AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D CPU + ASUS TUF GAMING X870E-PLUS WIFI7 Mobo + MSI MAG Coreliquid A13 240mm AIO Liquid Cpu Cooler $649.99

What do I have to do to get a combo motherboard with an SPDIF output on it?

Before anyone asks, no, no ai is used in my posts, only autism.

The 9950x3d is the best mainstream cpu currently available on the market for both gaming and productivity workloads. It's functionally the second fastest gaming cpu in the world (within a couple percentage points of the 8-core 9850x3d, the fastest gaming cpu), and has the strongest multithreaded/productivity performance of any non-hedt/server cpu. It has 16 cores and 32 threads, supports avx-512, and has 128MB of L3 cache (3d-vcache). Of particular note is that in very specific workloads, the 3d-vcache has an outsized benefit to performance. The 9950x3d has two 8-core ccds, one with the additional vcache but lower clockspeed and one with higher clocks but no additional cache. Since cross-ccd latency has a sizeable impact on gaming performance, during gaming the 9950x3d uses a chipset driver to "park" the non-vcache ccd, functionally becoming a slightly faster 9800x3d. You can also manually adjust this behavior using third party tools like process lasso.
Intel's closest competitor, the 270k+, is only moderately slower in most productivity applications and goes on sale as low as ~$250 in combos, but has substantially worse gaming performance and gets absolutely demolished in those specific productivity workloads that favor the additional cache of the 9950x3d. Additionally, the 270k+ is on the dead end lga 1851 socket, while at minimum next gen zen6 (and most likely zen7 as well based on current rumors) will be available as slot-in upgrades on the am5 socket. To my knowledge, the standard lowest price for the 9950x3d (outside of a couple microcenter bundle price mistakes in the past) is $569.

Motherboard specs: https://www.asus.com/us/motherboa.../techspec/
Techpowerup motherboard review: https://www.techpowerup.com/revie...lus-wifi7/
The "tuf gaming" is asus's midrange motherboard line, though in this case certain high-end features are incorporated since this is a premium midrange offering using the highest-end current gen x870e chipset. I highly recommend reading the review linked above which goes into extensive detail, though it's worth keeping in mind that the review is done in the context of the board being over $350 on sale at the time of that review. It had very extensive io, a quite powerful (though not terribly well cooled) vrm, wifi 7 (though limited to 160mhz rather than 320mhz channel width), an 8 layer pcb, 2.5gb lan, etc. Overall, while it's decidedly non-optimal for true extreme overclocking, and lacks x8x8 bifurcation which certain workstation users with dual gpus may want, it should be more than sufficient for any standard enthusiast.

The included 240mm aio should be sufficient for the 9950x3d, though I'm personally not a huge fan of aios and liquid cooling in general. In general they tend to be substantially less reliable than a standard fan and heatsink cooler, and when the pump has problems repair isn't as easy as just swapping out a fan. That being said, free is free, so you shouldn't need to worry about purchasing a separate cooler unless the aio develops issues. There's also supposedly a $10 rebate for purchasing this aio from newegg ( https://images10.newegg.com/uploa...lw80us.pdf ), but I'm not sure if you can claim that on a "free gift item" (probably not, but might be worth a try).

There are a couple elephants in the room with purchasing a cpu now. First, the ram apocalypse is still ongoing, so expect to pay at minimum $350 for a decent 32gb kit of ddr5 6000 or higher. Second, both amd's zen 6 and intel's nova lake next gen processors are slated to come out early next year, and based on current rumors are expected to be a significant improvement. This is especially notable with nova lake, since it'll be on the new lga 1954 socket, which according to rumors may support more cpu generations than previous sockets.

Overall, if you need a top-end gaming and productivity cpu (or have productivity workloads which derive significant benefit from the additional vcache), this combo is a good deal. As noted in my original deal post, this cpu without any motherboard and with a different 240mm aio cooler went frontpage with 84 upvotes at $569 a bit over a week ago: https://slickdeals.net/f/19810116-amd-ryzen-9-9950x3d-cpu-cooler-master-elite-240mm-aio-liquid-cpu-cooler-569-free-s-h
This combo includes a x870e (highest end current gen chipset) motherboard for only $80.99 more, and is a drastically better value.