svmlegacy

Are you claiming that the Z490 Pro4 can't handle a sustained 125 W? Links.

The answer is: the cheapest board that supports the 10600K. Modern mobo's don't affect performance at stock speeds. If you need OC capability (Memory or CPU), then you'll need a Z-series board.

sounds about right to my ear.

But to some degree, it does... if my PC was a client in a system like that, I'd prefer H264 over H265 because I can hardware decode H264. H265 is much more stressful on my PC (not to mention my laptop cannot smoothly decode it at all). If all your clients are H265 capable, then it is preferable.

For example... my GTX 780 will encode and decode H264, but it won't do the same for H265. So for me, I'd prefer to use H264.

@TechLoverboi The Maximus VI Hero is a Z87 board, and does not support NVMe. From what I can tell, it doesn't even have a M.2 port.

It will get unstable before it melts

Not inherently. SPDIF only really has advantages for surround sound setups, one cable carries 7.1 surround, instead of the 5/6 cables from the back otherwise. If you have crummy speakers already, then an amp will make no difference.

Just like how multi-socket Xeon's are "superior" to modern i5's. Name another ARM chip designed for proper desktop use.

That's the difference between an off-the-shelf tablet processor and a completely unoptimized platflorm, and purpose built silicon + fine tuning of an OS and interpreter.

We need more specific specs than that, but it does not mean that the hardware is degrading. Generally hardware either works or it doesn't (with special exemption to OC'd chips and HDD's) Start with the specific CPU, Memory, and motherboard (if a laptop or prebuilt, a model number would help.)

Does the budget include monitor and peripherals, or is that just the tower?

No. It's just an ARM chip designed for a different purpose

The 10-12 years ahead thing is complete speculation. The M1 is merely comparable to the x86 competition. But it is true that Apple isn't selling the M1 to mass market outside of the products that contain it.

Try dropping XMS down to 512M or so. Too big causes issues, and realistically it'll allocate more ram as is needed.