Are you thinking about a building a system around Kaby Lake-X? If so, start with our write-up that details everything you need to know about Intel's enthusiast CPU family and accompanying X299 chipset. Then if you decide that Kaby Lake-X is for you, check out this deal at Newegg a CPU and motherboard bundle.
Newegg is offering Intel's Core i7-7740X Kaby Lake-X processor and MSI's X299 SLI Plus motherboard for $500 (after $10 mail-in-rebate) when purchased together. These same parts go for $610 if purchased separately.
The Core i7-7740X is a lower tier Kaby Lake-X CPU and one of two that has four cores and eight threads (Core i5-7640X is the other). It is clocked at 4.3GHz with a 4.5GHz Turbo clock and has 8MB of L3 cache.
This is primarily aimed at enthusiasts who want to jump on Intel's X299 platform without spending an arm and a leg, at least initially. That means there are some concessions that go beyond the core count—this chip supports dual-channel memory instead of quad-channel memory, and only offers 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes.
The Core i7-7740X offers one of the more affordable upgrade paths to an X299 setup, especially with this bundle deal. Then down the line you could always upgrade to something faster, including a Skylake-X CPU.
As for the motherboard, MSI's X299 SLI Plus is pretyy loaded. It features reinforced PCIe slots for graphics cards, dual M.2 slots, U.2 support, dual LAN ports, onboard audio with a built-in amplifier, and six fan headers to help keep things cool.
You can grab this combo deal here. Rebate instructions can be found here (PDF).
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