I brake for free ram

I will start by saying that Microcenter is 100% responsible for making me cave and go full-upgrade to the new AM5 platform. I was holding off because not only would Ryzen 7000 generation cpu's require me to buy a new motherboard, but i would have to buy a new ddr5 ram kit as well. Enter Microcenter. I was spending time browsing my local store (quite dangerous for the wallet, in retrospect) and I saw something I couldn't pass up. Namely, buying a new 7700x cpu would come with a 32gb ddr5 ram kit completely free. Sold.

Now one thing I did learn through this process is that once I made the purchase and got the new 7700x cpu box in my hands, it became clear that I had overlooked something. Specifically, the 7700x box is obviously far too small and light to contain a stock air cooler, which I had always used in the past with AMD. This took me down a trail of research that ultimately has me trying out my first liquid cooling AIO unit.

I am only doing light gaming right now (hence the 3060 Ti), and spend most of it still playing Final Fantasy XIV. But I might upgrade later if I get back into more serious demanding pc games. I think I'm set with this motherboard, ram, and cpu for a while though!