MSI Z690 $400
2x32 GB DDR5-4800 CL40 $500, but lets conservatively count $300 for 2x16GB pair
You have to be positively insane to spend ~$700 on motherboard and ram just to plop 4 core CPU in there. Remove the advantage brought by pairing this CPU with fastest ram and chipset available and you end up with Ryzen 3600 competitor.
You might think all motherboards should give similar performance but they don't due to differing VRM capacity and cooling. https://www.techspot.com/review/2426-intel-b660-motherboards...
edit: just wanted to add - yes the VRM section on the £250 mobo is vastly superior so I imagine overclocking isn't even a contest at all. But in stock form the 5900X performed equally well on both.
If you are testing a CPU, it makes sense to remove as many external bottlenecks as possible. It also makes it easier for anyone publishing benchmarks to have a motherboard that can take low end chips as well as HEDT ones without much configuration change.
Extra RAM and more PCIe lanes don't really help single core performance benchmarks that much. You can build something much more cost effective than the test system in the article.
In fact, even the extremely power hungry 12900K is actually fairly efficient in gaming workloads.
This is due to the IO die being fabbed on GloFo’s old processes.
How much space does this cost?
This is a desktop vs laptop, and or, a location vs location argument.
A desktop case takes around 0.2m2 floor space. Now, for simplicity's sake as San Francisco is often incorrectly assumed to be where most readers of HN live, but given that we're all somewhat versed in SF prices: A 1 bedroom, say 60m2, apartment costs about $3000. So, that desktop case is costing about $10 per month in floor space. That's $120 per year, or $600 for 5 years. Quickly adds up!
You could run the numbers for where you live. While a desktop could be put under a desk and may not initially factor in as an explicit cost, everything is at the opportunity cost. Say, your legs, or a houseplant, neither of which cost anything in electricity or upfront cost.
(Written on an 11 year old X220 with an i3 processor.)
And in regards to opportunity costs, I'm sure that if you're mildly creative, you can find some dead space under your desk or between your desk and the wall, that can't be used for anything like a plant or your legs, or you can just hang it from the desk so it doesn't take up any floor space. Like, come on, seriously, there are various mini-ITX case sizes and mounting options if you're short on space and have some imagination or willingness google a bit.
Nevertheless, I'm still impressed by the length of your mental gymnastics trying to attach a rent cost to the PC case. Quality satire like this is why I come to HN. Thank you.
A chip running at 100W on average would take up 2.4KWh in 1 day (10h * 100W = 1KWh. 24h/10h = 2.4KWh).
At 30c/KWh, that’s 72c/day.
Over a year, that’s 365 * 72 = 26280c = $262.80/yr.