Almost all reviewers do this. For a "fair" comparison they'll test all CPUs with the same high-end motherboard and GPU which can be unrepresentative of real PCs.

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...

I don't know if that's the case with intel, but I've extensively tested my own 5900X on both a £250 X570 motherboard and on a £40 B450 motherboard(with the same ram) and there was literally no difference whatsoever. No benchmark has shown any difference. You lose things like PCIe 4.0 connectivity in that scenario, but the CPU performance was identical.

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.

That makes sense though, doesn’t it? Otherwise you’re not just benchmarking CPUs but also motherboards, which is another variable and makes drawing conclusions about performance messy.

It depends whether you want your benchmark to be fair or to be representative. I think there's a case to be made for both approaches.

> You have to be positively insane to spend ~$700 on motherboard and ram just to plop 4 core CPU in there.

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.

Higher tier chipsets have more PCIe lanes and allow overclocking. I would be very surprised if there is a large performance difference outside those two scenarios. DDR5 prices are inflated, and 16Gb is sufficient for use cases this CPU is suitable for.

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.

True, but most people building a budget PC will buy this in a few years and get a used motherboard, ram etc. The CPU only needs to be in a few pre-built Dells etc. to get popular in the used market.

Not to mention the electricity savings you get with the AMD Ryzen competitor over time. I once calculated that over 3-4 years, the Intel CPU would cost double the AMD.

Alder lake is more power efficient in all but the highest end chips.

In fact, even the extremely power hungry 12900K is actually fairly efficient in gaming workloads.

100w 24x365x3 at 30cent/KWh is $262. Yeah adds up

It doesn’t as Ryzens idle at 20-30W higher than my Intel systems, and most of my computers stay idle most of the time.

This is due to the IO die being fabbed on GloFo’s old processes.

Not sure why you were downvoted but this is true - desktop Ryzen chips have terrible idle power usage due to the IO die. The APU variants have lower IPC and performance due to lower cache, but have good idle power usage. There's no way to get both good idle power and good IPC.

Right but surely that just means that the same power draw also exists with intel chips, it's just located elsewhere on the board. Something has to do IO after all.

Not quite true, because on-die data transfer is a lot cheaper than off-die. If you look at full system power consumption between even chiplet based and monolithic Ryzen products there is a large difference.

Often a comparison is made about the cost of electricity, a valid comparison. But, there's more.

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.)

Your post made me laugh out loud. Your rent is a sunk cost, it doesn't increase if you get a PC taking up 0.2m floor space and it's not like your PC is a car needing a dedicated garage for storage. Also, it's not significant large enough that getting rid of the PC means you can suddenly downsize and move out into a cheaper apartment to save money. So the cost in rent space of a PC is just bogus, unless of course, you live in one of those space-ship pods you find in Tokyo hotels.

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.

if your idea of fun is running prime95 all day...

Is that math right?

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.

Try 10c a kilowatt in many places

How about ~50 after currency conversion after the recent price hikes on Germany (only new customers).

Not California!