For Purley gaming if things where tight I might consider the 13700k although for blender those extra 4 ecores will make a large difference so 14700k all the way.
14900/17400k review with 13700k data includes blender https://youtu.be/0oALfgsyOg4?si=VMemv0QvILwmIuN7
As for ram I don’t think blender cares that much as long as there is enough, for gaming 5200 MHz is the bare minimum for some reason intel falls of a ton with 4800.
https://youtu.be/RTmbYak_8gE?si=H5gFbJdgk9TO5E61
7200 cl34 sure it’s faster but your burning money get the i9 and a cheaper kit at this point
6000 cl30 and 5600 cl28 are really good
5600 cl36 isn’t on the chart but I’m guessing it’s good enough and it’s affordable in my area
5200 cl38 bare minimum
Worse than this drop down to the 13700k
Non K is this because of power consumption or another factor?
There a bit cursed but erying on AliExpress sells laptop chips solderd onto desktop motherboards some of their 11th generation engineering sample chips are of good value and have modern single core performance.
Alternatively you can get very high core count xeons which offer great multithread performance at low price although lack in single core. There is a 2690 v4 14 cores 28 threads on a motherboard with 16 GB of ram for 94 USD+ tax and shipping.
Although depending on the benchmark the 2690 v4 doesn’t even look good in multi core
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/4355vs2780vs4629/Intel-i9-11980HK-vs-Intel-Xeon-E5-2690-v4-vs-Intel-i7-11600H