Pretty crazy to think that it is actually not sure whether spending less than 500k on a supercomputer is worth it.
Has more to do with the market for supercomputers. They are monsters to keep fed so it’s not a question of if you can buy it but rather if you can run it. But customers for supercomputers are in the market because they need the most raw power that the technology is capable of supplying, so buying and installing a decade old supercomputer (which is going to have the same operating costs at a lower capability than a new one) doesn’t make sense.
You also have to consider that the downtime’s going to be a lot higher on this equipment as you’re going to start having components hit the end of their useful life.