https://www.reddit.com/r/sffpc/ is interesting. Focused on mini itx builds, but most are not budget builds. I'm not sure mini itx and budget have much overlap anyway, but it's a fun subreddit to follow.
Smallformfactor forum has a lot of helpful people, including many small case manufacturers, that are usually really nice and try to help as much as possible.
I can only thank them for my custom case.
I built my first PC earlier this year and just based on months of obsessive reading and asking around SFF PCs are priced at a premium; are you set on ITX or would an mATX work? IIRC eGPUs also leave some performance on the table due to bottlenecking so... yikes?
There are a few nice compact mAXT cases though thermals becomes a problem.
For what it's worth I have at least one friend who forewent cases and uses a permanent "test bench" setup, no issues so far with regular cleaning it seems. Was tempted but then remembered I had cats. Will you be moving it around much?
I very much enjoy reading about builds and experiences obsessively too! Will probably do so for a few months as I save up and home in on what would fit the bill best.
How obsessed are you with getting High+ graphics settings, what res will you be gaming at? This is the build I ultimately went with (https://pcpartpicker.com/list/LbnYYg) plus a roughly decade-old monitor while I save up, have no qualms at all for 1080p save for when running *new* AAA games on High/Ultra.
The tower is actually still a bit unwieldy for me but the fact that the components have room to breathe makes up for that in a big way. From what I gather you really need to sink funds into good-to-decent cooling for a proper compact. Custom loop perhaps? ;)
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