@noenken Found your Ryzen/Vega laptop PCIe Bus Error thread, painful, and I understand where you are coming from saying avoid Ryzen APUs. New hardware pain was what I thought I was avoiding given we are up to Ryzen 2, but need to wait a bit longer for APUs it seems, although it seems APUs are inconsistent with my greed for cores/threads anyway.
I hear what you are saying re mITX restricting upgrade cycle compared to say mATX, but I’m trying to fit into a restricted space, which is why the monitor is on top of the current laptop which is on top of a motherboard box to give me the appropriate elevation. I was planning on either replacing the laptop with a new one, or getting a case 100-120mm high that I could use to support the monitor, and expose some USB 3.x ports, or getting one of those really small cases and maybe mounting on the back of the monitor.
I supposed a mATX case like Silverstone ML03 would work, a bit wider and deeper than I would prefer, but at least it gives me 2x front USB3.x ports, unlike the ML04 which hides them behind a panel. Hopefully the cross brace in the ML03 would be strong enough to support the monitor. Can’t say I’m sold on the ML03 at the moment, just a the first one I found that might fit if mATX.
While I was considering mATX cases I then considered what would happen if I replaced by current two monitors, horizonal & vertical orientation with something like a 40" TV screen. In that case I probably would not want the case under the monitor, would probably have to move it to the side and vertical mount, which would conflict with the the power/comms/etc there.
@2bitmarksman I already trawled thru the NUCs, but definitely want at least 6 cores and would like 8. I could do the eSATA with a USB adapter. TB is nice. Interestingly everyone seems to want to use for eVGA, while I’m more interested in docking/connectivity/storage, and I really don’t like the prices of the external enclosures, like the Razer Core as mentioned by @anon57598049, but I suppose that is at least an artifact of minimal demand. While the Kaze mITX case looks very nice, permanently combining it with an eGPU case effectively bulks it out enough for me that I may as well get a small mATX case.
2x SO-DIMM is almost a given with NUC/mITX although I did notice an X299 mITX board with 4x SO-DIMM, but I don’t want to go to that CPU range/price point. I suppose mATX does give me more options for RAM too, since 4x DIMMs in a MB is relatively easy to get, and I could buy 2x16GB now, and get 2x16GB later if I needed it, or maybe it would DDR5 time by by then, and it would be MB CPU RAM upgrade time again.
Given mATX, AMD 2700, I then need to get a GPU, I think I have an old nVidia 700 series GPU that I used to use for mythTV, probably enough for linux desktop dual monitor until I can understand the current options. If I got an Intel 8700, I could use the IGP.
When looking at mATX I again think about power. My old/current laptop was using a 65W power adapter. InWin Chopin came with a 150W power supply, and a 65W CPU build would top out close to that limit. Expanding to mATX and discrete GPU will use more power again. All putting more pressure on my UPS.
I did find what seems to be an AU source for, maybe rebadged Clevo, laptops, http://metabox.com.au which seems I can get 8750H, 32GB, no windows but not much cheaper than name brand laptops, but might allow me more configurability.
As usual, when trying to spec an upgrade, it feels like I’m going round in circles biting myself in the back with all the conflicts Just as well I have an even older laptop I can use until I find a solution I like.