Now that Intel has formally introduced its 10th generation desktop Comet Lake CPUs, prebuilt PCs sporting the latest hardware will start coming into view (Maingear is already accepting preorders, for example). That also means vendors will look to clear out 'old' inventory with enticing discounts to make room for the newest models. That's what Newegg appears to be doing with this loaded MSI desktop.
It's the Infinite X Plus model (9SD-468US) that is on sale. Newegg has it marked down from $1,949 (too much) to $1,699. On top of that, it is offering a $200 mail-in-rebate that brings the cost down to $1,499. And on top of that, you get a $50 Steam gift card.
No matter how you slice it, you're saving a bundle with this deal. And even without the rebate or Steam card, you're coming out ahead, versus buying the same parts and building this PC on your own.
That's if taking an apples-to-apples approach to the components. You could build a similar PC for around the asking the price, and even slightly less, if you swap out some of the components. For example, the 850W 80 Plus Platinum power supply is overkill and a place you could save a bit of money building yourself.
It fits the overall theme of the PC, though. This is a high-end desktop with a liquid-cooled Core i7-9700KF processor, 16GB of RAM, GeForce RTX 2070 Super graphics card, 1TB SSD + 3TB HDD, and Windows 10 Pro 64-bit.
Part for part, it cost me $1,800 (including Windows) to put together a comparable PC, and that's factoring in a conservative $75 for the case. This one is probably worth more than that—it comes with both a classic black side panel, and a transparent side panel.
At its normal price I'd say skip this build and wait for Comet Lake desktops to arrive, along with newer GPUs from both Nvidia (Ampere) and AMD (RDNA 2). But with the discounts in play, you can skip the waiting game while getting a really nice bargain.
