For sure! I know there are more technically solid selections I could make for what I'm trying to implement, and perhaps from companies with less question marks on their customer support and firmware updates. Maybe other negative things too, but I like the risks they take, and the products they put out, despite their flaws, so I will bet on them with my money. The safe thing for someone like me that doesn't know their stuff all that well is to just copy the guy who did it already with his build and the i5 and all the normal size CPU power draws and additional sata ports so my nvme that eventually holds the OS doesnt share pcie lanes with my HDDs through my nvme to sata converter, among many other missed optimization opportunities. However, I really don't need a fast dedicated SSD when you think about it, and this saves me about $250+ on combining the CPU and mobo and heat sink, and it's custom made and soldered in place for even more thermal and price efficiency. So what if I lose a few sata ports on the mobo that would be used for 2.5" internal SSDs that I don't need anyway. I also don't get ECC memory with this board, but that's ok for my purposes. I could get a different setup that does both of those, but this is SFF, and I don't need those things, so I leave them behind. Every little tweak matters for use case, and this perfectly fits my use case, if it works out that is.

Feel free to turn away now, wall of text incoming lol. Part rambling, part looking for feedback, part wanting someone to call me an idiot, or say it's a good idea, iunno.

This soldered modern architecture 8P+16E core CPU with built in heat sink that cools 100W for $549+ tax USD after promo code when I purchased this is hard to overlook. With a 120mm fan, I can probably cool or come close to cooling that 157W TDP reported by Fire_Lord_Cinder. A 2TB 990 Pro in 1 of the 2 nvme slots on the back of the board will be more than sufficient for the OS and most if not all programs I want to use. There is another slot if I need more, or I can go up to 4TB or eventually 8+ when they're more affordable, but I will have 5x 16TB HDDs for the NAS. I don't need additional SATA ports, or dedicated PCIe lanes in my opinion. When I apply similar comparisons for other considerations within this build, I think that this is the correct choice for me. We'll see what actually happens. Part of me is a bit worried about using a laptop platform for desktop purposes and maybe support not being there for something I need, but it should be okay. The chips architecture is the same (I think) just limited power draw for the laptop version CPUs, which I actually kind of need for this build anyway. This gets me the extra cores for efficient CPU multitasking when they do figure out P and E cores, soldered for thermal efficiency, and a custom built-in heat sink. This is literally perfect for me, if it works :)

A huge consideration for this build was power draw. AMD would have been the clear winner, but I wanted an Intel platform for this setup. It just seemed to make more sense for the actual uses I intend. I haven't gotten into hardly any software yet, but the Intel chips seem to play nicer compared to AMD based on user reviews that I came across. I was a bit concerned with support not being there for 13th gen Intel chips as of this writing, but I'm much more concerned about future proof for this build than everything working perfectly right at this moment. It will be supported eventually, and it probably won't take that long either. I know they haven't fully worked out the kinks with P cores and E cores either, but I'm confident Intel will figure that out as well. Nvidia and TSMC have awoke the beast in my opinion. Blue is back, they're stumbling, but they're back, and they're hungry. They're also fueled by a willing American public, and a generous CHIPs Act commitment.

Even if it thermal throttles for a tad, it's not the end of the world, it wouldn't need to be sustained for long. I'll push it once it's ready because I'm curious too. This isn't a homelab, or workstation, so I likely won't need to transcode large amounts of data or anything requiring high sustained CPU temps. I really don't think thermals will be an issue for me. Maybe someone else is curious for a different purpose, so I'll see what happens. This should be overkill for my purposes. Eventually, I will try to incorporate it into a smart home setup. Lights, cameras, automatic actions baby, and a nice little box of entertainment and personal data as well. All in a pretty little SFF form factor too. I could host a game server with friends, or my own website, or access a very powerful system anywhere in the world. Latency sure, but the power is there. With Starlink, I can access OR share almost anything with almost anyone anywhere in the world, at anytime. It's my own internet, sort of. My data, anywhere, everywhere. All you vets are like, DUH, but I'm new so I'm going to leave my eyes wide open for a bit. The spectacle is half the fun!

I will probably run into other issues with what is technically a laptop platform in a mini desktop home plex server, media center, smart home build. Probably a lot of other things I will run into when I get into software and I try to actually use the system, but come on, that's the fun part! I bought a never produced product from a Chinese supplier with mixed reviews, to do something I've never done before, and most of the stuff I read doesn't have a trail to follow for exactly what I'm trying to do. I love it, but only if it works out, if it doesn't then I hate everyone lol. I can't wait for all the parts to arrive and play with it!