In my experience computers last longer when cool, and even more important is a minimum number of heat cycles. Things like capacitors on motherboards use chemic

In my experience computers last longer when cool, and even more important is a minimum number of heat cycles. Things like capacitors on motherboards use chemicals that break down over time, and more quickly if they are hotter. Sure you can buy capacitors that will last 10 years in challenging conditions, but I doubt any consumer motherboards do. Ideally my desktop lasts 10 years, even if it ends up in some kind of secondary usage scenario. To that end I want it silent, well cooled, and to experience minimum temperature swings. I usually end up with 2x 140mm intake fans, a 120mm fan on top of the CPU, and one of the decent PSUs that go to zero RPM when at low loads. In a case like this a 65w TDP CPU (that's normally going to idle at way less) is MUCH easier to cool than a 150w-300w (the common range for the alder lake Intel chips). No exotic cooling (water, water blocks, piping, reservoir, pump, etc) needed, and not a big deal if the bearings loose some lubrication or dust accumulates on a filter. Sure would some CPU intensive workloads go 10-20% faster at 2x-3x the power? Sure. Do I care, no. I'd rather spend the extra purchase price, cost of electricity, cost of cooling, and related on ECC memory. I don't really want to be able to hear when my desktop is busy, should be silent all the time.