It's not really the cost that's noteworthy so much as a general lack of gaming-optimized CPUs with that many physical cores, and also that it just doesn't make sense in terms of playable resolution. With that core count you're looking at future hardware (for best general gaming performance) or workstation processors (for lower general gaming performance, but maybe best for sims). It's just kind of an odd recommendation, not saying that it is right or wrong.
The actual recommendation is Core i7-14700F or Ryzen 9 5950X. At least I understand it means the expected multicore performance rather than core count.
Also, I don't think gaming-optimized CPUs are that important. As far as I know, it's a concept AMD introduced in 2022. Until then, gamers usually just bought high-end consumer CPUs, and Intel users still do. And those use core counts to differentiate the top models from lower tiers.
The design decisions make a difference when it comes to fps in real world tests, but you're right they don't theoretically have to be separate categories.
