DAPUNISHER , don't you want these nice, yummy gummy ooey gooey juicy games?

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I've redeemed 3 games bundled with Intel hardware and it was straightforward and I had zero issues. This is a good bundle deal if someone wants all of the games and does not plan to upgrade again for a fair number of years. Otherwise avoid as this socket was DOA, especially for gamers.