Need a CPU upgrade STAT? Intel's Core i7 10700K is a great gaming chip and is on sale for $320

In a perfect world, there would be no hardware shortages, and you could build a PC around whatever components you want. If you are patient, and are wanting to build a Ryzen 5000 series PC, you still can—you just have to wait a bit. However, if you are looking to upgrade right now, this deal for an Intel 10th Gen Core i7 10700K processor is certainly worth considering. The same would be true even if the Ryzen 5000 series was in stock.

The Core i7 10700K is on sale at Best Buy for $319.99. To put that price into perspective, it's $10 cheaper than Micro Center's in-store pricing, which often has the best deals on CPUs if you are lucky enough to live near one of its brick-and-mortar locations. It's also $90 below its list price.

The Core i7 10700K is one of the best CPUs for gaming, and has suddenly become an excellent value proposition as well. It is an eight-core processor with HyperThreading support (meaning 16 threads), with a 3.8GHz base clock, 5.1GHz turbo clock, and 16MB of L3 cache.

As for performance, it trades blows with AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X, which is also an 8-core/16-thread processor, but priced at $449. The 5800X is still the overall better chip, and if pricing were the same, I'd build around Zen 3 (in part for the PCI Express 4.0 support). But pricing isn't the same—you're looking at spending $130 more on the Ryzen 7 5800X, and having to wait for it to be in stock.

There's nothing at all wrong with doing that if you have your heart set on Zen 3. However, for gamers looking to stretch their budget and build now, the discounted Core i7 10700K is a worthy CPU to build a PC around.

Related note: you can get the Core i7 10700KA Avengers Special Edition package for $329.99 on Newegg, after using coupon code 93XQC36. It's the same processor, but with Avengers packaging and a couple of free gifts—Crysis Remastered game bundle (includes Crysis Remastered, Serious Sam 4, Street Fighter V, and a few other bits of software), and an Intel software bundle.

Paul has been playing PC games and raking his knuckles on computer hardware since the Commodore 64. He does not have any tattoos, but thinks it would be cool to get one that reads LOAD"*",8,1. In his off time, he rides motorcycles and wrestles alligators (only one of those is true).