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Comment by red2awn | Hacker News Reader

It is important to note that it is 50% performance improvement per watt, not absolute performance.

In at least datacenter settings, performance-per-watt is just as important as performance-per-dollar, since watts are continuous OpEx.

Even in the home, I like to consider performance-per-watt. More power draw means more heat and more heat means less comfort for much of the year.

I think you're overestimating the thermal pollution. A human is 100W-120W. The Zen 3 is about 180-220W. That pales to comparison to the cost of cooling a home where air conditioning systems have 36,000BTU or 10,000W.

Unless your AC is designed specifically with your PC in mind, and is adequately sized for your house (not a guarantee), a hot, noisy PC or laptop still makes its local area uncomfortable.

Most homes with central AC have adjustable vents, many have baffles or zones. It's trivial to tweak your airflow to boost cooling to the room with a gaming pc.

Ceiling fans are another great option for homogenizing the temperature of a room.

You don't need to build your climate control systems specifically with a PC in mind, they're designed to be adjusted.

Honestly I've never lived in a house or apartment that gave enough hot or cold air to the right rooms. Even with baffles open or closed, there are always super hot rooms and super cold rooms. This is exacerbated by having a high power PC (or, before 2020, a party with a lot of people).

Something running at 300W continuously (not that most home PC users would be in that position exactly) still uses about 220 kWh a month.

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