MSI X670E ACE Motherboard Review

Operating Costs

With the cost of living increasing across the world, especially when it comes to the cost of electricity, it’s worth looking at the cost of running a processor and how it compares to similar products on the market. By taking the average cost per kWh, we can calculate a rough running cost at idle, during a simulated workload test (Cinebench R23), to give us worst-case scenario costs, as well as gaming costs during a run of Cinebench R23.

US Dollars (USD)

British Pound (GBP)

Having these figures, also allows us to look at the potential operating costs of a particular motherboard based on the whole system, so while we are focussing on the motherboard, the operating cost is for the whole system, which then allows you to compare against other motherboards that are utilising the very same components, which at least gives you a figure that acts as a comparison, and what we found was at idle, it was somewhere in the middle in terms of operating costs in the US, with other lower-end boards like the X670E Pro Wifi Prime board coming in slightly more expensive, while at load, it came in a little higher but still within 2% of some of the other boards, so nothing out of the ordinary.

In the UK, it was a similar story. Obviously electricity prices are a bit more inflated, but at idle, it’s within the same realm as other boards, and the same during load with a total system cost of just under 10 pence per hour.