Thanks all.
So I've just done a bit of research today, and a few points have come up.
1.
First off, space and size are issues for me. Desktop and storage space are at premiums for me. A mid tower is a bit huge for and would dominate my space. To put things into perspective, I have a 3' wide x 2' ( deep desktop that needs to accommodate trackball, keyboard, papers/notepads, and a RuCo 32F. Displays will be wall mounted onto brackets, so technically won't eat any desktop space.
I'm not sure how compact micro-ATX cases can get, I can't find any good info on size ranges, but most seem to be at least 9" wide and 15" tall and about 15" deep. That is why I am looking more into mini-ITX and even mini-STX builds with an SFX PSU. Mini-ITX options abound, but as far as I can see a mini-STX options is
https://www.asrock.com/nettop/AMD/DeskMi...%20Series/, which gives me exactly everything I need, and nothing more. (
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/ryzen-...ini-sff-pc). Barring that, I haven't found another mini-STX option yet, so I would be stepping up to mini-ITX case that can support at least 2xHDD and 1xSSD such as lazer3d lz7:
https://tekeverything.com/lazer3d-lz7-mi...se-review/ this review says the case is "quiet" at 43db under load. Is that reasonable? The last desktop I owned was built in 2000, so that is my reference point. It was noisy.
Ideally my computer would be less than 12" in height, and less than 12" in depth. I have no strict limitations on width, but am looking at about 15L or less in volume is my target, but specifically something that will
fit into a 12" book shelf, not be noisy and not downthrottle terribly under load. The last laptop I tried was a 3.9 GHz i5-8265U 15" ultralight that was able to sustain ~2.2ghz at about 19*C ambient temperature. That seemed sufficient in terms of performance, although the fan could get too noisy, and I'd have to lock the CPU at a low clock speed to avoid the noise during recording.
2.
Second, it looks like AMD will release its final generation of Ryzen CPUs using its current process this month or next, before it releases a more significant update in 2021. IMO that is what I will target for my CPU with integrated graphics, as in my experience, the final version before a change in technology usually represents the most refined and reliable version that has worked out most of the kinks. Whatever the final generation of their Ryzen 4XXXG APU is what I will shoot for. I have no special affinity for AMD or Intel, though.
3.
Third and final, the prospect of moving away from a laptop excites me in that it will allow me a three drive system:
1. Small 120-250gb SATA SSD for OS speed.
2. 2TB RAID 1 HDD (2x 2.5" or 3.5", doesn't matter to me) for /home folder.
Plus an external HDD for regular backups and a cloud backup for my documents. I've had HDDs blow up on me so often that the possibility of adding a RAID 1 for my home folder actually excites me.
In the past I have found simply having the OS and /home on separate physical drives improves performance greatly, and the only need I would see for SSD /home storage is potentially to reduce noise.
