Cyber Monday CPU deal: this fast 10-core Intel Comet Lake processor is just $400
You could build a monster gaming PC around Intel's Core i9 10850K CPU, which is on sale for Cyber Monday.
Intel these days finds itself facing much stiffer competition from AMD than it has in past years, and so it is not surprising that many of the best Cyber Monday CPU deals are almost all (though not entirely) discounted Intel chips. Competition will do that. One of the better bargains right now is Intel's Core i9 10850K processor, a beastly 10-core/20-thread Comet Lake CPU.
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It's marked down to $399.99 at Amazon (save $139.95), and could easily serve as the foundation of a high-end gaming PC. You need not stop at gaming, either—with all those cores and threads at your disposal, the 10850K is a stout multi-threaded chip that is ready to handle content creation and professional work chores. It runs fast too—up to 5.2GHz (max turbo clock) without any manual overclocking.
So basically, it's armed with a whole bunch of cores and threads, none of which drag down its ability to accelerate to high clocks, when needed. Or looked at another way, it is a more affordable version of the Core i9 10900K, one of the best CPUs for gaming, with the only difference being a 100MHz reduction in base and boost clocks. That's not much when you're already above 5GHz.
Intel Core i9 10850K | 10 cores | 5.2GHz | $539.94 $399.99 at Amazon (save $139.95)
The Core i9 10850K slots in underneath Intel's flagship Core i9 10900K with the same number of cores and threads (10 and 20, respectively), but with slightly slower clocks—3.6GHz to 5.2GHz, compared to 3.7GHz to 5.3GHz. In other words, you get near best-in-class performance for a cheaper price, especially with this discount in play.
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The trickier decision to make if you have a fistful of Benjamins to throw at a CPU is whether to build an Intel rig around the 10850K with this Cyber Monday deal, or pick up an AMD Ryzen 7 3800XT for $359 at Amazon (save $40). The 3800XT is a last-gen CPU (Zen 2) and has fewer cores and threads (8C16T), but building around it would give you a drop-in upgrade path to a Ryzen 5000 series CPU. Plus its $40 cheaper.
Ryzen 5000 CPUs are hard to come by right now, but things should settle down next year, if going that direction appeals to you. There is really no wrong decision to be made here—build around AMD and potentially upgrade one time next year (Zen 3 is the end of the road for AMD's socket AM4), or go with more cores and threads with an Intel setup and use it until you're ready to overhaul your platform. Either way, you'll end up with a screaming fast gaming PC right out of the gate.