The drive to cut wattage is mostly about heat. You can’t put a fan on something and have it be tiny, so you have to reduce wattage to reduce heat. Even with all the effort, my FireTV stick and Roku Stick both get pretty darn hot using passive cooling, you’d be able to fry and egg on them if they didn’t sacrifice some performance for heat considerations. Plus, cooler electronics live longer that electronics in hot environments. So, like in most things, there’s tradeoffs.
that’s what I found out (before checking) when I bought my current Desktop.
I don’t build stuff anymore. My needs are now simple in retirement. small\fast and cheap.
This is a small form factor. no case fan. temps were incredible.
I am running it like in the old days, took the back off and run a desktop fan into it to get the temps down.